The Last Supper (28 page)

Wolkowicz, in a heavy silence, shrugged. “I think he used to be your brother-in-law, Elliott,” he said. “I think you were at the Fool Factory together.”

Elliott tapped the table. “Barney, this whole hearing is a farce and you know it,” he said. “There’s absolutely no proof that any of these people, except Bashian, ever
lifted a finger to commit espionage for the Soviet Union or Poland or anyone else.”

Wolkowicz yawned. “Of course there’s no proof,” he said. “The international Communist conspiracy is a
conspiracy
. They don’t scatter clues around. The fact
that there are no clues, or almost none, is a very convincing detail in the eyes of Dennis Foley.”

“You served with Waddy in Burma. He’s an ex-Outfitter.”

Wolkowicz held Elliott’s eyes. “You want the world to know that?” he asked. “Do you think I’m not trying to protect the Outfit? Do you think it was easy to talk
Foley into offering Waddy a deal?”

“You did that?”

“Yes, but not for Waddy. I did it for the Outfit. I don’t want it said in public that we’ve been penetrated by the fucking Communists any more than you do, Elliott.”

Elliott managed to get the charge reduced to contempt of Congress. Waddy Jessup was sentenced to one year in the federal prison at Danbury, Connecticut. There, most of the Addressees were fellow
prisoners. Mordecai Bashian sought out Waddy during the exercise period, and as they walked round and round in circles inside the prison fence, droned on and on about Waddy’s affair with
Jocelyn Frick.

Waddy said, “Mordecai, I don’t know Jocelyn Frick from a load of cucumbers.”

“Of course you’d say that, you’re a trained agent, under discipline,” Bashian replied. “But how did you get to her, exactly? How did you persuade her to be
unfaithful to me?”

Waddy did not understand how this boring Armenian had ever got into the Party.

— 1 —

For killing Hubbard Christopher’s murderer in Berlin, Barney Wolkowicz had been given the Outfit’s highest decoration. Now he was being awarded the same medal again
for his work in breaking up the Addressees Spy Ring.

The ceremony took place at eleven in the morning in the Director’s office. Paul Christopher was surprised to find himself among the dozen men who had been invited to attend.

“Wolkowicz asked for you,” David Patchen explained. “He seems to have a kind of family feeling for you.”

At the decoration ceremony, Patchen was in charge of the box containing Wolkowicz’s medal. The Outfit had discovered his gift for administration early, and made him a member of the
Director’s personal staff.

“Are you getting a medal, too?” Wolkowicz asked derisively, delivering a soft punch to Patchen’s sunken chest.

Patchen had handled the inside work—the paper, the money, the bureaucratic niceties—for Wolkowicz’s operation against Mordecai Bashian and his network.

Wolkowicz, dressed in a gabardine jacket that seemed to be the upper half of an old suit, plaid trousers, and scuffed shoes, stood by himself. The other men in the room, dressed alike in their
dark three-piece suits from Brooks Brothers, striped ties, and glossy shoes, chatted easily with one another. Wolkowicz’s wary eyes moved from one impeccable figure to another, a tiny smile
tugging at his lips. He saw Christopher watching him and lifted his thick eyebrows in greeting.

Patchen opened one of the leather boxes and offered it to Wolkowicz.

“Are you making the award?” Wolkowicz asked.

“No. This is your other medal,” Patchen said.

“What’s it supposed to be for?”

“You’re supposed to wear all your medals when you get another one.”

Wolkowicz lifted the medal out of its velvet nest and hung it around his neck. Patchen opened the other boxes, revealing a Silver Star and a Purple Heart, the decorations Wolkowicz had won in
Burma.

“Come on, kid,” Wolkowicz said. “I know you’re efficient, but I’m not going to wear those things.”

Patchen shrugged. The Director came in, escorting the Vice President of the United States. The Vice President hung the second medal around Wolkowicz’s muscular neck. Wolkowicz, a flute of
champagne going flat in his hand, listened in silence while the Vice President entertained the Director with tales of his experiences during the war in the Pacific as intelligence officer of a navy
shore installation.

