“I don’t know.”
“Could you find out for me without making waves, and without going through Day?”
“I’ll try, Kirk. But, Christ, be careful. This entire thing could blow up in our faces. I don’t want you jumping at shadows.”
“CESTA is no shadow.”
An odd expression came across Trotter’s features. “CESTA?” he asked.
“Baranov’s old network. Used to run it out of Mexico City. It’s where he and Yarnell presumably first met.”
Trotter nodded.
“Anyway, shadows don’t kill people, John.”
“No,” Trotter said absently. “No, I suppose they don’t.”
22
A low overcast sky hung over Manhattan, threatening a cold rain at any time; traffic was frantic even for a weekday. This was McGarvey’s third trip back to New York since he’d returned from Switzerland, and this time he had even fewer illusions in his sparse kit after talking with Owens and then Trotter. He had taken a cab directly in from La Guardia Airport, crossing beneath the East River through the Midtown Tunnel and taking the FDR Drive down to Houston Street before heading across town. It was much quieter in the Village. Two young men wearing unlaced combat boots, dirty blue jeans, and leather jackets, their hair cut extremely short, walked arm-in-arm along Houston toward Broadway. He had spent a restless night at the Marriott Twin Bridges and then had taken the shuttle up. Before he left he had called Trotter at his office without giving his name. Trotter had not been happy, but he had understood what McGarvey wanted. “Mexico City,” he said, and McGarvey hung up, pleased with the fast work. Evidently he’d finally gotten to his old friend; Trotter finally was beginning to understand the real problem. Yarnell had been a Soviet agent in Mexico City in the old days. There was little doubt of it. And he had probably murdered Roger Harris in Cuba. There wasn’t much doubt about that either. But Trotter had begun to understand that Yarnell was most likely still active, and that besides his control officer, Baranov, who now apparently had returned to the helm of CESTA in Mexico City, Yarnell had someone else working with him in the States. Most likely in Washington. Merely killing him would do little more than ruffle a few feathers in Moscow; it certainly would not end the network.
Broome Street was quiet. McGarvey paid the cabbie when they got to West Broadway and Grand, and walked back. He’d brought his shoulder bag, which he had checked through on the flight so that he could take his pistol. On the way in the cab he had taken it out of his bag. It felt heavy, but comforting now. A greengrocer’s truck was parked in front of St. Christopher’s. A thick-chested man chewing a cigar and wearing a long dirty apron was loading boxes of lettuce and tomatoes for the club onto a hand truck. The front door was propped open. McGarvey hesitated a moment across the street. The club looked very quiet. No one was around except for the delivery man. Upstairs in Evita’s salon, the curtains were open, but he could see nothing of the inside. He crossed the street and entered the club. The vestibule was open, but no one was around. From within, though, he thought he heard someone talking, a second later a piano started up. It took a moment before he recognized the tune, Stardust. Whoever was playing was very good and played with a lot of emotion and sadness. He went through the frosted-glass doors into the cabaret. Two women sat at the bar; they were eating something. A maintenance man was atop a very tall stepladder doing something to one of the big ceiling fans. He climbed down. Evita Perez, dressed in a pair of baggy shorts, an old sweatshirt, no shoes on her feet, was on the tiny stage playing the piano. Owens had thought she had a lot of talent. Evidently he had meant it literally as well as figuratively.
No one paid any attention to him as he crossed the main floor, dropped his bag on one of the chairs, and perched on the edge of a table just below the stage. He lit a cigarette while she finished playing. She looked pretty good even in the daylight, he decided. Her hair was up, exposing her long, delicate neck. A few lines marked the sides of her cheeks and she had developed just a hint of a double chin, but her arms and legs were still very slim and her feet were surprisingly small and nicely formed. A glass of champagne was sitting on the piano, and the half-empty bottle was next to it.
“Hello, Evita,” he called softly to her when she was finished.
She turned to him. Her eyes were very large, but there was no surprise in them. “What are you doing here?” she asked quietly.
“I wanted to finish our talk while you had the time for it,” he said. “There were a lot of things I wanted to ask you. A lot of ground to cover. I wasn’t sure about some of what you told me.”
“There is no time for you here. I can telephone the police, or I can call for Harry. He’s a man you wouldn’t want to know.”
“I need your help.”
She nodded. “So do the starving kids in Ethiopia. Nothing I can do for them, or for you.”
“Maybe if you’d listen to what I have to say, you’d change your mind.”
“I don’t think so. Get the hell out of here, would you? Now.”
“An old man by the name of Owens was murdered two nights ago. He was Darby’s old boss.”
Evita was holding onto the edge of the piano bench so tightly her knuckles were turning white.
“I talked to him. He told me about Mexico City and about you. And he told me about Darby’s days afterward, in Washington and then in Moscow. He was afraid of your husband. I think Darby was sleeping with his wife.”
“Christ,” Evita swore in disgust. She jumped up. “Harry!” she shouted. “Harry!”
McGarvey glanced over his shoulder just as a huge black man, his shoulders bursting out of a white T-shirt, stepped around from behind the bar. The two women had turned and were looking over.
“Yo,” he called out in a deep baritone voice.
McGarvey tried his last card. He didn’t want a fight with Harry, who looked as if he could tear down a large house with his bare hands. “Did you know that Baranov is back in Mexico City?” he asked Evita. “I have that for a fact.” He glanced again toward the bar. The big man was clenching his fists. He looked like a small Sherman tank painted chocolate brown.
Evita was suddenly trembling as if she had just stepped out of a very cold bath directly in front of an open window.
“A lot of innocent people have already been hurt,” McGarvey said.
She looked down at him, her lips pursed. She shook her head. “There are no innocent people, don’t you know that?” She looked up. “Hold my calls, Harry,” she shouted. “I’m going to be in conference for the rest of the morning.”
“You got it,” her bouncer said. He went back behind the bar. The two women went back to their breakfast.
Evita came down from the stage. “Where did you hear this, about Baranov?”
“I have my sources. But it’s true.”
She studied his eyes for a long time, then turned away as if she were resigning herself to some very bad news. “I knew he was going back down there. I saw him. Here, in New York, you know. Maybe nine or ten months ago.”
McGarvey suppressed his excitement. He had inadvertently stumbled onto another aspect of this business; her relationship with the Russian. Yarnell was at the center of this mess, of course, and he apparently had help at high levels in Washington, but Baranov was the key; at least he was as far as concerned Evita Perez. His was more than the name of a Russian spymaster to her. He could see her involvement written all over her face, in her eyes, in the set of her shoulders, in the way she held herself as if she were reliving the pain of a very old, very deep injury.