He had filled his own glass full of the cold, clear liquid. Now he filled Malone’s. He stood, glass in hand. Malone also climbed to his feet.
“To the continued friendship of our two countries!” Petkoff said. He raised his glass for a second, then downed the contents. Malone followed suit. The vodka burned its merry way into his stomach. They sat.
A waiter arrived with a large platter. “Ah,” Petkoff said, turning. “Try some of this caviar, Mr. Malone. You will find it the finest in the world.”
Malone, somehow, had never managed to develop a taste for caviar. He was willing to admit, if pressed, that this made him an uncultured slob, but caviar always made him think of the joke about the country bumpkin who thought it was marvelous that you could soften up buckshot just by soaking it in fish oil.
Now, though, he felt he had to be polite, and he tried some of the stuff. All things considered, it wasn’t quite as bad as he’d thought it was going to be. And it did make a pretty good chaser for the vodka.
Her Majesty also helped herself to some caviar. “My goodness,” she said. “This reminds me of the old days.”
Malone waited, once again, with bated breath. But, though Her Majesty may have been crazy, she wasn’t stupid. She said nothing more.
Petkoff, meanwhile, refilled the glasses and looked expectantly at Malone. This time it was his turn to propose the toast. He thought for a second, then stood up and raised his glass.
“To the most beautiful woman in all the world,” he said, feeling just a little like a character in War and Peace. “Luba Vasilovna Garbitsch.”
“Ah,” Petkoff said, smiling approvingly. Malone executed a little bow in Lou’s direction and followed Petkoff in downing the drink. Two more glasses of vodka wended their tortuous ways into the interior.
“Tell me, colleague,” Petkoff said as be spooned up some more caviar, “how are things in the United States?”
Malone shot a glance at Her Majesty, but she was concentrating on something else, and her eyes seemed far away. “Oh, all right,” he said at last.
“Of course, you must say so,” Petkoff murmured. “But, as one colleague to another, tell me: how much longer do you think it will be before the proletarian uprising in your country?”
There were a lot of answers to that, Malone told himself. But he chose one without too much difficulty. “Well, that’s hard to judge,” he said. “I’d hate to make any prediction. I don’t have enough information.”
“Not enough information?” Petkoff said. “I don’t understand.”
Malone shrugged. “Since our proletariat,” he said, “have shown no sign of wanting any rebellion at all, how can I predict when they’re going to rebel?”
Petkoff gave him an unbelieving smile. “Well,” he said. “We must have patience, eh, colleague?”
“I guess so,” Malone said, watching Petkoff pour more vodka.
By the time the meal came, Malone was feeling a warm glow in his interior, but no real fogginess. The dance floor had been cleared by this time, and a group of six costumed professionals glided out and took places. The musicians broke out into a thunderous and bumpy piece, and the dancers began some sort of Slavic folk dance that looked like a combination of a kazotska and a shivaree. Malone watched them with interest. They looked like good dancers, but they seemed to be plagued with clumsiness; they were always crashing into one another. On the other hand, Malone thought, maybe it was part of the dance. It was hard to tell.
The dinner was as extensive as anything Malone had ever dreamed of: borshcht, beef Stroganoff, smoked fish, vegetables in gigantic tureens, ices and cheeses and fruits. And always, between the courses, during the courses and at every available moment, there was vodka.
The drinking didn’t bother him too much. But the food was too much. Unbelieving, he watched Petkoff polish off a large red apple, a pear and a small wedge of white, creamy-looking cheese at the end of the towering meal. Her Majesty was staring, too, in a very polite manner. Lou simply looked glassy-eyed and overstuffed. Malone felt a good deal of sympathy for her.
Petkoff finished the wedge of cheese and ripped off a belch of incredible magnitude and splendor. Malone felt he should applaud, but managed to restrain himself. Her Majesty looked startled for a second, and then regained her composure. Only Lou seemed to take the event as a matter of course, which set Malone to wondering about her home-life. Somehow he couldn’t picture her wistful little father ever producing a sound of such awesome magnitude.
“My dear colleague,” Petkoff was saying. Malone turned to him and tried to look interested. “There is one thing I have wondered for many years.”