Wolkowicz stripped off the decorations, ducking his bullet head. He wadded ribbons and medallions into a ball and dropped them into Patchen’s hand. He beckoned to Christopher.

“I’ve got to have lunch with these clowns,” he said, with a gesture of the head to indicate the Vice President and the Director. “But I want to talk to you. Come to the
house for dinner tonight.”

“I don’t think I can,” Christopher said. “I have a dinner date.”

“Bring her with you.”

“It’s Patchen.”

Wolkowicz hesitated. “Bring him, then,” he said. “But I may send him home early.”

— 2 —

Ilse had made
Bowle
, a punch consisting of Rhine wine and fruit, with a bottle of German champagne added at the last moment to give the mixture effervescence. It was very
sweet and the strawberries that floated on the surface of the cup bumped against Christopher’s teeth as he drank.

“To the son of our beloved friend,” Ilse said in German.

Wolkowicz paused, looked downward, and closed his eyes for a moment. It was a mannerism Christopher already knew well; Wolkowicz used it to conceal the embarrassment that any display of
sentiment seemed to cause him. Then he poured his
Bowle
, strawberries and all, into his wide mouth, swallowing the wine and chewing the fruit.

Patchen sipped the mixture politely but refused a second glass. At dinner, Wolkowicz eased his P-38 in its soft holster out of his waistband and laid it on the table beside his plate. In order
to please Christopher, Ilse had gone to great trouble to serve Berlin specialties. Christopher, who did not particularly like German cooking—Lori had believed in lighter
fare—complimented Ilse on each dish.

Throughout the meal, she chattered in German to Christopher. Wolkowicz, eating with great speed, finished each course long before the others and waited for the next to be served, occasionally
running a fingertip over the blue metal of the pistol beside his plate, saying nothing.

Ilse, turning to Patchen, changed into English. “Isn’t it wonderful, getting two medals?” she said.

Patchen inclined his head. “Very unusual.”

“Well, Barney is an unusual fellow.”

“That’s absolutely true.”

Wolkowicz roused. Placing an elbow on either side of his plate, shoulders hunched, jaw propped on his fists, he stared at Patchen.

“Patchen thinks I blew the whole operation,” he said. “That’s what he told the Director.”

The smile left Ilse’s face. Patchen, who had been cutting up a strip of veal with his good hand, put down his knife.

“Go over it again for us, Patchen,” Wolkowicz said. “I missed part of your critique at the morning meeting.”

The Outfit permitted absolute freedom of speech: the most junior man could question the methods of the highest-ranking one without fear of reprisal. Patchen had chosen to question
Wolkowicz’s methods in the presence of the Director at the morning meeting of division chiefs and other senior officers.

Patchen had asked why Mordecai Bashian and the other members of his cell had been arrested. Why, instead, hadn’t they been watched, followed, manipulated until they led Wolkowicz to
bigger fish? Why hadn’t they been blackmailed, doubled, used against the enemy? Patchen asked why the Outfit was even interested in a domestic spy ring—that was the FBI’s
function, not the Outfit’s.

“Patchen thinks I put on a circus,” Wolkowicz said to Ilse, in German. “That’s what he told the Director: ‘Intelligence services are supposed to win secret
victories, not put on circuses for politicians.’ ”

Ilse drew in her breath and glared at Patchen. Thick silence descended over the Wolkowiczes’ dinner table. Patchen, who did not understand German, caught the word
Zirkus
and guessed
at the meaning of Wolkowicz’s speech to Ilse.

“It was nothing personal,” he said.

“No shit?” Wolkowicz said. “I thought maybe you belonged to Skull and Bones with Waddy Jessup.”

Patchen smiled his saturnine smile.

“How old are you, kid?” Wolkowicz asked.

“Thirty.”

“And you’re already asshole buddies with the Director. You must have a lot of natural ability.”

