Half World: A Novel Read online

  “I want to be relieved.”

  Roy speared the pie again, looked back down at his plate. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

  “I want to take my family and go.” Henry’s voice rose, enough to pull Roy forward. Roy lowered his voice to a harsh whisper.

  “Where, Henry? Back to Washington? There’s nothing there for you anymore. Believe me.” He sat back in his chair, resumed his normal tone. “We need you here.”

  “I need to be relieved.”

  “Hear me out first.”

  Henry stood, tried to button his coat, unable to keep his fingers steady.

  “You’ll want to hear this,” Roy said.

  Henry shook his head, fumbled with the buttons.

  Roy said, “There’s been a change of plans.”

  Henry finally dropped his hands. Went to his shirt pocket for his cigarettes. Went to his coat, his pants. Roy produced his own pack, slid it across the table. Henry sat.

  “Do you remember a man named Grigori Valerov?” Roy said. “He made contact in Helsinki a few years ago. Fairly high in Soviet counterintelligence. Maybe not as high as he said he was, but fairly high.”

  Henry slid a cigarette out of Roy’s pack, set it on his lip. He could taste the tobacco, the paper. He waited for the drug the paper might hold to flood his system. Waited to go mad, madder.

  “Valerov came to us because he felt his talents were unappreciated,” Roy said. “He thought his bosses were jealous, sabotaging his career. He was working in Helsinki and got in contact with our man there.”

  “Jameson,” Henry said. “We told Jameson to keep him in place.”

  “And things were going fine,” Roy said. “Then about a year and a half ago, he shows up on Jameson’s doorstep. He thinks his superiors are onto him, that his life is in danger. He wants to come to the States, bring his wife and kids, his mistress. Jameson tries to convince him to stay in place, that he’s overreacting, and this is when Valerov brings up Weir.”

  Henry said, “A year and a half ago.”

  “Let me finish.”

  Roy lit a match, held it across the table. Henry inhaled, felt his body fill with smoke.

  “Valerov told Jameson that Weir was a double. Said he was Weir’s man in Moscow. Monarch was the handle they used. He put all these cards on the table for Jameson. He was desperate to get out. So Jameson made a few calls, and the decision was made to bring them all in. We flew them to the States, put them up in a safe house in Chillum, started the questioning. The mistress, obviously, stayed somewhere else.” Roy pulled his own cigarette from the pack.

  “Who was handling this?” Henry said.

  “Marist, myself, a few others. We couldn’t bring you in. We didn’t know if Valerov was full of shit or what. At the time we believed that Weir knew nothing about it, that we’d kept it from him.”

  Two older women passed by, sat at the table directly behind Henry, speaking in Italian, what sounded like the civilized, public version of a long-running argument.

  “Monarch was not the only handle Valerov gave us,” Roy said. “He alluded to a much larger penetration. Weir was the tip of the iceberg. We worked him for months, but he was impossible to pin down. One day he seemed reliable, it seemed like we were building a case. The next day it seemed like he was making the whole thing up. He became increasingly difficult. His list of demands grew. We were about to shut the whole thing down when Weir disappeared.”

  The argument at the table behind Henry increased in volume, the surrounding tables growing louder to compensate.

  “Valerov shut up tight after Weir flew,” Roy said. “We’ve been unable to get anything else out of him. It’s possible that his larger penetration story was bullshit, that he’s dry and now he’s trying to justify his expense. Or it’s possible that the story is true and he’s holding out for something else.”

  “Or he’s a double,” Henry said.

  “Or he’s a double. Yes. Maybe he was sent because they no longer had any use for Weir. They had gotten everything from him. Or Weir was no longer cooperating, and so blowing him would turn everything upside down, would lead to a witch-hunt. Which it has. This is like McCarthy times ten. We’re eating ourselves alive back there. The polygraphs are running nonstop. You wouldn’t believe who we’re looking into.” Roy took a pull on his cigarette, exhaled. “Well, maybe you would.”

