by Tom Savage
There was a pause on the line before their boss replied, and Nora imagined she could almost hear him thinking. At last he said, “Keep to the schedule. Tomorrow you proceed with the interview, just as ‘Joan Simmons’ would do. Stay in character.”
“I will,” Nora said, “and I’ll report back to you when I know something. I can’t imagine what’s changed her mind like this, and it worries me.”
“It worries me, too,” Jeff said. “Please be careful tomorrow, Pal.”
Nora smiled at her husband’s nickname for her. Her married name, Nora Baron, was spelled the same forward and backward—a palindrome—so Jeff always called her Pal.
Now something else occurred to her. “Ham, did Mario send you the photo of the man he spotted at the airport, the one who followed us to the hotel?”
His brief bark of laughter didn’t surprise her in the least. “Oh, yes, I saw the photo. Quite an odd-looking fellow, wouldn’t you agree? I don’t think he’ll be a problem for you anymore.”
“No,” her husband said. “You definitely won’t be seeing that man again, trust me.”
“Good,” Nora said. “I don’t want Mario and Paolo to be unnecessarily distracted. They’re marvelous, by the way. I feel safe with them around. I also met the understudy tonight, Ms. Fedorovna. If we can get Galina back on schedule, I think the understudy will be fine.”
“Okay,” Ham said. “Now get some sleep, Nora. It’s one in the morning there, and you have a big day tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir,” Nora replied.
“I’m signing off now, so you can talk to your husband. Good night, you two.”
“Good night, Ham.” Nora heard the soft click as the man in New York hung up. Then she said, “Alone at last, darling.”
Jeff laughed. “I’m glad you’re in such a good mood, Pal. How’s Signora Luchese?”
“Wonderful, as ever. She sends her love. Perhaps you should have come inside this afternoon and said hello.”
“Ugh!” Jeff cried. “I can’t believe those Italian detectives spotted me so easily!”
“Well, darling, I told you to conceal your identity, but I didn’t mean to make yourself up like a villain in a comic opera! Those padded cheeks, and that nose! What on earth were you thinking?”
“I’ll try to do better next time,” he said. “I suppose you should let your team know I’m here. I’ll be around tomorrow, but I hope they don’t notice me this time.”
Nora laughed. “Where are you, exactly?”
“Look out your window.”
Nora rose from the edge of the bed and opened the curtains, looking down into the alley. Her husband stood against the wall of the opposite building in a spill of light from a streetlamp attached to its ancient brickwork, holding his cell up to his ear. He was still wearing his wig and beard, with a shabby-looking cap and a dull gray coat. He raised an arm in salute.
She opened the window, pulling her robe closer around her in the sudden rush of cold air, and smiled down at him.
“Hello there,” she said into the phone.
“ ‘It is the east, and Juliet is the sun’!” he said, and they shared a quiet laugh.
“I’d invite you up, but I don’t know if you could get in and back out again without being detected. Not after that stunt at the airport!”
He grinned up at her. “I’ll be more careful this time, I promise.”
With that, he switched off his phone and vanished into the shadows between the buildings. Nora tied the sash of her robe and quietly slipped out of the room. She ran lightly down the dark corridor to the stairs and descended into more darkness, making sure she was not observed. A single lamp glowed from a side table next to the reception desk in the tiny lobby, and she made her way across the room by its dim light. By the time she arrived at the front door of the pensione and opened it, Jeff was there waiting for her.
She kissed him. “I thought you said I wouldn’t see that man with the beard again.”
“I lied,” he whispered. “But I come bearing gifts.” He held up a bottle of red wine and two glass goblets. “An amusing little red from a local vineyard, or so the fellow in the wine shop told me. I’ll gladly share it with you if you help me remove all this makeup. You’re better at that than I am—after all, you’re the actor in the family.”
