This woman who had done the driving, however, was not a woman he would want to touch with any part of him, not even a finger. When they’d met yesterday morning at the airport in Antwerp she’d said her name was Silvie. That was, of course, the name she was using, just as he was using Lotario. His choice of a name was more believable than hers. She wasn’t fragile or helpless enough to be a Silvie. She looked more like a Martine or a Florence. He was curious about her, but he’d never know who she was or what she was. She’d never tell him, and even a look at the passport she was traveling with would be meaningless, just as the Italian passport he was using this time meant nothing. Beneath it all, though, he suspected she was some kind of German, most likely East. They were obsessed with physical fitness, the East Germans, especially the females. This one would have a belly and a rump like stone. He’d noticed her hands. They weren’t the hands of a woman who’d rely on mere clawing. He remembered a masseuse in Leipzig who had a similar pair of hands. A good-looking woman, like this one, but she’d oiled him and pummeled him and as a finale had tried to shove three fingers up him.
Right away this Silvie had tried to establish herself as being in charge. No one told her to do the driving, she just got behind the wheel and told them to get in. No one was in charge. If she was supposed to be in charge the dispatcher would have mentioned it. When they were under way he’d let her know he didn’t consider her in charge, and in response to that she’d handed him her two automatic pistols, ordering him to see if they were ejecting smoothly. She knew they were, had probably checked them out a half-dozen times. She’d just wanted him to see those two Mauser lugers, make it known that she wasn’t going to be depending on some little purse pistol. He’d handled that by sarcastically asking her if one of the lugers was for her right and the other for her left, and, as though it were a serious, legitimate question, she’d replied, yes, one for each hand. Not to be outdone, he’d told her to take a look at his Galesi revolver, and he’d waved the blue-black .44 magnum with its ten-inch barrel around in front of her face, unintentionally clipping her nose with it. She’d jerked her head away and called him a zhopa, asshole. It disturbed him that she, an East German, had used Russian. It meant she’d figured out his nationality. He didn’t want her knowing even that little about him. To even things he’d sat back and called her a Votze, a cunt, just loud enough for her to get it and realize he knew she was German.
By now he’d been in one position too long. His body wanted him to roll over, but if he did he’d be facing the backrest and his spine would be vulnerable. He sat up and lighted a Marlboro.
“I said before not to smoke in the car,” Silvie told him. “If you must smoke do it outside.”
Lotario dragged so deep on the cigarette its tobacco crackled. He didn’t inhale. He blew out at the back of her head. The smoke wrapped around her hair and got to her face. He did it again.
Silvie got out of the car but didn’t let her anger slam the door. It was the kind of place and kind of night that would carry sounds. She contained her fists with her armpits, pressed her crossed arms tight to her. She leaned against the fender of the car. It was wet, although the air didn’t seem that damp. According to the map she’d looked at, this spot was only two or three miles from the North Sea coast. She listened. For a moment she believed she could hear the North Sea breaking, but then too many night bugs were making their noises. From what she understood, bugs did that by rubbing their rear legs together. It was their way of calling out for like company. She had fairly close acquaintances who did as much, she thought.
She’d never done this work with anyone before, and the arrangement wasn’t comfortable. She much preferred having to be concerned only with the possibility of her own mistakes. Despite the larger amount that for some reason was being paid for this job, despite how easy it was apparently going to be, she kept being poked by the portent that it was going to turn out badly. These two did nothing to alleviate that feeling. One of them, the one who was going by the name Charlie but was obviously Russian, just sat there in the passenger seat like a mute. Not a word from him since that first minute when he’d said his name. Nor had he moved much. It was as though earlier, before Antwerp, he’d set himself on automatic, aimed irrevocably at the kills. At first sight she’d thought Charlie no older than twenty, with his slight build and clean, even features and light brown hair combed to the side. That impression was his stock in trade, of course, and when she’d gotten a better look at him and realized the hard corners of his mouth and eyes she revised her image of him from unlikely youth to lethal professional. No doubt if the job went as it was supposed to he’d get it done, she concluded, but how might things go if he had to improvise?