  The rain had tapered. A white morning sun glowed above the tops of the neighboring buildings. Roy sat back in his chair, stretched his shoulders, looked out the window. “Valerov has something or he has nothing or what he has is bad. Whatever way it is, we have to know.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then we need him to forget,” Roy said.

  Henry lifted his glasses from his ears, removed his handkerchief from his coat pocket.

  Roy lowered his voice again. “What did you think I was going to say?”

  Henry slid the cloth across his lenses, erasing the smudges and dust. “That you wanted him removed from the equation.”

  “Jesus.” Roy tried a shocked laugh. “We’re not that far gone yet, are we?”

  Henry returned the handkerchief to his coat. “When would he arrive?”

  “Soon. We’re sending him on a vacation to calm his nerves a little, clear his head. No wife, no mistress. He’s always wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge.”

  “Who’ll be handling him?”

  “Someone from Security will be on his flight, get him into his hotel. But once he’s here, he’s all yours.” Roy checked his watch, looked back to Henry. “This will be it. We finish this, and I’ll make sure you’re out. You have my word.”

  Henry set his glasses over his ears. The room sharpened back into focus.

  Roy stood, put on his coat, his hat, extended a hand. Henry took it. Roy turned from the table and walked to the door. He hustled across the street and continued down the sidewalk, out of Henry’s line of sight.

  Henry finished his cigarette, his coffee. He paid the bill and stood from the table, taking Roy’s abandoned briefcase with him as he left.

  * * *

  Shouting from the next motel room, a man and a woman, the woman’s voice rising to a shriek, the words unintelligible through the wall.

  Henry couldn’t remember the last time he had slept. He no longer even attempted. He sat in the chair by the bed and watched the wall, the scene beyond. He could see through things now. There were windows everywhere.

  He would keep himself here. This would be his room. There was a home across the bay, but it was another man’s home.

  Another shout, another shriek. Henry stared at the wall, watching. There were windows everywhere.

  38

  Valerov exited the elevator, crossed the hotel lobby into the bar, passing a few feet from where Henry sat looking at a newspaper. Valerov was not quite as heavy as he had appeared in the photographs. He looked healthy, vigorous. He was dressed for a vacation, loose wool trousers, a plaid shirt, collar open, exposing a thatch of curly black hair.

  The file said that he began drinking alone nearly first thing in the morning, but as the day progressed he sought company. He was particularly adept at talking to women. He had a charm the authors of the file found impressive and preposterous for a man with his limited physical gifts. He preferred women of a high social standing, but he also had a predilection for prostitutes.

  Henry switched sections of his newspaper, changed seats so he could see into the bar. Valerov had found a stool between two stewardesses and was already ordering drinks for the three of them. Henry watched him around the edges of the paper. He pictured Valerov’s life as an almost perfect inverse of his own. Weir and Henry; Weir and Valerov. That this man may have known everything that Henry did not. Information passing from Henry to Weir and then eventually, on a trip to Amsterdam or Berlin, to Valerov. Valerov a link
in the relationship Henry had never known was missing.

  The stewardess sitting farthest from Valerov checked her watch and stood. There was a whispered conversation between the two women and then the first stewardess gathered her purse and kissed her friend on the cheek. Valerov stood and kissed her hand and she left the bar, passing Henry on her way out of the lobby to the street. Valerov bought more drinks.

  Henry followed them to an Italian restaurant two blocks away, watched their window table from across the street. Then back to the hotel, Valerov and the stewardess swaying drunkenly as they walked, his arm around her waist to keep her on her feet.

  This was reckless and unnecessary, following the man for an entire evening. Henry only needed to confirm Valerov’s presence in the city, but he couldn’t take his eyes off him. The revelation of the man, the disbelief that this was the answer, the thing he had been looking for. The looseness of the man’s bearing, his attire. The exposed chest, the arm around the woman he barely knew. This was the man Weir had trusted. A drunk, a philanderer. This was the man Weir had given everything to, the man who knew everything Henry did not.

