The news spread like wildfire, and to Jack’s pleasure, he soon noticed that his fellow countrymen began to show him the respect normally reserved for the men at the top. Little things like taking their hats off as he passed, making an effort to be more friendly than usual, or taking an interest in his life became the norm. Along with his position as a supervisor and his control over the illicit trade in food, his newfound status led his fellow Americans to see him as the village chief. What Jack didn’t know was that alongside the admiration that he aroused among his friends grew a dangerous dose of envy.
For a short while, Jack enjoyed what anyone at the Avtozavod would have described as a pleasant life. Despite his initial objections, Viktor had persuaded Wilbur Hewitt to temporarily relieve Jack of some of his duties, enabling him to have breakfast in the social club surrounded by admirers who showered him with flattery. There, with the room heated and without the coats that masked their starved bodies, the difference between the fortunate and the deprived was clear. Jack shared his breakfast with everyone, but he would gulp down his coffee and rush to lock himself away in the garage of his new home and work on the Buick, repairing it with surgical precision. At noon, dripping with sweat, he would stop for lunch, before heading to the Avtozavod to complete his rounds and look for leads in his investigation. At sundown, he’d give Viktor Smirnov, his new ally, a progress report, and talk sports cars over dinner, taking the opportunity to extract as much information as possible, as Hewitt had ordered him to do in exchange for his free time. He discovered that, in addition to being the finance commissar, Viktor held a position within the OGPU that he described as symbolic.
At one of those dinners, Elizabeth was present.
When they ran into each other, they were both left speechless. Viktor introduced Jack as the Avtozavod engineer who was repairing his Buick, and she understood immediately that the Soviet official had completely forgotten their meeting at the Metropol. During dinner, Jack and Elizabeth kept up appearances until the instant that Viktor went upstairs to find the micrometer that Jack had requested. As soon as he left the room, the young woman confronted him.
“Engineer? I thought you were just an operative.”
Jack responded by depositing a bunch of keys on the table. When he smiled at her, Elizabeth raised an eyebrow.
“What are they?” she asked with feigned indifference.
“What do you think? The keys to my car and my new home. Maybe one day we could go for a drive?” He held up the keys and jingled them.
Elizabeth heard Viktor coming back down. “Maybe,” she whispered, and turned her attention back to her sea bass.
20
Five months after Jack Beilis’s arrival in the Soviet Union, the first American disappeared from the Avtozavod.
It was Alex Carter, a powerfully built assembler on the morning shift, whom everyone knew as the Milwaukee Express, the nickname he received as a worker at the Harley-Davidson motorcycle factory. His wife, Harriet, reported his disappearance, but the authorities hadn’t paid her much attention, so she had come to the canteen to ask Jack to help her find him.
Jack fidgeted in his seat, remembering Hewitt’s warning to avoid sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. “Truthfully, I don’t know why you’ve come to me for help. Maybe you should ask his workmates. Sometimes, after a hard day’s work, the men head downtown to spend their pay on booze and . . . entertainment.” Though Jack was thinking of a brothel, he thought better than to mention it. Still, the woman reddened.
“My Alex would never go with some floozy, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
Jack pursed his lips. He disliked feeling like someone to whom everyone thought they had the right to turn when they had trouble. He took a deep breath, wolfed down his slice of black bread, and stood. “All right. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know right away.”
The woman let a tear escape and squeezed Jack’s hand in gratitude. When she’d left, Jack wiped the palm of the hand in which Harriet had placed her last hopes.
Though Alex Carter’s disappearance was the talk of the American village, none of his workmates deigned to answer the questions that Jack asked them on his evening rounds. Tom Taylor, the Express’s best friend, turned to him with a monkey wrench in his hand and gave him a shove.
“Why don’t you ask your Soviet friends?” he said, spitting on the floor.
“Yeah. Why don’t you ask them?” said another American operative.
“Ruki nazad!” yelled an armed guard.
“Hands off,” Jack translated for his fellow countrymen, retreating.
“Sure. Go with them. But watch your back,” Tom Taylor threatened. “Your money won’t protect you forever.”
On May 28, the second American citizen disappeared, and on June 6, a third went missing. The rumor spread around the village that the Black Crows, as the Soviets nicknamed the OGPU henchmen, had come at night and taken the workers who protested too much. Apparently, all three of them had complained that their wages had been short. When Jack questioned Wilbur Hewitt about the disappearances, the engineer merely shook his head. “I warned you that if you blamed the sabotage on specialized operatives, Americans would end up paying the price,” was all he would say on the subject.
Jack was hurt that Hewitt seemed to hold him responsible for something that had nothing to do with him. In his mind, there was no connection between his report to Sergei and the disappearances. At any rate, the three missing Americans were not involved in any of the incidents that he’d investigated. He was about to argue his point, when the office door unexpectedly opened. Jack fell silent when he saw Natasha, the young nurse. She apologized for interrupting and said that she was just delivering Hewitt’s painkillers. The industrialist growled, but accepted the pill and swallowed it. Then he asked Jack and Natasha to leave him be.
Outside the office, Jack remembered the Robertsons’ daughter, sick with pneumonia, and seized the opportunity. “Sorry to be so forward, but the girl’s been sick for months, and her parents are worried. I wondered whether you knew how I could get someone to help her, even if I have to pay.”
“She hasn’t been visited by the doctor assigned to the Americans?” asked the nurse.
“I guess she has. But I’m not sure she’s had the right treatment.”
Natasha gave him a comforting look. “Don’t worry, Mr. Beilis. These things take time to subside. Give her this.” She took some candy from her pocket and handed it to him. “And trust our Soviet medicine. That girl’s in good hands,” she added, saying good-bye with a smile.
Jack stood watching the young woman walk away. He was surprised by her friendliness, but even more so by the fact that, after so long, she had remembered his surname.