The other one, the one with the ridiculous name, Lotario, was worse. It was evident that his judgment was stunted. He had insisted they cut across that pasture, and she’d accommodated his stupidity, rather hoping for spite it would end up as it had. While he was cursing the mud and pushing futilely at the Saab, she’d set out for the farmhouse a quarter mile away and played the woman direly in need of assistance for the farmer with the tractor and winch. They’d lost an hour and a half in that pasture, and at that point Lotario had been for giving up. She didn’t accept that all was lost. She’d thought like a woman and continued on and searched for a restaurant in Westenschouwen and Burgh and Haamstede and finally had come to a likely one in Renesse where she’d gone in alone and inquired after her sister, whom she was desperate to find, having gotten separated from her along the road. She’d described her sister and her sister’s friend and was told yes, they’d been there, and possibly she would find them at the inn called Koopershaven. What luck, she’d said, and listened gratefully as she was given directions. She’d located the inn and parked out on the side of the road within sight of it but where some bushes would be concealing. Then she’d walked up the drive to the parking area on the far side of the place and seen the red BMW there. A part of her, a fractional, deeply suppressed part, had hoped it wouldn’t be. She’d returned to the Saab and had an argument with Lotario, who was steaming with resentment because she’d been so smart and right. He wanted to be really messy, sneak into the inn and get it over with. No regard for who might be up and around. Charlie didn’t say whether he was for that or not. He just sat there waiting for someone to push his button. She lied Lotario out of it, told him she’d tried all the doors of the inn and they were firmly locked and she’d also seen two huge dogs inside, Alsatians, obviously mean ones. The dogs would be noisy, rouse everyone, she’d said, and that had restrained Lotario.
Now the luminous numerals of her digital watch told her one forty-four. Hours yet to go. She looked to the inn and thought of the man and woman there sleeping a secure sleep, fitted against each other probably, front to back like a pair of spoons. She didn’t envy them, although she felt a pang of self-pity because she was standing out there in the night of Holland with murder in her mind.
The window of the Saab whirred down. A cigarette butt flew close by her. Again she had the wish that she wasn’t on this thing—or was alone on it. If it had been up to her alone she would have handled it differently from the start, been more discreet. Driving alone she wouldn’t have been suspect. It would have been an acceptable coincidence that she happened to stop at the same restaurant. She would have been just aloof enough, smiled a cordial fellow-traveler smile, eventually struck up a conversation, joined them for dinner and later, bonded together by brandy and laughter, joined them in bed. From what she had seen of the woman that would have been delightful, a bonus of sorts. Then, during the night when they were sleeping sexually indulged sleeps, she would have shot them both behind their ears.
As it was, however, the killing would have to be more direct. It would be messy to some extent but not difficult, because in all probability neither the man nor the woman would be armed. She’d done some easy ones. The easiest ever had been last January in that godforsaken place in Siberia when all she’d had to do was shove that d
runk out the hatch so he’d freeze to death.
CHAPTER
26
VIVIAN WAS IN THE SHALLOWS, JUST BENEATH THE SURFACE of consciousness. Her mind insisted that something wasn’t right, that it was imperative she emerge, but her mind was ahead of her body, had to reach back and drag her body along with it, upward. She used her elbows for leverage, to prop up her shoulders and head, and then her body was ahead of her mind, needing to wait for it so she could clearly realize that Nikolai wasn’t in the bed. The space under the bathroom door provided enough light for her to find the plane of his bare back. He was standing at that same window opposite the foot of the bed. She chose not to say anything but rather to try to reach him with the silent language she believed they shared. It would be a good time for it, she thought, gathering her thoughts like a sheepdog tending strays. Her will asked him to turn and see that her eyes were open and on him. She transmitted so intently that it seemed she could see her will splashing off the back of his head. Finally, she sat up on the edge of the bed and asked aloud: “Couldn’t you sleep?”
“I got some.”