“Really?” Malone said politely.
“That is right,” Petkoff said. “For years, there has never been a change of name in your organization of secret police.”
“We’re not secret police,” Malone said.
Petkoff gave a massive shrug. “Naturally,” he said, “one must say this. But surely, one tires of being called FBI all the time.”
“One does?” Malone said. “I don’t know. It gives a person a sort of sense of security.”
“Ah,” Petkoff said. “But take us, for instance. We pride ourselves on our ability to camouflage ourselves. GPU, and then OGPU—which were, I understand, subject for many capitalist jokes.”
Malone tried to look as if he couldn’t imagine such a thing. “I suppose they might have been,” he said.
“Then we were NKVD,” Petkoff said, “and now MVD. And I understand, quite between us, Mr. Malone, that there is talk of further change.”
There was a sudden burst of applause. Malone wondered what for, looked at the dance floor and realized that the six Slavic dancers were taking bows. As he watched, one of them slipped and nearly fell. The musicians obliged with a final series of chords and the dancers trotted away. A waltz began, and couples from the tables began crowding the floor.
“How can you manage the proletariat,” Petkoff asked, “if you do not keep them confused?”
“We don’t, exactly,” Malone said. “They more or less manage us.”
“Ha,” Petkoff said, dismissing this with a wave of his hand. “Propaganda.” And then he, too, turned to watch the dancers. The waltz was finishing, and a fox-trot had begun. “With your permission, Mr. Malone,” he said, rising, “I should like to ask so-lovely Miss Garbitsch to dance with me.”
Malone glanced at the girl. She gave him a quick smile, with just a hint of nervousness or strain in it, and turned to Petkoff. “I’d be delighted, Major,” she said. Malone shut his own mouth. As the girl rose, he got to his feet and gave the couple a small, Victorian bow. Petkoff and Lou walked to the floor, and Malone, sitting down again, watched enviously as he took her in his arms and began to guide her expertly across the floor in time to the music.
Malone sighed. Some men, he told himself, had all the luck. But, of course, Lou had to be polite, too. She didn’t really like Petkoff, he told himself; she was just being diplomatic. And he had made some progress with her on the plane, he thought.
He looked over at Her Majesty, but the Queen was staring abstractedly at a crystal chandelier. Malone sighed again, took a little caviar and washed it down with vodka. The vodka felt nice and warm, he thought vaguely. Vodka was good. It was too bad that the people who made such good vodka had to be enemies. But that was the way things were, he told himself philosophically.
Terrible. That’s how things were.
The fox-trot went to its conclusion. Malone saw Petkoff, chatting animatedly with Lou, lead her off to a small bar at the opposite side of the room. “Some people,” he muttered, “have too much luck. Or too much diplomacy.”
Her Majesty was tugging at his arm. That, Malone thought, was going to be more bad news.
It was.
“Sir Kenneth,” she said softly, “do you realize that this place is full of MVD men? Of course you don’t; I haven’t told you yet.”
Malone opened his mouth, shut it again, and thought
in a hurry. If the place were full of MVD men, that meant they probably had it bugged. And that meant several things, all of them unpleasant. Her Majesty shouldn’t have said anything—she shouldn’t have shown any nervousness or anxiety in the first place, she shouldn’t have known there were so many MVD men in the second place—because there was no way for her to know, except through her telepathy, a little secret Malone did not want the Russians to find out about. And she should definitely, most definitely, not have called him “Sir Kenneth.”
“Oh,” Her Majesty said. “I am sorry, Sir—er—Mr. Malone. You’re quite right, you know.”
“Sure,” Malone said. “Well. My goodness.” He thought of something to say, and said it at once. “Of course there are MVD men here. This is just the place for good old MVD men to come when they go off duty. A nice, relaxing place full of fun and dancing and food and vodka…” And he was thinking, at the same time: Are they doing anything odd?
“Russian, you know,” Her Majesty said, almost conversationally, “is an extremely difficult language. It takes a great deal of practice to learn to think in it really fluently.”
