by John Gardner
Another nice Russian soldier, with the long grey overcoat and a fur hat decorated with a red star, returned our passports.
Welcome to the Soviet Union. You could not complain. Nobody actually smiled at us as we changed our money. The Intourist lady was pleasant but firm when she asked us to ‘ascend into the automobile provided’. So here we were in the closing light of a day not notable for sun or gaiety, bowling along a grey ribbon of road in a large black car.
I suppose I should have been thrilled and thinking of Tolstoy and Chekov: that trio of ladies all eating their hearts out to get back to Moscow, or the defunct seagull, or that bloody great cherry orchard.
Being a writer I should have set my eyes and brain to printing every detail on my mind. All I took in was the thick neck of our driver and the fact that it was wretchedly cold. Somehow, also, the mind would not even return to my escape route fantasy. Instead, I kept thinking of Boysie Oakes and his acid little boss Mostyn. What did I know about them? That Boysie was a lily-livered twit with good looks and a fine physique, while Mostyn was short, sharp and dapper. Boysie Oakes: real name Brian Ian Oakes. Brian. Oh Christ no. Mostyn small and authoritative. Boysie had ice blue eyes and a nervous smile which centred around the left corner of his mouth.
‘Hester?’
She had been gazing out of the window. As she turned, her smile was less than dazzling.
‘He talks as well.’
‘Hester?’
‘You just said that.’
‘I know, but I’m disturbed.’
‘So am I disturbed. A flight to Moscow alone with a guy and he sits hunched up on me. Signs off into a world of his own.’
‘I got problems.’
‘What problems?’
‘Terror.’
‘Terror we all live with.’
‘Listen.’ My hand went out towards her and got caught round her thigh which I could feel through the heavy military style coat she had on.
‘That’s better. Proposition me, it’ll take our minds off Styles and the snatch.’
‘Later. Do you know Control?’ There was a big glass partition between us and the driver and I didn’t figure on the car being bugged.
‘Of course.’
‘And Brian?’
‘Haven’t seen him before, but I worked out who he is.’
‘B O.’ I whispered.
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘B. Oakes. Boysie Oakes. Brian Oakes. Brian Ian Oakes. Mostyn’s Chum. Control’s chum. Control equals Mostyn.’
‘QED. You’ve got a great imagination.’
‘I’m right?’
She closed her gloved hand over mine. ‘In this racket you never know.’ Which was about as cryptic as they come.
I tried again for the Orient Express. The lights were out in the Baroness’s compartment and I was in there, asleep, so there was no point.
‘You know,’ Hester squeezed my hand, ‘it can’t be all bad.’
‘Could’ve fooled me.’
‘Well, there’s you, a man, and me, a woman.’ The dialogue came from some adventure epic circa 1932. Robert Taylor and Loretta Young on a mountainside.
‘Big deal,’ was all I could offer. Outside the landscape stretched out in frozen gloom. It struck me that Hester had the answer. We both needed a little heat. ‘Big deal,’ I repeated with eight hundred per cent more enthusiasm.
‘That’s better. What do you think I’ve been building you up for?’
*
At first sight you could fit Grand Central Station into the lobby of the Hotel Ukraine. Marble and chandeliers stretched as far as the eye could see and there was one of those big staircases with a red carpet like the ones Bette Davis and Joan Crawford used to sweep down in the movies about wicked women and wealthy families.
But the staircase only went as far as the mezzanine, or whatever word they have in Russian. From there on in you went by lift.
It is also a Russian custom that you do not collect your room key from reception. On each floor sits a dour lady, unfriendly and in charge of the keys.
My room was average size and not luxurious, the furniture heavy and unromantic. The bathroom was large enough to hold the necessary equipment but that was all. There were no plugs for the wash basin or bath and the hot taps ran blood. Well, rust coloured water. Depression swept over me like custard covering a boarding house jam roll. The view from the window did not help. It was like any other view from a cheap rear bedroom in any other hotel in any city.