He replied so calmly it seemed as though he’d been expecting her voice, and she accepted what satisfaction she could from that. “Come back to bed,” she said. “Come hold me. I need the cave of you.”
“In a bit.” He still hadn’t turned.
“What are you doing, anyway? Deep breathing?”
“Watching for the dawn.”
She felt fully awake now. “It’s reassuring to have faith in the inevitable, but I for one would appreciate a miracle now and then. I’m hungry again. I suppose it’s too early for the breakfast that comes with the bedding. What time is it?”
“After four.”
“I’d give my reputation, as paltry as it is, for a glass of milk and a scone or two. Why do you think I’ve been so hungry lately?” When he didn’t answer she wondered how far away his thoughts were. Did they have a secret place they escaped to for a spell, as for a holiday? She hoped so. Secrets, especially secret escapes, were essential. She got up. The painted floor was cold. She yanked the white cotton coverlet from the bed, put it around her over her head like an Arab woman or an Italian saint. She padded to him. “When is dawn supposed to happen?”
“Any minute now.”
“Tell it to hurry.” Her hand found his, found it cold. She put the coverlet around him and herself against him, and thinking he could use the extra warmth she told him she loved him and he shouldn’t ever doubt it. He didn’t say anything, but her forehead was pressed to his cheek so she felt him smile.
By then a slight radiance was defining the horizon. The area of the sky directly in their view was changing from indigo to a purple with just a vague promise of fawn. There would be the green of the countryside, but all greens were still congealed and black, unawakened.
“How did you know that direction was the east?” Vivian asked.
“I didn’t.”
“Then possibly it’s some instinctive thing that your bones and your soul knew. How about Mama Russia demanding that you look her way and do some longing? Couldn’t that have been it?”
He slowly shook his head no but at the same time emitted a grunt that could have been taken for yes.
“Are you aware of how often you grunt? I think you must all be a bunch of bears. I noticed Savich also grunted a great deal. That night when we had dinner at Archer’s, Savich must have grunted fifty times.”
“Okay, no more grunting.”
“No, I’d miss it.” The coverlet slipped off; she pulled it back up around her. “Maybe we should go home today,” she said. “We’ve got some pieces to pick up. We have to legally defect you and everything. From what I understand, it would be a huge help if you were my spouse. How would you like to be my spouse?”
When, he wondered, had she looked into the requirements for defecting? It seemed she was always a stride ahead while giving the appearance that she was only keeping up.
“What a disagreeable word, ‘spouse,’” she went on. “Just a smidge of a sound different from ‘mouse.’ It should be struck from the language. Anyway, to hell with going to the tulips. Neither of us are in need of such repair. London will be good to us. Let’s just catch a flight from Rotterdam. We could be in Rotterdam by midmorning and maybe home by noon.”
London, Nikolai thought, was where everything might be set straight. He would go to 11 Harrowhouse and see Churcher, face up to it, lay the truth out. Churcher would trample all over it but eventually accept it. Churcher was, at rock bottom, a reasonable sort. Pulver worked for him. He could call Pulver off. Certainly it would be easier to straighten things with the System than with the Soviet Union. To his Soviet superiors he’d seriously misstepped, would have to fall.
The low sky was now definitely paling, going from mauve to pink. But everything of the land yet remained untextured, incapable of shadow or vividness. It was as though someone enormous carrying a lantern was ascending the sheer face on the other side of the world, would soon appear and come up over that distant edge. The hush that had prevailed during this dark time now gave way to chirps and trills, and a few of the more impatient birds reconfirmed that they could fly. Night seemed reluctant to leave, had to be chased, and when the sun took over Nikolai and Vivian were not prepared for what it revealed to them. Immediately below and for about a hundred yards out there was fenced pasture, but beyond that for as far as they could see on the left and as far as they could see on the right and all the way to a line of sentineled poplars in the distance—tulips!