Nora smiled and led him upstairs. Jeff was familiar with the room from their last two visits there, so he went straight into the bathroom. Nora followed him with tissues and a jar of cold cream. Off came the wig and the drab clothes, and then Nora cleared away the dark tan, beard, bushy eyebrows, and putty nose, unable to stifle her laughter. Her husband’s handsome face finally emerged, and he was laughing too.
While he showered, she went back out into the bedroom and poured wine for them. He emerged from the bath clad only in a towel, and joined her in bed.
“What could have gone wrong with Galina?” Nora asked as she handed him a glass. “She’s the one who requested this, and now she wants to back out? Why would she do that?”
Jeff leaned back against the headboard. “I’m not sure, but after I left here this afternoon I prowled around outside the opera house. They were setting up for the performance, and there was a lot of activity at the loading dock with scenery and so forth. But I noticed their security crew, three men and one woman, making regular rounds of the entire area. They were on high alert, or so it seemed to me. I’m thinking there might have been some sort of threat to the theater company. Or maybe…” He trailed off.
Nora waited for him to continue. Nothing. At last she said, “Or maybe what?”
He blinked. “Or maybe they were showing off for someone. Hmm—I didn’t notice anyone special in the auditorium. Did you?”
Nora nearly dropped her wineglass. “You were there? In the opera house?”
“Sure. I saw the show. I was way up in the cheap seats, but I had a lovely view of the back of your lovely head.”
Nora laughed. “Anything else?”
“Well, I can now say with authority that I’m not a mad fan of Chekhov.”
She punched him lightly on the arm. “Philistine! That’s one of the world’s greatest plays. Ask anyone!”
“Oh, I’m sure it is, but give me Nora Baron in a Neil Simon comedy any day over all that Sturm und Drang.”
“You’re dangerously close to sleeping on the floor tonight.”
Jeff’s chuckle turned into a yawn. “I’m dangerously close to sleeping on this bed tonight. All that great drama just wore me out. But seriously, Pal, I want you and your friends to be extra careful when you’re filming tomorrow. I have a funny feeling about this, and the plan you made with your dear, close friend Ham mustn’t be compromised.”
“Oh, stop being so jealous,” she muttered. “He let you come to Venice too, didn’t he?”
“He didn’t have a choice. I haven’t taken any time off lately, and they owe me a week, at least. I requested the time and booked a flight to Italy, and he couldn’t stop me.”
Nora smiled. She was pleased that he was here. More than pleased: reassured. She had no reason to think this defection would be physically dangerous, but having her husband nearby just in case was a relief. He really was a remarkable man. Of course, she’d always known that, but, even so, he was constantly surprising her.
“Just be careful tomorrow,” he repeated, setting down his glass on the night table. “I’ve never trusted the Russians in anything, and that woman could be in some serious trouble if they figure out what she’s doing.”
“Yes, I know—if she does it,” Nora said, handing him her glass. He placed it beside his own and switched off the bedside lamp. Then he settled down beside her.
“Well, here we are in Venice, in bed, naked,” he whispered in the dark. “What do you suppose we should do now?”
Nora laughed. “I thought you were exhausted from all the classy drama.”
He reached for her. “Nothing is that exhausting—not even Chekhov!”
Chapter 9
They woke early the next morning. Jeff wanted to be gone from the pensione before the others were up and about. In their drowsy conversation before sleep last night, they’d decided not to introduce him to the team just yet, and definitely not here. Signora Luchese and her family mustn’t know that Nora’s husband was in Venice; one slip to the wrong people could jeopardize the operation. The team could meet him elsewhere.
“Where are you staying?” Nora asked as she watched him get dressed at the foot of the bed. She consciously avoided looking at the recent scars on his right knee, a troubling souvenir of their adventure in England. Jeff didn’t mind the scars; he wasn’t limping anymore, and he was grateful for that. It could have been worse. Much worse.
“Oh, you’d love it, Pal—a good Catholic girl like you would feel right at home. It’s a small convent on the north shore of the island, Santa Maria Magdalena, and the order has dwindled lately, so the nuns run the house next door as a bed-and-breakfast place. Oatmeal, bread, watery tea—and the beds are a preview of Purgatory.”