Wolkowicz lifted his backside and broke wind. That seemed to end the conversation as far as he was concerned. He threw his napkin on the table, picked up his P-38, and went into the sitting
room.

Ilse served cake and coffee. Wolkowicz played Chopin on the grand piano. The mood lightened. Ilse’s face was flushed with wine, and as she listened to the crystalline notes of a polonaise,
she moved her head in rhythm to the music. She took Christopher’s hand and held it until Wolkowicz finished playing. When Wolkowicz turned around, his eyes fell on their clasped hands and a
flicker of jealousy crossed his face. Ilse smiled at them all, though her eyes changed when they fell on Patchen.

“You can’t imagine, Paul, what it was like to hear this strange American play for the first time,” Ilse said to Christopher. “It was at your father’s apartment in
Berlin—such beauty created by those hairy hands. I thought he was a gangster, but he turned out to be Franz Liszt. No wonder I fell in love.”

Wolkowicz smiled, the first time Christopher had ever seen him do so. Ilse crossed the room and kissed her husband tenderly. The face Wolkowicz lifted to her lips was full of trust and
affection.

“I’ll say good night,” Ilse said. “Come often, Paul.” She kissed Wolkowicz again and smoothed his hair. “I have such a funny feeling about Paul,” she
said to her husband, “as if I’d known him in another life. When he came in tonight, it was like a dream of the time before the war.” She hugged Wolkowicz’s hunched figure
and smiled brilliantly at Paul.

“Paul looks the way German boys looked, long ago, before they lost everything,” she said.

To Patchen she said nothing at all, but merely shook hands, nodding as if to indicate that she had forgotten how to say good night in his language.

“I’ll get your coat,” Wolkowicz said to Patchen. “I want to talk to Christopher.”

When Patchen had left, Wolkowicz poured two glasses of schnapps and handed one to Christopher.

“Prosit,”
he said. “I hope you like this stuff, because you’re coming to Vienna with me.”

“Vienna? I didn’t know you’d been assigned to Vienna.”

“Nobody knows it except the Director and me, and now you. I want you to be my number two.”

“Wolkowicz’s face glowed with pleasure. He put a heavy damp hand on Christopher’s shoulder and squeezed. “It’s going to be a
great
operation,” he
said.

“What kind of an operation, exactly?”

“The real thing. We’re going to break some Russian balls. I’ll tell you all about it in Vienna.”

Christopher watched Wolkowicz drain his schnapps, then pour himself another.

“Why did you ask for me?”

“You speak German,” Wolkowicz said. “In spite of Waddy, you did good things in Indochina—a little spooky, the way you walk right in on the customers, but I like that.
You’re your father’s son. It’s mostly that, Paul—I miss the hell out of your father.”

— 3 —

Patchen had bought a house near Georgetown University, and the next afternoon, a Saturday in May, he invited Paul Christopher to watch the Georgetown baseball team play Harvard.
After the game, at the end of the afternoon, the two friends walked across the campus. Patchen’s Doberman pinscher trotted ahead of them along a patch of beaten red soil. Patchen walked
briskly, dragging his ruined leg. Before being wounded, he had been an athlete. He still craved exercise. He liked long walks.

“Wolkowicz,” Patchen said, “has the right spirit. Audacity, audacity forever.”

“Do
you
know what the operation in Vienna is all about?”

“It’s something the Director cooked up with the Brits. He says it’s the biggest coup the cousins have had since the war. It must be big if they want to cooperate. They only run
us in when they need money. It’s all very odd.”

Patchen paused, a gaunt twisted figure, and watched his dog race through the deserted campus.

“Very odd,” he said again.

The Doberman ran from one tree to another, leaping and whining at squirrels who scurried along the branches, scolding. The peculiar molten light of the Washington springtime shone on the mellow
brick like oil on skin.

“It should be fascinating, explaining Wolkowicz to the old Etonians,” Patchen said. “I hope you’ll tell me what it was like when you get back.”