  By the time the elevator door closed, Henry had interrogated him countless times, in countless ways. By the time he had lost sight of the man, Henry could already see him, contained, on the other side of the glass.

  * * *

  It took him three hours to get home. Doubling back and doubling back and doubling back. Struggling to get the right name in his head. Henry March. Certain that he was being followed but unable to confirm. Lonnie, Clarence, Clyde from Buffalo. Tarhammer and his mask and his gun.

  He moved slowly through the house, trying not to wake Ginnie and the children, making his way through the kitchen to the basement door at the back.

  He read through his summary of his time with Weir, returning again to the blank areas, the gaps in the story that Valerov might be able to fill. Henry’s handwritten pages beside the photographs in Pritchard’s file. Valerov in Berlin, Valerov in Maryland. The florid, bearded face, the laughter-crinkled skin around the eyes. What this man might know.

  He gathered the pages of his biography, of the Valerov file, and slid them into the trash can beside his desk. He no longer needed the paperwork. He had it all in his head again, finally. He pushed his chair to the wall and climbed on top, opened the window. He lit a cigarette and stood on the chair for a moment, inhaling the smoke and the cool night air. Then he lit another match and set the paper in the trash can alight, watching the flames lick for oxygen, the bright orange glow in the dark basement.

  39

  She heard him come in, so she got out of bed and stood in the moonlit kitchen and poured a glass of wine and waited. Smelling smoke from the basement. Henry’s cigarettes and something else. Burning paper. She fought the urge to knock on the door and ask if everything was all right. She already knew the answer.

  He finally came up through the doorway and took a sharp breath when he saw her. He looked startled, exhausted, thin, the muscles in his face twitching.

  “Where have you been?” The question sounded ridiculous to her, her tone of voice, indifferent, almost, casual, as if she was merely curious.

  “I can’t, Ginnie.”

  She nodded, looked down at her wine, turning the glass in her fingers.

  “I’m going to be away for a while,” he said. He didn’t look at her. He looked past her, to the kitchen doorway, the front door beyond.

  “Thank you for not leaving a note this time.”

  It was as if he didn’t hear her. “It will be another week,” he said. “Longer, possibly.”

  She wanted to say no. She wanted to grab him, shake him, hold him to her until this passed, whatever this was, whatever had burned itself into him. His face in her neck and her hands in his hair. Holding him until it was gone. She wanted to say no, but she had already said no and that had pushed him further. She felt the delicate line of the moment, the taut thread. Henry at the far end.

  She said, “Back to Washington?” She knew he wouldn’t answer but she needed to hear a name this time, needed to imagine him safe, in a place she could picture, a known city with noise and people and light.

  “Los Angeles,” he said, and she ignored the lack of conviction in his voice and pictured what she knew of the city, sunshine and palm trees and the Hollywood Hills, gated celebrity homes from movie magazines.

  “Los Angeles,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  She had to believe him. There was no other choice. She had to trust that he would return from this. She had asked him to lie and he had lied and now she had to go along with the fiction.

  Los Angeles. She smiled at the thought. Henry in shorts and sandals and a flower-print shirt, walking along the beach in the warm sea breeze.

  “Maybe after you’re back we can all go,” she said. “We can drive down the coast. Just for a week or so, when Hannah’s out of school.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  “When you’re back you can tell me all about it,” she said. “And then I’ll know if the real place is anything like the place I’m imagining.”

  * * *

  He was on his way out the door when he heard Hannah calling. Ginnie had gone back to the bedroom but Henry had been unable to leave, standing by the door in his coat and hat. He’d left the car keys on the table in the hallway. He would take the train now. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Ginnie and the children without means of escape.