“Yes, I should think it would,” Malone said absently. You mean you haven’t been able to pick up what these people are thinking?
“Oh, one can get the main outlines,” Her Majesty went on, “but a really full knowledge is nearly impossible. Though, of course, it isn’t quite as bad as all that. A man who speaks both languages, like our dear Major Petkoff, for instance—so charming, so full of joie de vivre—could be an invaluable assistant to anyone interested in learning exactly how Russians really think.” She smiled nervously. Her face was suddenly set and strained. “I find that—”
She stopped then, very suddenly. Her eyes widened, and her right hand reached out to grasp Malone’s arm more strongly than he had thought she ever could. “Sir Kenneth!” Her voice, all restraint gone, was a hissing whisper. Malone started to say something, but Her Majesty went on, her eyes wide. “Do something quickly!” she said.
“What?” Malone said.
“They’ve put something in Lou’s drink!” Her Majesty hissed.
Malone was on his feet before she’d finished, and he took a step across the room.
“She’s already swallowed it!” the Queen said. “Do something! Quickly!”
The dancers on the floor were no concern of his, Malone told himself grimly. He didn’t decide to move; he was on his way before any thought filtered through into his mind. Officers and their ladies looked after him with shocked stupor as he plowed his way across the dance floor, using legs, elbows, shoulders and anything else that allowed him free passage. Sometimes the dancers managed to get out of his way. Sometimes they didn’t. It was all the same to Kenneth J. Malone.
Her Majesty followed in his wake, silent and stricken, scurrying after him like a small destroyer following a battleship, or like a ball-carrying grandmother following up her interference.
Malone caught sight of Lou, standing at the bar. In that second, she seemed to realize for the first time that something was wrong. She pushed herself violently away from the bar, and looked frantically around, her mouth opening to call. Petkoff was a blur next to her; Malone didn’t look at him clearly. Lou took a step…
And two men with broken, lumpy faces came through a door somewhere in the rear of the restaurant, closer to her than Malone. Petkoff suddenly swam into sight; he was standing very still and looking entirely baffled.
Malone pushed through a pair of dancers, ignored their glares and the man’s hissed insult, which he didn’t understand anyhow, and found his view suddenly blocked by a large expanse of dark grey.
It was somebody’s chest, in a uniform. Malone shifted his gaze half an inch and saw a row of gold buttons. He looked upward.
There, towering above him, was a face. It stared down, looking heavy and cruel and stupid. Malone, his legs still carrying him forward, bounced off the chest and staggered back a step or two. He heard a hissed curse behind him, and realized without thinking about it that he had managed to collide with the same pair of dancers again. He didn’t look around to see them. Instead, he looked ahead, at the giant who blocked his path.
The man was about six feet six inches tall, a great Mongol who weighed about a sixth of a ton. But he didn’t look fat; he looked strong instead, and enormously massive. Malone sidestepped, and the Mongol moved slightly to block him. To one side, Malone saw Her Majesty scurrying by. The Mongol was apparently more interested in Malone than in trying to stop sweet little old ladies. Malone saw Her Majesty heading for the bar, and forgot about her for the second.
The Mongol shifted again to block Malone’s forward progress.
“What seems to be such great hurry, Tovarishch?” he said in a voice that sounded like an earthquake warning. “Have you no culture? Why you run across floor in such impolite manner?”
The man might have been blocking his way because of Lou, or might simply want to teach an uncultured Amerikanski a lesson. Malone couldn’t tell which, and it didn’t seem to matter. He whirled and reached for a glass of vodka standing momentarily unattended on a nearby table.
He tossed the vodka at the giant’s eyes, and scooted around the mountain of flesh before it erupted with a volcanic succession of Russian curses that shook the room with their volume and sincerity.
But Lou and Her Majesty were nowhere in sight. Major Petkoff was staring, and Malone followed his line of sight.
A door in the rear of the restaurant was just closing. Behind it Malone saw Her Majesty and Lou, disappearing from sight.
Malone knocked over a waiter and headed for Petkoff. “What’s going on here?” he bellowed over the crash of dishes and the rising wave of Russian profanity.
