Goldengirl

by Peter Lovesey

  “There’s something else,” Dryden quickly added. “Did you know the TV people have brought your father to Moscow?”

  “Doc? He’s not my father. You know that.”

  “That’s a technicality so far as the media are concerned,” said Dryden. “They may want to lay on some kind of meeting between the two of you.”

  “They can go jump,” said Goldine. “I won’t go near him.”

  He moved closer, trying to exclude the medical team from the conversation. This had got off to a bad start. She was edgy, and so was he. Damn it, it was like prison visiting. “I’m not suggesting you agree to meet him,” he said in an undertone. “Just keep it on a low key. Tell them you need to rest, or train, or something. Remember what they’ve written about the adoption, your happy childhood … I know how you feel about this, but it’s important to be consistent, to come up to the Goldengirl image. If anyone mentions your father —”

  She cut him short with an obscenity. “I just won a gold medal and all you can talk about is that megalomaniac.” She turned to face the doctors. “This is a private conversation, okay? If anyone present — that includes you” — she called to the girl — “repeats things I said in confidence I’d —”

  “You see what I’m driving at?” said Dryden.

  She ignored him and spoke to the doctor with the syringe. “Had you finished examining me?”

  He nodded and made an effort to respond with clinical detachment. “You will have the glucose tablets with you in your tracksuit pocket, but you shouldn’t need one.”

  “Uhuh.” She brushed that aside. “What time is it?”

  “Six-five.”

  “They can wait some. I’ll be worth it. Are you sweating, Jack?”

  He didn’t answer. He could have said things all right: said this was no time to act the prima donna; after all he had done in lining up a fortune in endorsements, he had a right to expect she would cooperate. But who was he to take a moral line when he was asking her to lie to the press? What was at stake was the image, the revenue, his livelihood. She knew that.

  “Do you think you can depend on me?” she asked. “Or are you just a little scared of what I’ll say? Tell you what. If you want to be sure, you must give some. I’ll do the devoted-daughter bit as a favor to you in return for something. You can kiss me, Jack.”

  Idiot! He had been so taken up with the threat of Esselstyn that he had missed the importance of this moment. Goldine had won. The whole of America had its arms outstretched to her, but she was turning to him. She had wanted him to kiss her, and he had talked about Serafin! “But of course.”

  He smiled warmly and moved close.

  She pushed her hand in front of his face. “Not my lips, Jack. My feet. You can kiss each of my feet. You owe one hell of a lot to them.”

  He was wrong. It wasn’t affection she wanted, but abasement. Goldengirl was demanding her tribute. It was absurd. Adolescent. It warranted turning her over and slapping her bottom, but he didn’t. He did as she commanded, bent and put his lips to her feet in the uncomprehending presence of the medical team.

  The only thing he was thankful for was that Melody wasn’t there to watch.

  Chapter 21

  The victory ceremony for the 100 meters opened the program in the Stadium next day. As Goldine took her place at the top of the rostrum there was generous applause. Her press conference had been seen in full on Soviet TV the evening before. The candor of her answers had made a good impression. She had said complimentary things about Moscow, the Russian people, Muratova, Ursula Krüll, but she was proud of her victory and admitted she had worked hard for it. There had been no questions about Dr. Serafin or the consortium. If Esselstyn was present, he had kept quiet.

  She shed no sentimental tears as the Star-Spangled Banner was played and the Stars and Stripes edged up the center flagpole behind the Olympic flame. “She stood serenely in her white tracksuit as if she had always expected to be there,” reported the New York Times. “And when the ceremony ended, she shook the hands of the other girls and left the arena. It was as if she didn’t need to maximize the moment, because she knew there would be more.”

  This was to be the easiest of Goldine’s five days of competition, with just the 400-meter Quarter-Final to contest. She ran in Heat Two, allowing a Jamaican girl to scud away in the stretch for an easy win. Goldine’s time was 53.23 secs, making her one of the slowest to go through to the Semi-Final, which after her tactics in the 100 meters fooled nobody.

  The sensation of the round happened in Heat Four, when Janie Canute clashed with Ursula Krüll. It had clearly been decided in the German camp that Krüll needed her confidence restored as soon as possible after the previous day’s defeat, and a respectable time in the 400 meters was prescribed. The talk in the Olympic Village that morning had been that she was ready to demonstrate that her strength would turn the tables on Goldine in the longer events. She had come to Moscow to collect two gold medals, and she would settle for the 200 and 400 meters.

  Janie Canute had been told that a fast time was on. She said it suited her. She wanted to get the measure of Krüll, the one girl whose ability over the distance had not seriously been tested. When they went to their marks, Krüll was in lane 2, Janie in lane 4. There was a good Finn in one of the outside lanes, but the rest had never got inside fifty-two seconds. Janie crossed herself and asked for fifty flat.

