While Grandma sat in her chair, waiting for death, Grandpa was almost always on the enclosed back porch, under the best lamp in the house, reading, or working problems on his chessboard.
But not this night.
This was the night that Moshalov-surely not his real name, but the only one that Grandpa had-would be eliminated.
This night, Grandpa waited by the front door, mostly standing, sometimes sitting on a bar stool. Sometimes breathing hard, remembering the days when he hunted through the streets of Moscow, no older than Carl, cutting down the enemies of the state. Back in action now: the action felt so good. A little extra piece of life, in a life gone gray.
When Carl Walther arrived in his Chevy, parking in the street, Grandpa turned his head to Grandma and said, "He's here." Grandma stirred, but said nothing. On the television, David Letterman was working over the president.
When Carl came to the door, Grandpa opened it, looked once up and down the street, pulled Carl inside, and shut the door. His face was pink with excitement: "How did it go?"
"As planned," Carl said. He added, "Almost." He was seventeen, blond, good-looking; long faced, round jawed. He wore an athletic jacket without a letter.
"Almost?"
Carl nodded, turned his face away, glancing out the front window. "I parked near the terminal, on a side road, and walked through the dark, maybe three hundred yards. Like you said: thirty yards, get down, watch and listen. Then thirty more, watch and listen," Carl said. He had ordered his thoughts: he'd been trained to report. "There were some people on the stern of the boat, one or two, but nobody coming or going. There was some light. Moshalov arrived right on time. He must have dropped the car at the airport, like he said, and come right straight back to the boat. I met him in the dark outside the terminal. I shot him once in the heart and then twice in the forehead, just as specified. Then… there was a woman."
"A woman." Grandpa tried to be calm, but his round rimless glasses glittered in the lamplight and gave him a frightening aspect, a skull-like harshness, and his old-man's hands trembled.
"She was sitting in the weeds along the bank. Drinking, I think. I never saw her or heard her before I shot Moshalov, and I'd been there for a while. Then she stood up, saw me, and started running. I went after her. I fired two shots and then the gun jammed." He was lying, now. He'd fired the gun wildly and had run out of ammunition too soon. He hurried on. "The gun misfired; I cleared it and tried to fire again, and got a misfire on the last round. She had a knife and slashed me with it; I had to decide. I left."
"You're hurt?"
"I got a bad cut," Carl said. "I need to get it sewed up." There was no visible blood-Carl was wearing a navy blue sweatshirt-but when he pulled up the sleeve, and peeled away the newspaper pack he'd used to cover the wound, Grandpa winced.
"Well have to come up with a reason for that," Grandpa said. "For Jan."
"Mom doesn't have to know about it," Carl said. "She'd blab all over the place."
"In case she finds out," Grandpa said.
Carl nodded. "Okay. I was washing windows in your basement and I broke one and got cut. I didn't think it was so bad for a while," he said. "That's why we didn't come get it sewed up right away."
Grandpa nodded: "That should work. We'll break a window. I'll go with you to the emergency room."
Grandpa turned and looked at Grandma. "We're going to leave you for a while, Melodic We have to go to the hospital."
She stared at the television.
"The random factor," Grandpa continued, his eyes drifting as he thought about it. "The woman. There's almost always a random factor. Somebody once said that few plans survive contact with the enemy."
"I didn't see her…"
Grandpa wagged a finger at him. "Don't apologize. You did well. You had to make a decision, and you made it. A conservative decision, but you were there, you knew all the factors. Now: Is there any way she can identify you? Other than the cut?"
"There was some light. She saw my face. But with the bad gun, and she had that knife, I thought it'd be better to go back later, if we had to. Get some new ammo, and take her out later." Carl had been nervous about the report, about the lying. He'd panicked, he thought. Not all his fault, he'd been surprised-still, better not to talk about it. He fished the pistol out of his pocket. "Should we get rid of this? I don't see how anyone could find us, but if they did…"
"We'll keep it for now," Grandpa said, taking the gun. He worked the action and a shell popped out. He fumbled it, and Carl picked it up off the floor and handed it to him. He looked at the primer cap, saw that it had been hit by a firing pin, but hadn't gone off. "We should have gotten new ammunition for it. But it worked okay in the woods… mostly."
"What about the woman?" Carl asked.
"Finish your report," Grandpa said. "Another five minutes won't make a difference with the cut."
Carl told him the story in detail and described the woman. "She smelled like wine. She smelled dirty. She called me a…" He glanced at Grandma; but this was a professional matter. "… a motherfucker. She acted crazy."
"Not like she came off the boat?" Grandpa asked.
"No. I think she was a tramp. You know, a street person, like, you remember old Mrs. Sikorsky when she'd go around all messed up and pushing that baby stroller? Like that."
"Huh," Grandpa said. "If she didn't come off the boat, was there anyplace there she might have come from? When we looked at the place, I didn't see anything."
"Neither did I," Carl said. "There's nothing out there."
They all sat for a minute, then Grandpa said, "Well. We have to think about this. Let's go over to the hospital and get that arm fixed."
"It's still bleeding a little. If we go break the window now, I could drip some blood on it," Carl said.
"Let's do it," Grandpa said. Then, "You know, if we could find this woman, it might be useful to remove her."
"That's what I thought," Carl said. "If she's dead, she couldn't ever testify about me…"
"But if we send you out again, we take another risk-and how would she find you?" Grandpa asked.
"By chance. I might walk by her on the street someday. I can't stay out of Duluth. I'm probably gonna go to college at UMD."
Grandpa nodded. "Okay. If we can find her… but we wouldn't use the gun. Not the same gun. The police would match them with the slugs in Moshalov and tie them together. If she's a tramp she'd have to die a tramp's death. A fight, or something."
They went down to the basement, broke a storm window that already had a crack in it, and Carl squeezed some blood on the glass.
In the car, Carl driving, Grandpa brought up the woman again. "If we remove this woman, assuming we can locate her, it would be good training. We had to throw you at Moshalov because it was an emergency, and we had no choice. You did well, but that doesn't mean that you're trained. Your first target should have been easier. This woman… would do."
"Assuming we can locate her," Carl said. He could feel the want in Grandpa.
And a minute later, Grandpa asked, "So how do you… feel?"
Carl shrugged. "Fine."
"No, no, not so quick. How do you really feel? Think about it for a minute."
Carl thought about it and then said, "I was scared going in, and I was scared driving back. But I wasn't scared when I was doing it. Not even when the woman showed up. If the gun had worked, I would have eliminated her without a problem. I think… not having the best equipment was an amateur mistake. The gun is fine. We need new ammo."