I began to unpack and hang up the few sets of threads which Control had provided for me. On the Orient Express the Baroness had disappeared. So had the man following her. That was all I needed. Depression and the mental strain of creating a new fantasy. Where do you go from here? A strange city. A strange hotel. A stranger in a strange room.
I had flown in to Los Angeles that afternoon from New York. It had been a pleasure. The rich dame, who looked like Lauren Bacall, had hired me for an advance of three thousand clams with an open expense account and a further set of three Gs once I found what her screwy teenage daughter was doing down in LA. It was money for yesterday’s meatballs.
I slipped out of the lightweight grey jacket, unstrapped my shoulder holster, loosened my tie and lay back on the bed to wait. I didn’t need to go looking for trouble. Trouble often looked for me. And I usually found it. I’d had my eyes open at the airport all bright in its technicolor. There had been at least one interested party there. The pug ugly by the news-stand. Then the black Lincoln convertible had followed my cab all the way to the hotel.
I reached out and took the .38 Special snub nose from the holster that hung on the headboard. It felt good, solid in my hand. Violence isn’t funny but it’s my way of life. I put the gun on the table near the telephone and lay back. There was a picture of the girl in my wallet. It wasn’t hard to look at that photograph and I told myself a girl like that couldn’t be all bad. But even I could make mistakes. The telephone shrieked anxiously in my ear. This would be it.
‘Hallo.’
‘Rex Upsdale?’ It was a man.
The Californian scene dissolved.
‘Who is that?’
‘Slattery from the Embassy.’
‘Upsdale speaking.’
‘Oh, good show. Hope you’ve settled in all right.’
‘It’s not exactly the Beverly Hills Hotel.’
‘Nor the Savoy, old chap, but Moscow’s a splendid city. You must make the most of your stay. See the sights.’
‘Yes, lovely.’
‘We’ve arranged for Intourist to lay on a guide for you both in the morning and this is just to let you know everything’s fixed for your interview tomorrow evening. Everything as arranged.’
‘Goody.’
‘Anything else you want, phone me. I’m at the Embassy, extension two-four. Okay?’
‘You bet.’
‘Ah. Well cheerio.’
I leaned back on the bed again.
Slattery. I knew the name from way back. From the dark ages when I’d worked with Homicide NYCPD. That was till I got busted for splitting the nose of a little rat we pulled in for questioning. He’d had a good lawyer and there had to be a fall guy. I was it. Crazy how life catches up with you. Well, well, Slattery was here in LA. I knew there was a smell to this. The whole scene was corroded. The knock on the door wasn’t unexpected.
I slid the gun under my pillow and called out ‘Come in’ like I thought it was room service.
Back in Moscow it was Hester.
‘Natty little rooms, aren’t they.’ She had changed into a rust coloured shirt and dark skirt, but she still had her boots on. I couldn’t work out for a minute why she held a finger to her lips. Then, as she began to examine the table lamp I twigged she was on her debugging mission. She had to stand on the bed to get at the overhead light, giving me an uninterrupted view of knee, thigh and tight bikini briefs. My hands acted like homing pigeons straight to the tight straining cheeks.
‘Wil
l you stop that, Rex.’ She glowered down. ‘Until I’ve finished anyway.’
I sank back, the body glowing with pleasure and its prospects. During the training period I had not thought of Hester as a bedmate, but now, facing the prospect of Styles and the hundred things that could go wrong, it seemed the best and only course of action.
I always travel well prepared and the faithful Durex Gossamers were already stowed in the bedside table drawer complete with that glaring subtitle electronically tested. Have you ever thought what that really means? The mind is aghast. Have IBM come up with a coming up computer? Can’t you just see it: rigid electronic member with fast rolling on and off arm. Once in position four thousand volts shoot through the member and your protection is insured.
‘We’re clean,’ said Hester waving an arm round the room.
I began to say something then saw that she meant we had not been bugged.
‘Now, Rex, let’s get down to cases.’ Hester advanced on me and we met in the centre of the bed lips closing against lips. She was not just hungry. Famished would be a more apt word. It was like kissing a vacuum cleaner with the motor on. We writhed, the bed creaked and I got her briefs down in one. She undid the boots, kicked them off and slipped out of her tights. I reached for the bedside drawer.