Nora couldn’t help but laugh. She’d never been devout, despite her late parents’ rigid Irish Catholicism, and her husband—also the child of Catholics—was a professed agnostic. “Whatever you do, don’t tell the holy sisters that you’re a lapsed Catholic. They might toss you in the nearest canal.”
“No fear of that.” He grinned as he put on the shabby coat and hat. “The head gal, Mother Agnes, is in love with me.”
Nora laughed again. “Her Husband won’t like that—not to mention your wife.”
He came around the bed and leaned down to kiss her. “Your jealousy will wither and die the moment you see her. She must be eighty, blind as a bat and deaf as a post.”
“She must be,” she said, kissing him again, “if she fell for your blarney. Are you going back there now?”
“Yes, but only to cook up a new disguise. I’ll make this one simple, but the Russians can’t be allowed to recognize me. I’m going to be watching them—and you—today.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for you,” Nora said, rising from the bed. “And I should tell the others you’re here. Otherwise, Paolo and Mario might—”
“—toss me in the nearest canal? Right, tell them. It’s a matter of time before Patch recognizes me, anyway. I like that young man.”
“So do I,” Nora said. “I think our daughter’s taste in men is improving.”
“It couldn’t get any worse,” he replied, and they laughed, remembering a couple of Dana’s more peculiar escorts during her teen years. “Okay, I’m off. I’ll catch up with you at Florian.”
As soon as he was gone, Nora showered and put on comfortable slacks and a sweater. She’d be all dressed up for the afternoon in front of the camera, but she had a couple of free hours before that, and she’d promised to show Patch around the city. Patch obviously remembered her promise—he was waiting for her in the corridor when she came out of her room. They proceeded downstairs in search of breakfast. Frances and the Italians soon joined them in the dining room, and the grand tour of Venice’s main attractions became a group excursion.
From nine to eleven, the Venetian men cheerfully led them around the most interesting places. Nora had seen the Bridge of Sighs, the Doge’s Palace, and the magnificent Basilica di San Marco before, but the two men’s pride and enthusiasm for showing them off were infectious. There wasn’t time to visit any of the other sestieri, the six boroughs that make up the main island of the city, but their guides described them vividly. They were particularly proud of Cannaregio, the mostly residential sector at the northern edge of the island where both men lived with their families. Nora knew it was also the area where her husband was staying, in an old convent on the Canale delle Fondamente Nove. She hoped she’d have an opportunity to see the convent before she left Venice, but for now the group remained in the sestiere of San Marco on the Grand Canal.
The thought of leaving Venice made Nora think of exactly how she’d be leaving, if Galina could be convinced—on the sly, with the Russian star in tow. It was going to be a tricky extraction as Ham Green had planned it, but Nora was confident they could pull it off. At least that sinister General Malinkov wasn’t here. He was in Moscow, according to Ham’s people, going about his usual business. Nora shook her head, thinking that his wife would be grateful that the general hadn’t completely deserted his family. She wondered how Ludmilla Malinkov coped with her errant husband, and she was grateful that Jeff simply wasn’t that kind of man. Infidelity was one thing Nora had never worried about for a single moment in her twenty-three-year marriage.
Patch was taking pictures with his digital camera. The palace, the cathedral, the Bridge of Sighs: Everything was “Cool!” Nora smiled at his enthusiasm, banishing her nagging worries in favor of being a tourist. She and Frances stopped in at Florian to make sure they were ready for the forthcoming interview. A friendly manager pointed to two round tables in the front corner, looking out on the piazza, explaining in perfect English that these were reserved for her crew and the Russian actress.
At eleven o’clock, Nora and Frances broke away from the others, returning to the pensione to get Nora ready, and Mario went with them. Nora donned her beige pantsuit and sat patiently while Frances did her hair and makeup for the cameras. Patch and Paolo would each operate cameras on small tripods, one aimed at each of the two women in the interview. In normal circumstances there would be a third camera, Nora knew, getting wide shots of both women, but they’d have to make do with what they had. She smiled, remembering that this “interview” would never air in any case. It was a complete fiction, like her “Joan Simmons” persona.