  Hannah was sitting up in bed when he opened her door. She saw him and began to cry harder, saying, It’s gone, they did it, it’s gone. He didn’t want to touch her, he was afraid to touch her, he couldn’t get the other name out of his head, but she wouldn’t stop crying and Ginnie hadn’t appeared, so Henry took Hannah’s hand, led her out into the hall to the front door. He covered her with his coat and took her outside, kneeling beside her, the knees of his pants soaking in the dew. He put his arm around her shoulders and she shook and he pointed down the hill, across the bay to the lights of the city, white points in the fog.

  “See?” he said. “It’s still there. It was only a dream.”

  She was shaking her head, as if she couldn’t believe her own eyes, as if the dream had more power.

  “It won’t happen,” Henry said. He pulled her closer, their breath revealed, white puffs in the chill air. “I won’t let anything happen.”

  40

  Valerov’s handlers had given him a list of sights to see, tourist spots, along with a map of a neighborhood that he might find more interesting. He had been told of the Embarcadero, the north end of Powell, a particular bar, the types of women he could meet there. The night that Valerov arrived in the city, Dorn made an appearance, a couple of arrests, knowing that word would spread quickly and the place would be clear of competition for a while. So two days into his trip, on the night Valerov entered the bar, Elizabeth was the only girl working the room.

  It was after midnight when they stumbled out, Valerov appearing so intoxicated that Elizabeth’s drunk act seemed unnecessary. They started up the street, haltingly, Henry following a block behind. When they reached the top of the hill, Henry stayed at the corner, watched Valerov and Elizabeth make their way to the apartment and turn inside. He waited a few minutes and then followed. Easing the front door open, taking the stairs quickly, then into the office, where Dorn and Clarke sat in the dark, headphones over their ears. When Henry slid on his own, he was stunned by the noise, Dizzy Gillespie at a high volume and Valerov’s roaring laughter.

  Henry took off the headphones. The office was quiet. He looked away from the window. He wouldn’t miss anything he hadn’t seen or heard before. Valerov and Elizabeth drinking, having sex; Valerov passing out somewhere in the room. Henry sat in the silence. He was anxious, eager to get started, but he was willing to be patient, to wait through the formalities, the hours or even days before the man had bee
n turned inside out enough that the first real question could be asked.

  * * *

  It was almost like he had slept, dozing off for some indeterminate length of time. When he looked back up to the window, the bedroom was there, floating beyond the office wall. The lamp on the table was lit and Valerov was lying naked on the bed, the rise of his stomach obscuring any view of his face. The picture above the headboard was hanging crooked and the bedclothes were strewn across the room. Elizabeth was nowhere to be seen. Dorn appeared in the mirror, then Clarke, carrying a black physician’s bag. Clarke removed a stethoscope from the bag and stood over Valerov and listened to his chest. He removed a sphygmomanometer from the bag and fastened the cuff around Valerov’s arm and inflated the pressure, watching the gauge, listening through the stethoscope. Dorn said something and Clarke nodded, still watching the gauge. Clarke removed the cuff from Valerov’s arm and then removed a syringe from the bag, affixed a needle to the end. He ran his thumb across the crook in Valerov’s arm, strumming the vein, then inserted the needle and slowly pressed the plunger. He removed the syringe and looked at his watch and wrote in a small notepad. Dorn said something else and Clarke nodded. They walked toward the door, disappearing from the frame.

  * * *

  Valerov sat on the edge of the bed, still naked, staring at the mirror. Henry was at his desk, watching. Valerov’s limbs and torso covered in hair, his hands limp at his sides. Like an ape, like watching an ape in a cage. There was a fat purple bruise in the bend of his arm where Clarke had inserted the needle.

  Valerov was sweating profusely. His eyes were glassy and dull. He was breathing heavily through his mouth. Clarke had given him a sedative so that when he woke he would be calm. He was calm. Henry watched. Without the ledger, all he could do was watch. No recordings, no photographs. There would be no record, no history. There would be the thing as it was, what would happen in the room, and then there would be nothing.

  * * *

  Do you know why you’re here?