‘What the hell have you got there?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Lord, Rex, you are out of date. People just don’t use them anymore. Put it away. I’m one hundred per cent proof. The copulating capsule is here.’
‘Do what?’
‘I take the pill, darling.’ She spelled it out.
‘Oh.’
For a second time that afternoon there was a knock at the door.
‘Quick, me knickers,’ she squealed, going into what looked like a rewind run of our last take.
I bundled her and her discarded clothing into the bathroom and made for the door.
The man who stood there had the appearance of an emaciated skeleton dressed by Oxfam on a bad day.
‘Upsdale?’ said the wraith.
‘In the flesh.’ I couldn’t resist.
‘Slattery. Tom Slattery. From the Embassy.’ It extended a hand which would have done credit to a shoal of piranha. ‘How do you do it?’
‘Do what?’ He was inside the room and I sensed Hester had made her entrance from the bathroom behind me.
‘You just called me. Less than fifteen minutes ago from the Embassy.’
‘I called nobody this afternoon.’ He looked blank, which is saying a lot.
‘What seems to be the trouble?’ Hester stood beside me and static shot around in all directions.
‘This,’ I searched for the right word, ‘gentleman says that he’s Tom Slattery from the Embassy. Tom Slattery called me from the Embassy just a short time ago. Extension two-four.’
‘There is no extension two-four in the Embassy.’
Hester took a pace forward. ‘You got ID?’
‘Please,’ the skull grimaced. ‘You mean identification. We try to be minimal with Americanisms over here.’
‘Oh, that’s great.’ I was disinclined to be polite. ‘That’s really great. We don’t call a lift an elevator because we’re jolly stiff upper lipped British. Roll on the Raj.’
The skull still grimaced at Hester. ‘Miss Havisham I presume.’ Entirely ignoring me.
‘Yes.’ Hester sounded official. ‘Have you any identification?’
‘It gets very cold here in winter.’
‘Do icicles hang by the wall?’
‘Only when Dick the shepherd blows his nail.’
‘Good.’ Hester turned and grinned at me. ‘This is Tom Slattery. It’s also Freezer.’
‘Who’s Freezer?’ I remembered as I asked, and we all chorused ‘Our man in the British Embassy, Moscow.’
Chapter Five — Last Night When We Were Young
‘They really are a load of dunderheads.’ The skeleton called Slattery flashed a perfect set of teeth, which seemed out of place.
‘Who? And will someone please tell me what is going on.’
Ever since I was a child people have refused to tell me the truth. Babies arrived by special stork delivery service until I was nearly fifteen, and when I did find out the truth it worried hell out of me because Maud Moon and I had been doing it for six months already and thought it was an enjoyable Swedish exercise. The Father Christmas bit was also dead embarrassing, I recall. In short, my life had been studded with great and painful moments: highlights of revelation. We seemed to be approaching yet another climax.
‘The locals want to check you out, that’s all,’ gurgled Slattery.
‘Bit amateurish, isn’t it? I mean they must have known they’d be rumbled.’
Slattery sighed. ‘It’s annoying. They’ve been getting at the Embassy switchboard operator again.’
‘Again?’
‘They’re always at it. They take chances we would never dream of taking. Russian roulette, Upsdale, Russian roulette.’
‘But what’s the point?’
‘The point.’ Slattery adjusted his death mask. ‘It’s all part of the game. You’re not dealing with your fictional derring-do characters now you know. This is for real. You’re an unknown entity. Unknown entities have to be examined. They’ll send an Intourist man, or maybe a woman, skilled in character analysis.’ He turned to Hester. ‘I think it would be best if you played this by ear. Keep clear of Upsdale and see what happens.’
I was distinctly disturbed. ‘What can happen?’