When she was prepared to Frances’s satisfaction, the two women and the vigilant Mario walked back toward Piazza San Marco. The square was crowded when they arrived, and they were jostled and slowed down by happy January tourists. It was exactly noon when they got to the restaurant, as the bells in the Campanile attested. With the others hurrying along behind her, Nora dashed across the final stretch to the entrance, preparing herself for this acting assignment. The two young men would be there by now, setting up their modest equipment. Perhaps Galina was already there, too.
She was. Nora smiled as she was shown to the two tables at the front, approving of the star’s pale blue ensemble and loose dark hair. As she neared the group, Nora’s smile froze in place. She was aware of Paolo’s swift glance at her, busying himself with the cameras but clearly unsettled.
There, seated beside the actress, was a tall, imposing, dark-haired man in a dark suit. When Nora arrived at the table, he rose briskly to his feet. Nora stared. Somehow, she managed to keep smiling, the professional American talk show host. The tall man extended his hand, and she reached out to grasp it in a firm handshake. She stopped short of addressing him by his name, remembering at the last moment that she probably wasn’t supposed to know who he was. No matter: He provided his own introduction, in a deep, thickly accented voice.
“General Nikolai Malinkov, at your service.”
Chapter 10
“I am not here,” General Malinkov said. “Please, go on with your business, Ms. Simmons.”
Nora said, “Please call me Joan.”
She thought, This explains the note.
Then she thought, What now?
As if reading her mind, Galina emitted a seemingly carefree laugh and launched into what Nora could only regard as a performance. “Isn’t this marvelous? Niki has surprised me with a visit! He arrived last night while we were onstage. He won’t get in our way this afternoon, I promise—he just wants to see the Glass Museum at Murano. Niki, darling, you must give your seat to Joan so we may film here, where they’ve set the lights and cameras. You go sit with Vera on that side of the table, where Rudi and Sergei are standing. Yes, perfect.” Now she turned to Mario. “How shall we proceed, Signor Naldi?”
Nora took the chair that had been vacated by the general. Mario began instructing Patch and Paolo where to place their cameras to capture the two
women at their best angles. Patch would film Galina, and he’d be able to zoom out for a medium shot of both women, but Paolo’s camera would be riveted to Nora. Paolo would also be handling the sound equipment, and he clipped tiny microphones to both women’s lapels. Mario nodded in directorial approval.
Nora studied the group clustered around the two front tables. Her entire team was here, and Galina had four people with her: Vera, the general, and two Russian security men. Sergei was the one from the stage door last night, a muscular young man with a dark crew cut and what seemed to be a permanent scowl. His colleague, Rudi, was a similar type with a blond crew cut. Nora assumed that both men had guns. She glanced at the two Italian men in her group—she knew they had guns, too. Everyone was armed. Terrific. But what was the general doing here? How had he managed to fly in from Moscow without Ham Green’s people being aware of it? Nora pushed those questions aside and concentrated on the business at hand.
Lunch was ordered, and they got down to work. Frances sat at the next table, with places waiting there for the three men who were now filming. A floodlight and a reflector screen had been set up in their corner, so Nora immediately felt at home. The other actress also seemed comfortable, which wasn’t surprising. Put us in front of bright lights and cameras, Nora thought, and we’re fine.
She’d made a list of basic TV talk show–type questions and memorized it. Mario pointed to her, and she began.
“Are you enjoying your international tour, Galina?”
“Oh, it’s wonderful, Joan!” her subject cried, grinning into Patch’s camera. “I was in London and Paris and Cannes for the film festival three years ago, but this tour of the entire continent is lovely. I think Venice is my favorite place so far. Such a beautiful city—and it reminds me of my hometown, Saint Petersburg.”