  People were edgy. There were three recalls. A French girl was disqualified and left the track weeping. You could hear her sobs between the starter’s instructions.

  When they got away at the fourth try, Janie put in a lot of hard running around the bend, completely negating the stagger between herself and the little Australian in 5. She was moving well. By the end of the back stretch she was up with the Finn. Then on her inside, Krüll hurtled through as if it were a 200. Approaching the bend, Janie passed the Finn and gave herself to the pursuit of the East German. Each stride was obviously hurting, but she was cutting the gap between them. There were seventy meters to cover. The danger was that in pursuing Krüll she would fold, letting the others pass her in the run-in. She glanced behind to see where the Finn was, a sure indication that she was relinquishing the race. She was safe, but second. She concentrated on stride length, and came home five meters behind Krüll.

  When Janie had got her breath under control, she straightened, jogged a little to ease the stiffness, and looked for Krüll. The German girl was surrounded, but leaping for joy above the cameramen, arms raised high. Janie looked toward the scoreboard. 49.22. Krüll had set a new world record, the first of the Moscow Olympic Games. In an event she had not intended to run. That was style.

  In Izvestia that evening, there were two pictures of Ursula Krüll: one solemn-faced on the rostrum with her silver medal around her neck; the other, head flung back, arms outstretched, at the moment she had the world record confirmed. At the hastily arranged press conference, she had said she believed she could improve the record in the Final. “I am just a novice in this event,” she was reported as saying. “Who knows what is possible if I get some real competition?” Which must have tested Janie’s Christian charity when she read it, for in finishing second in 49.89, she had set a new U.S. record.

  *

  At 10:30 P.M. a phone call was put through to Dryden at the Hotel Ukraina from Barney Helpem, the senior executive in his New York office.

  “Jack? I hope I didn’t catch you in bed. Is the line okay at your end?”

  “Fine. Matter of fact, I was in the bar, acquiring a taste for Armenian brandy. How’s business?”

  “It’s humming, Jack. Your Miss Serafin’s press conference was on the tube in prime time last evening. Went over big. I mean that. The TV manner of that kid — breathtaking. This morning we’ve been stampeded with inquiries from people you spoke with last week, the guys who wouldn’t jump then but are falling over themselves to get in now.”

  “They’ll have to pay, Barney.”

  “Sure. I can han
dle that. The reason I called is that I heard from Simon. I can’t spell things out, for obvious reasons.”

  “I’m with you, Barney.” Simon was Dryden’s contact in the presidential office.

  “Those soundings you made a week or two back. They could come to something. There’s definite interest in the idea. If she pulls off the triple, it’s on. All we have to agree on is the timing. This bloody eight-hour difference complicates things. The people here are talking in terms of a TV linkup around ten Wednesday night. That’s six on Thursday morning, Moscow time.”

  “We can lay it on at this end,” promised Dryden. “This is one arrangement that isn’t negotiable. Mind, the advantage isn’t all on our side. Setting aside a certain event in November, when you add it up, we’re going to give a useful nudge to the gross national product.”

  “I’ll say we are. You should see the papers here. She made every front page this morning, and that’s after one gold. I must tell you one cute headline I picked up. ‘GOLDINE RAN SOME.’ Get it?”

  “I like it, Barney.”

  “Say, this East German broad — what’s her name? — Kill?”

  “Krüll.”

  “Yeah, Krüll. I heard she made some kind of record today. Don’t get me wrong, but could that foul things up at all?”

  “It was a world record,” said Dryden. “People were pretty impressed here, which is what the Germans planned, I’m sure.”

  “But you’re not worried?”

  “I’d have to be a total idiot not to be worried,” said Dryden. “We’re hoping she’ll burn herself out. It’s the Final that counts. I still have my money on Goldine.”

  “Great. Just one thing more, Jack. The TV transmissions. You know NBC has brought in Goldine’s father a couple of times to comment?”

  “I heard about it.”

  “We get it over here. Cranky old guy. You know him, Jack? He doesn’t come over too good. Bloodless character. Carries on about her bone formation until they cut him off.”

  “He is a professor of physiology, Barney.”

  “I can believe that, Jack. I’m just a little apprehensive of this program they’re slotting into Tuesday evening.”

  Dryden’s grip tightened on the phone. “Which program is that?”

  “You haven’t heard? You know there’s a rest day Tuesday. No track. NBC has just announced they are running a half-hour primetime special on Goldine. GOLD TOMORROW. Something like that — there could be a query in the title. I guess it’s a curtain-raiser for the Finals Wednesday, mainly clips of the action so far, but they have an interview lined up with Serafin. What worries me, Jack, is how that old man will come across. You follow me?”