The walking cadaver paused thoughtfully. ‘At the worst they could frame you and pop you into Lubyanka. Just remember that you are simply a journalist here on a special mission which has been cleared. These goons with their fake phone calls are merely trying to stir it. Come Hester, we’ll talk in your room. Mr. Upsdale has been approached, therefore Mr. Upsdale is vulnerable. We’ll see what develops.’
Hester gave me a twinkle smile as she stood by the door.
‘But...’ I choked. ‘But, Hester, we were...’
‘All in good time, Rex, baby. Be well. Be happy.’
They left. I was lonely, unwanted and bloody randy. Hester’s body had offered solace. Now even that had been snatched from me. It wasn’t fair.
What the heck. In this town you learn to take the rough with the smooth and not trust either of them. The Bacall type’s daughter was playing fast and loose and it was my job to get her out of the dirt. With some dames that might be as easy as taking a rat from a cobra.
I stretched out on the bed again. What else was there to do. I must have dozed because the next I knew it was ten o’clock and I was feeling hungry and someone was knocking at the door. I soft-shoed it to the entrance, put my ear to the wood and listened. It was a definite knock. I’d heard the sound before many times. This had a kind of urgency behind it. When you reach a tricky part in a fantasy or if you’re writing this kind of action fiction there is a golden rule. Have a guy come through the door with a gun in his paw. The thought brought me back to Moscow quick as the wind through Yul Brynner’s hair.
‘Who?’ I asked quietly, hoping the knock couldn’t hear me and would go away.
‘Mr. Upsdale?’
‘Yeees.’ Subversive.
‘Please open. Intourist.’
It wasn’t the man with the gun in his hand. It wasn’t a man at all. She was around five eight and looked like she was built in matching proportions. I couldn’t tell altogether because she wore a fur coat that would have cost around the price of the QE2 back in the stinking capitalist world. High leather boots almost to her knees, and long blonde hair streaking out from under the obligatory fur hat, and clear uncompromising blue eyes and a firm mouth. That’s all I could take in at the first glance.
‘You’re Intourist?’ I blurted, wondering what the boobs were like under that fur.
‘Ludmilla Yetshanikova. Mr. Slattery called us. I am your guide and interpreter. I am happy to meet you and to be guide and interpreter for such
a famous author from your great country. Felicitations.’
A thought struck me. ‘But that was for tomorrow.’
‘Yes. Tomorrow morning we go out to see the sights in our city. The office said good if I made myself known to you tonight and make arrangements with you for tomorrow. It is good, yes?’
‘It is very good, yes. Come in.’ So this was the latest model in counter espionage. This I did not mind. She could torture me as long as she liked.
She looked down at her cute little jack-booted toes and blushed. ‘It is not permitted for us to go into client’s rooms. Perhaps we may go and take a glass of tea?’
There was a noise associated with faulty sewage works. I was hungry. I leaned against the door and put on my Sinatra look. ‘How about showing me the nightlife Ludmilla, or can I call you Ludy?’
‘My friends call me Shagsi. In Moscow there is not night-life like you have in Western capitalist countries.’
‘Not even the odd restaurant where I can eat.’
She perked up at that one. ‘You wish only to eat? This is good. I know nice place for food. Cheap.’
It was like walking into a deep freeze. The cold ran straight down into your lungs and I reckoned any of those nasty old cancer cells would be gone inside ten seconds. The girl insisted on walking so I had to use all the standard techniques to make sure they hadn’t got a tail on me. It was easy as there weren’t many people around. I figured they were all snug indoors watching The Forsyte Saga. Nostalgia butted me hard and I wondered how young Jolyon was making out. I’d watched the series the first time round with an erotic programme planner from ITV.
I checked at the first three corners and there was no tail. So Shagsi was on her own. That meant something. I don’t know what, but it meant something.
The restaurant was a walk-down below ground level. Checked table cloths and an atrocious little orchestra, all balalaikas and accordians. Shagsi did the ordering and the food turned out worse than the orchestra. The borsch was watery and the mess of potage which was supposed to be a rare kind of goulash tasted of an unmentionable flavour — even in this thesis. Throughout the meal, which we washed down with non-vintage methylated spirits, Shagsi talked.