Petkoff shrugged magnificently. “I have no ideas, colleague,” he said. “I have no ideas.”
“But she—”
“Miss Garbitsch was taken suddenly ill,” Petkoff said.
“Damn sudden,” Malone growled.
“Her friend, Miss Thompson, has taken her to the ladies’ room,” Petkoff said. He gestured, narrowly missing a broken, lumpy face Malone had seen before.
“You are under arrest,” the face said. Its partner peered over Petkoff’s shoulder.
“I?” Petkoff said.
“Not you,” the face said. “Him.” He started for Malone and Petkoff threw out both arms.
“Hold!” he said. “My orders are to see that this man is not molested.”
The guests had suddenly and silently melted away. Malone backed off a step, looking for something to stage a fight with.
“On the other hand, Comrade,” one of the lumpy-faced men said, “we have orders also.”
“My orders—” Petkoff began.
“Your orders do not exist,” the other lumpy man said. “We are to arrest this man. Our orders say so.”
“You are fools,” Petkoff said. He spread his arms wider, blocking both of them. Malone edged back against the bar, feeling behind him for a bottle or maybe a bungstarter. Instead, his hand touched a sleeve.
A voice behind him bellowed: “Cease!”
The two lumpy-faced men goggled. Petkoff did not move.
Malone turned, and saw a tall, thin civilian with dark glasses. “Cease,” the civilian repeated. “It is the girl we are to arrest! The girl!”
“This is not a girl,” one of the lumpy men said. “Sir. We are to arrest this man. Our orders say distinctly—”
“Never mind your orders!” Petkoff said. “Go and reduce your orders to shreds and stuff them up your nostrils and die of suffocation! My orders say—”
“The girl!” the civilian said. “Where is the girl?”
Malone darted forward. Petkoff caught him neatly with one arm as he went by. “Until we decide what to do,” the MVD man said, “you stay here.” Malone bucked against him, but could get nowhere. “Meanwhile,” Petkoff said, “I am for letting you go.”
“I appreciate it,” Malone said through his teeth. “Ho
w about proving it?”
“If you let him go,” a lumpy man said, “you will answer to our group head.”
Petkoff tightened his hold protectively. Meanwhile, the civilian was climbing up into a stratospheric rage.
“You are dolts, imbeciles, worms without brains and walking bellies filled with carrion!” he said magnificently. “I have orders which I am sworn to carry out!”
“You are not alone,” Petkoff said.
Malone took another try at a getaway, and failed.
“We take precedence,” a lumpy man said. “We can talk later. Arrest comes first.”
“But who?” the civilian snapped. “I insist—”
“There shall be no arrest!” Petkoff screamed. “No one is to be arrested at all!”
“I swear by the bones of Stalin that my orders state—” the tall man began.
“The bones of Stalin are with us!” a lumpy man said. “Go and die in a kennel filled with fleas and old newspaper! Go and freeze to the likeness of an obscene statue of a bourgeois deity! Go and hang by the ears from a monument four thousand feet high in the center of the great desert!”
Inspired, the other lumpy man screamed “Charge!” and came for Petkoff and the civilian. Petkoff whirled, letting go of Malone in order to beat back this wave of maddened attackers, and Malone took the advantage. He ducked free under Petkoff’s left arm and started around the gesticulating, screaming, fighting group for the door at the back of the restaurant. He took exactly four steps.
Then he stopped. The Mongol, his eyes red with a combination of vodka and bull-roaring rage, was charging toward him, his hands outflung and his fingers grasping at the air. “Warmonger!” he was shouting. “Capitalist slave-owner! Leprous and ancient cannibal without culture! You have begun a war you can not finish!”
“Ha!” Malone said, feeling inadequate to the occasion. As the Mongol charged, he felt a wave of intense pragmatism come over him. He reached back toward the bar, grabbed a bottle of vodka and tossed several glassfuls into the giant’s face. The Mongol, deluged and screaming, clawed wildly at his eyes and spun round several times, cursing Malone and all his kin for the next twenty-seven generations, and grabbing thin air in his attempt to reach the Amerikanski.
The Second Randall Garrett Megapack Page 102
