REACHING HOME, STILL reeling, Guttman suddenly remembered that it wasn’t one of Annie’s nights. He was disappointed. Mrs Davis had never been much of a conversationalist and Annie had been a welcome contrast. He could use a distraction right now.
Mrs Davis had already left and he found Isabel in the living room in her wheelchair, a blanket over her legs. He brought her through to the kitchen and made supper while she read the paper, mainly in silence. He browned some floured pieces of stewing steak in a skillet, softened onions in a pot, then added the beef and chunks of carrot and potatoes along with a pint of water and a bay leaf. His mother had made it often enough when he was a boy, though there had been no bay leaves on Delancey Street.
‘That smells good,’ she said as the stew started to bubble on the burner. ‘You haven’t told me about your day.’
He tried to shrug. Lately he’d taken to talking about his work in more detail than before. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was to share as much as he could before she wasn’t there to share it with.
Now his side of the exchange was going kaput as well, though he decided not to tell her about Mexico. The bad news could wait, until he had some good news to balance it. Like what? A department store post as Head of Security?
He told her, elliptically, about the Russians instead. No mention of Sedgwick, none of Palmer’s fate – why burden her with the violence of that? Instead he explained his own view that the Russians, far from being allies, were actively spying in the United States, and he wondered to himself when he would hear from this latest confessor, Braddock Larrabee.
When he’d finished, she smiled knowingly. ‘You were never very practical, Harry.’
‘Why’s that?’ he asked.
‘The Russians aren’t our enemy right now – no wonder Mr Hoover can’t get worked up about all this. Does anyone else agree with you at work?’
He shook his head regretfully. ‘Tamm doesn’t seem to care. They’re all busy chasing Nazis. Nothing wrong with that. I’m doing it myself in Latin America.’
‘But you’re really after the Reds instead. It’s a good thing we got married or you’d be hunting me down.’ Her breathing was forced.
‘That’s not fair, Isabel. In your heart, you were always on the right side,’ he said. She’d never had any illusions about Stalin. He thought she was dreaming when she claimed that Trotsky would have been a more democratic leader, but at least she hadn’t ever fallen for the avalanche of propaganda coming out of the Soviet Union during the Thirties. The Popular Front in the US had fallen apart when the CP had refused to criticise the Soviets’ treaty with the Nazis in 1939, and Isabel had been able to say I told you so. Not that there had been anyone but Guttman to tell, confined as she was.
She said, ‘I think you mean I was on the right part of the wrong side.’
Guttman pretended to growl, then said, ‘I just don’t like what Moscow seems to be up to. They must think we’re all naive – and dupes. Maybe they’re right: nobody else at the Bureau seems to see it.’
She laughed now. He was pleased.
‘Harry, Harry,’ she said, ‘it’s how you’ve always been. You never bother to get anyone on your side when you’re sure you’re right.’
‘Well, I’m sorry about that,’ he said stiffly.
‘Don’t get shirty. I wouldn’t have you any other way.’ She stared at Guttman’s tie. ‘Though that’s got to go to the cleaners – you’ve put a stain there while you were cooking.’
‘So how was your day?’ he asked, not wanting to talk about work any more.
‘Fine, Harry. Nothing unusual, but nothing bad either. I saw the man in the yard again.’
‘Oh,’ he said. She had been making perfect sense until now. ‘What time was that?’
‘A little before you got home. Mrs Davis had already left or I would have called her.’
‘What did this man look like?’ Better to humour her, he thought.
‘Tall. He was over at the side of the fence. I don’t think he saw me looking out.’ She seemed proud of this, though equally she sounded unalarmed.
‘I’ll have a look after supper,’ he said and got up to check the stew.
After their meal he helped Isabel to the living room to listen to the radio while he washed the dishes, then picked up the big paper bag of trash from under the sink. Collection was the following day, and he’d lug the garbage cans in the garage out to the front sidewalk so he wouldn’t have to do it in the morning.
But when he opened the back door and stepped onto the flat unbalustraded porch, he set the bag down. Was Isabel imagining this man she’d now seen twice? She must be, he thought, since what would he be doing there, snooping around? No burglar he knew of cased a place so obviously. If this man were not a phantom – Guttman remain convinced he was – then wouldn’t he come to the front door, ring the bell and state his business?
He decided to play it carefully nonetheless. He walked slowly to the fence at the end of his backyard. Lights were on in the house behind, casting a faint luminescent line across the boundary. When he turned back he realised his own house threw out even less light, and he vowed again to install an outdoor bulb by the kitchen back door.
He had moved past the small circle of turf where he had planted the ill-fated maple, when he heard something moving by the back of the garage. He stopped, listening hard. There it was again – a rustling, scratching sound. He wished he had his gun, but he’d taken off his jacket and in shirtsleeves would have had to go outside with a weapon in his hand.
‘Someone there?’ he called out, trying to sound resolute. He waited as the faint echo of his words receded, but heard nothing.
He took a few steps closer to the garage. ‘Who’s there?’ he demanded, half-convinced that no one was.
There was no reply. It was probably nothing, he thought, or else just rats or a raccoon. But he was sufficiently on edge that he decided to go back into the house and get his gun before taking the garbage out. It seemed ridiculous, but he didn’t care – he was scared.
‘Harry, where are you?’
It was Isabel at the back door. How on earth had she managed to get there?
‘Just coming,’ he said, worried she had somehow stood up and now would fall. Then he heard the scratching again. As he started to turn around to look back at the garage something hit him from behind. Like a hard punch, Guttman thought as he stumbled forward, his shoulder feeling leaden and heavy. The impact coincided with a dull flat crack that was like – like what? Silencer, he suddenly thought just as he heard the flat noise again.
The side of his head felt on fire. This time he didn’t merely stumble, but fell forward, just as Isabel shouted again from the back door. She’s still got lungs, thought Guttman proudly, as he landed on the grass, breaking his fall with his arm. His last thought was to wonder if the shooter was going to come closer and finish him off.