Acres and acres of them, not all mixed up but planted in an orderly fashion according to color and species. Nearest was a regiment of intense scarlet. How many rows of those? It looked to be at least fifty. From them, a sharp demarcation to a section of soft golden yellows. Just as many. Then came those of a delicate pink shade, which had as their neighbor creamy whites. On the far side of the whites were countless rows of a salmon pink, and then oranges, cerises, and magentas laid out in swaths across the vast field, each color claiming its territory.
The higher the sun climbed, the brighter the tulips, the more impossible it became for Nikolai and Vivian to remain mere spectators. They felt drawn to participate. They dressed hurriedly. Vivian grumbled to herself now that she had to untie the laces in order to get her sneakers on. She didn’t bother with socks or panties, put on yesterday’s wine-stained shorts and the same T-shirt and oversize cotton knit cardigan. “Originally flowers didn’t have color,” she said while giving her hair a few swift strokes with a Mason-Peerson. “Did you know that?”
“No.”
“I mean, they were all nothing but green. They became colorful to attract the insects they needed in order to propagate. Wasn’t that clever of them? I think flowers think. What’ll we do with these?” she asked, referring to their automatic pistols, which were on the dresser top.
“Leave them.”
“One of those nice Kooper kids might come in and start fooling with them.”
“So hide them somewhere.”
Her first thought was to shove the pistols under the mattress. But what if someone came and made the bed? She glanced around the room. In the wastebasket? What if someone emptied it? No place seemed secure enough. She took off her sweater and armed into the shoulder harness, made sure her Beretta automatic was snug in the holster.
“Why don’t you just put them in your carryall?” Nikolai suggested.
“I don’t want to be bothered with lugging anything.” She put her sweater back on, pushed its huge sleeves up to her elbows, and dropped two loaded clips into a pocket. “Why are you just standing there?”
A what-the-hell shrug by Nikolai. He put on the harness and the holster with his Sig in it, then his windbreaker.
Apparently no one at the inn was yet up and about. Nikolai and Vivian looked for a back way out. They passed through the impeccable kitchen. Vivian grabbed the heel of a black loaf from a basket of yesterday’s bread. It was tough. She bit do
wn hard and twisted it and feared for that one upper left front tooth she’d had capped. They were outside before she managed to be chewing on a chunk. “Tulips came from Turkey,” she said with her mouth full.
“Ups em fa uky” was what Nikolai heard, but he nodded that he understood. He looked up at the sky and thought the day was going to be a pretty one. He inhaled deeply. The air had some of the North Sea in it. He should relax, he told himself, enjoy seeing things, such as the tiny grasshoppers that were being caused to jump by his and Vivian’s strides through the grass of the wide pasture. People, including himself, should learn to appreciate each breath. He should be more like Lev. Maybe that was why Lev liked Gauguin so much; he identified with the artist’s Tahitian laissez-faire. It occurred to Nikolai that he’d never asked Lev why he liked Gauguin, had assumed it was for the same reason his own famous favorite was Turner, the visual astonishment. What Turner could do with this tulip field up ahead!
They had reached the fence that marked the end of the pasture and the beginning of the tulips. There was no gate. It was a string wire fence of three tight strands, probably intended to keep cows or sheep from the tulips. And what tulips they were! The only others equal to them that Vivian had ever seen were in a mixed bouquet in the lobby of the Ritz in Paris. They were a special hybrid, prized for their enormous blossoms that were like chalices, a good six inches long and four in diameter with stems that stood them up thirty inches or more. For a long moment Nikolai and Vivian paused to appreciate the tulips from closer range. They decided they would walk around the field or through it if possible. Vivian crawled between the upper and middle wire strands, and Nikolai was about to do the same when he saw concern cloud Vivian’s face. She was looking back in the direction from which they’d come. Nikolai turned to see the three coming across the pasture: a slight young man on the right, a heavier-set and older man in the middle, and the woman he’d seen on the ferry, the driver of the Saab, on the left. Their intent was obvious by the way they were spaced well apart and the stalk that was in their pace. They were at the midpoint of the pasture about a hundred yards off.
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