Read Online Last Call for Blackford Oakes by William F.; Buckley - Free Book Online Page B

Almost”—Gus hesitated—“unbelievable.”
    â€œDid you study any logic at the University of Iowa?”
    â€œWell, sort of.”
    â€œWe have here a prime example of a posteriori reasoning. (1) We know that Galina’s friend mentioned the name ‘Singleton.’ (2) We reason back to the conclusion: that somebody gave him the name. Who?”
    â€œWhat if his brother, the conspirator …”—Gus’s hand was over his head—“what if he tailed you, Black, coming away from your meeting with Boris?”
    Blackford paused. He spoke as if to himself. “And then passed on the name to his brother, who passed it on to the prostitute …”
    â€œMaybe he thought Boris had called in a U.S. contact—Singleton—who would relay to Washington that the scheduled assassination was by anti-Communists.”
    â€œYes. We will need to track the conspirator’s brother to the general. But our own investigations give us some idea on the matter of the likelihood of a coup. There is an anti-Gorbachev faction in the Politburo. But Gorbachev strikes me as very much in command.”
    â€œWell, he isn’t, actually, Dad. There is a lot of opposition to his whole perestroika approach. A lot of people up there in the high world he inhabits think he is an ideological wimp.”
    â€œDo we think that?”
    â€œI don’t. But maybe you will.”
    They arrived back in Moscow ready for a little distraction. They would have it at the cocktail party Gus had planned for that evening, in a private room at the Metropol.

CHAPTER 14
    Gus had composed his invitation list with care and in consultation with Artur Ivanov, a self-important deputy minister of culture who liked to be involved in any social function in connection with any enterprise, cultural or even anti-cultural. Comrade Ivanov was in charge of special arrangements for the Gorky exhibit.
    Once upon a time, Ivanov was a writer. He had published, at age thirty, a novel so slavishly sycophantic that (it was widely reported) Stalin himself had specified Ivanov’s selection as a member of the State Committee on Publishing.
    A novel praising all aspects of life in the Soviet Union in 1952, plus membership in the state committee, wasn’t quite enough to keep Ivanov in the higher echelons of literary life in Moscow. But he could not be ignored, even by writers who felt contempt for him. What Ivanov lacked in literary imagination, he made up for in artful bureaucratic improvisation. He had climbed the ladder of the Writers’ Union and served it now as vice chairman. His colleagues had little use for him as an interpreter of Soviet life, but enormously esteemed his ability to catalyze bureaucratic preferences. One hundred Moscow men of letters were obliged to Artur Filippovich for this or the other special grant or favorable notice or university preferment or permission to travel. It would be he, nominally, who would have the critical vote on which foreign books could be displayed in Gorky.
    â€œHe’s an old fraud,” Gus had briefed Blackford before the guests arrived, “but perfectly pleasant in social situations. Every now and again, if there are Soviets in the room and an American is within earshot, he’ll think it prudent to enter a chauvinist wisecrack. Ideological boilerplate. Tuppence in the collection plate.”
    â€œIs he curious? What does he know about me? Just the description you sent out?… Book agent … consultant to the New York Public Library … associated with the USIA?”
    â€œHe’s not going to ask you what were you doing when JFK was killed. Not that kind of detailed curiosity. No, he’ll just coast on the Gorky business, and you’re well up on that.”
    â€œTell me about Ursina Chadinov.”
    â€œWell,” Gus said, turning his head slightly. “She’s a local star in the intellectual set. A practicing physician, a