The Prodigal Spy

It was useless to pretend she didn’t enjoy it. Larry adored her and she answered him with an affectionate attention that Nick knew was more than simple gratitude, some emotional payback for security. They were a couple. Larry had given them a new life and his mother reveled in it, drawing on the blank check of Larry’s wealth. But she had paid something too. Her laugh was different. Or was it only age, a settling in? Nick knew that, finally, it wasn’t his concern, that he had no right to be uneasy. Nothing stays the same. But when she sat at her dressing table now, in her perfect clothes, her hair brushed into place, he felt that only part of her came back through the mirror and that in all that soft luxury it had become something shiny and hard, lacquered with money.

He stubbed out the cigarette and started back to the hotel.

In a way, Nick thought, he’d been luckier. Larry had offered the protection and anonymity of his name without asking anything in return. His mother had been anxious about them in the begi

The Ritz, however, had only managed a second-story room facing Piccadilly, and as he padded down the corridor, past the pink walls and faux Louis XVI chairs, he smiled to himself, imagining their arrival scene–his mother frostily put out, Larry accommodating.

Larry opened the door, still in stockinged feet and suspenders, and drew him in with the familiar broad smile and a hand on his shoulder.

“Nick, come in, come in. Good to see you. Just let me finish this,” he said, pointing to the telephone lying on the desk. The years had thickened him and the Van Johnson hair was gray, but the face was still boyish, as eager as a soldier’s on leave. “The duchess is still in her parlor,” he said, nodding toward the closed bathroom. For a second Nick wondered if it was an unkind joke, for in his worst moments he had begun to think of her like the Duchess of Windsor, idle and groomed. But Larry was incapable of that kind of crack. It was just the winking camaraderie of men waiting for their women to dress. “I’ll only be a sec,” he said, returning to the phone.

Nick looked past the flowers and the messy coffee tray toward the bedroom piled with suitcases, and went over to the window. The room was quieter than he’d expected, the traffic on Piccadilly barely audible through the double glazing. The bed was still made, so no one had napped. Coffee, a wake-up shower, the phone calls–their morning was laid out before him like a map, already on schedule.

“What time is it there? Seven? Try him at home,” Larry was saying. “Well, then get him up. I’m seeing David later and he’ll want to be briefed. Yes, I know, but it’s a courtesy. Let’s not make this into a crisis, Jimmy. They’re not going to walk away from the table. It’s probably just another goddam Buddhist holiday. They’ve got a million of them. But find out.”

Nick listened to the wheels of power while the midday traffic floated by outside.

“Fine,” Larry said, signaling to Nick that he was finishing. “And use the telex line, will you? I’ll be in and out. Right, later.” He hung up. “Nick,” he said fondly, shifting gears.

“How’s the Insider?” Nick said, a joke between them. A Newsweek cover story had labeled him Mr Insider, the old Democrat who served both parties and seemed beyond either, the surprise Nixon appointee to the negotiating team, brought back by the wrong party from his banishment to the wilderness during the Johnson years. That had been the one transition he hadn’t survived, trickier than Truman to Eisenhower, because Ke

“Outside looking in, from the sound of it,” he said, smiling. “Seems I’m going to face an empty table in Paris tomorrow.”

“They’re objecting to you?” Nick said, surprised.

“They’ll get over it. They have to.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“This time? Old Cold Warrior, something like that. Hardline–that’s the actual phrase. Fu

Nick smiled at the play of his mind. “Is it serious?”

But Larry was clearly enjoying himself. “No. Ho’s probably still away for the weekend, but nobody wants to say. The minute he gets back we’ll be bowing and drinking tea and off we go.”

“Good luck,” Nick said, looking at him seriously.

Larry looked up, not sure how to respond, but before he could say anything, Nick’s mother opened the bathroom door.

“Nick,” she said, smiling. “I didn’t hear you.” She was already dressed, a Chanel suit with a short skirt, and had clearly been putting on fresh makeup, so Nick expected an air-kiss, but she rushed across the room to hug him with the old warmth, her cheek tight against him.

“You’ll smear,” he said, laughing.

“Oh, darling, I don’t care,” she said, holding him. “Here. Let me look at you.” She pulled back, holding his upper arms, gazing at him fondly, and Nick wondered again if she saw his father. “I think you’ve grown. Is that possible? We’re supposed to stop. But Nick, the hair.” She touched the back of his neck.

“Too long?”

“Too scraggly. Just a trim? I’m sure they have a barber downstairs. It wouldn’t take ten minutes—”

“Mother.”

“Oh, I know, I know. But honestly, Nick, you can’t go to the Bruces’ like that. You really can’t.”

“We’re going to the Bruces‘?”

She sighed. “Oh, I know, darling, I’m sorry. We came to see you and now Evangeline’s carrying on about di

“No, she’s younger.”

“Oh. Well—”

“It’s my fault, Nick,” Larry said. “I can’t say no to David. He’s still the ambassador. Anyway, we can talk at lunch.”

Nick smiled to himself. One meal. One tie. “Fine,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. This all right?” He touched the lapel of his jacket. “For tonight?”

“Don’t tease,” his mother said lightly, enjoying herself. “A proper suit. I know you have one. Fu

“You’ll feel better at the Bruces‘. I’ll bet the rot hasn’t spread there yet.”

“Ho-ho,” his mother said, waving her hand. “But you do see about the hair. She’ll ask. I suppose they still have barbers here.” This to Larry, a dig at the hotel left over from an earlier conversation. “I knew we should have stayed at the Co

“You wouldn’t want to be there today anyway,” Nick said, skating over it. “It’s a little noisy.” His mother raised her eyebrows. “There’s a demonstration right around the corner.”