  “I do.” Dryden had followed, overtaken and raced ahead. It looked worse from there. “Thanks for the tip, Barney. I’ll try and find out what’s happening.”

  He replaced the phone, his head reeling. GOLD TOMORROW? He needed to find out what was happening all right. The program could be the curtain-raiser Barney imagined, but with a title like that it could just as easily be Esselstyn’s hatchet job.

  *

  Monday’s program included the First Round and Quarter-Finals of the 200 meters, and the Semi-Finals of the 400 meters. At ten-fifty in the morning, when the 200 meters got under way, the Stadium was less than half full. As expected, the top-flight girls treated it as a workout, burning the first 150 meters and coasting the rest. There was no Olympic Record from Krüll, as there had been in Round One of the 100. She hit the stretch in line with the Russian third string and ran alongside her, twice turning to urge her on, and deliberately easing five meters from the line to let her cross first. As she returned to collect her warm-ups, with photographers in tow recording every step, she left no doubt in anyone’s mind that her confidence was buoyantly back.

  Goldine’s heat followed. She qualified in a faster race, declining to dispute first place with two African girls. After it, she dodged the press by removing her spikes and making barefoot for the competitors’ exit. A U.S. official collected her clothes.

  Earlier, Dryden had visited the Hotel Rossiya. Locating Serafin was not easy with a guest list six thousand strong. He visited each of the three blocks before tracking him to one of the restaurants.

  Serafin looked tired. He attempted no explanation of his presence in Moscow. “I didn’t expect to see you here,” he told Dryden. “You should be careful. People recognize me since I’ve been on television.”

  “That’s what I want to see you about. This program scheduled for tomorrow night.”

  “GOLD TOMORROW? I’m taking part,” said Serafin. “It’s going out live to America. I have to be at the TV Center at five o’clock Wednesday morning. Ungodly hour.”

  “Have they told you what to expect?”

  “Yes. I insisted on a proper interview, not the insulting treatment I’ve had all week in the commentary box, where they push a microphone against your face and snatch it away before you have a chance to finish a sentence.”

  “They haven’t discussed the subject of the interview?”

  “Goldengirl. What else? As she won’t condescend to appear on the program herself, I’m the star guest.”

  “What will you tell them?”

  Serafin gave a thin smile over his coffee cup. “Afraid of what I’ll say?”

  “Afraid of what a hostile interviewer might get you to say,” said Dryden. “A TV interview can be a grueling experience.”

  “I’m not new to it,” Serafin pointed out. “I’ve been on Science Forum.”

  “This may not be so cozy,” said Dryden. He told Serafin everything he knew about Esselstyn.

  At the end, Serafin was unmoved. “I can’t see the producer having any truck with a man like that,” he said. “Just let them try taking up my time with impertinent questions. I’ve been pushed aside all week. It won’t happen this time.”

  *

  When he got to the Stadium, Dryden went looking for Klugman. He spotted him in the section reserved for team officials. Klugman came out looking worried.

  “Anything wrong?”

  “I hope not,” said Dryden. “Has a character named Esselstyn been bothering you? Short, curly hair, dark, around thirty. Fancy dresser.”

  “What did you say his name was? Could be the creep that tried to buy me a drink Sunday,” said Klugman. “Something about going on TV. I told him what to do with his TV show.”

  “You didn’t discuss Goldine’s training with him?”

  “What kind of goof do you take me for?” said Klugman, flushing.

  “Sorry. I needed to know. Esselstyn is dangerous,” Dryden explained. He brought Klugman up to date. “I believe they tried to get Goldine for this program.”

  “People are trying all the time. TV, radio, papers. You name it,” said Klugman. “She’s giving no more interviews till Wednesday night when it’s all over. Team management decision. Would you believe they had to move her into the U.S. Embassy last night? You can ban the press from the Olympic Village, but you can’t stop competitors setting up as free-lance journalists. They try to interview big-name athletes with the idea of selling exclusives to the papers. Goddamned racket. Soon as anyone brings a gold medal back, they go for them like jackals. Plays hell with the chance of anyone trying to psych up for the other events. I hear the East Germans have moved Krüll out for the same reason. Since that world record yesterday, she’s back in business.”

  “It was smart psychology,” said Dryden.

  “Smart running. She tied up at the finish, but if she can learn to coast the back stretch, she’ll go faster. That’s what the German coaches will have told her. We can expect something under forty-nine seconds in the Final. Goldengirl’s best ever is fifty point five.”

  Dryden had heard Pete Klugman on his lugubrious tack before, but still felt his stomach lurch. “First they have to run the two hundred Final,” he pointed out. “If she tops Krüll in that …” The “if” betrayed him. He started again. “She was invincible in the one hun
dred. After the illness, the layoff, we had no right to expect her to run so brilliantly.”

  “Looks like the time out helped her,” said Klugman. “I’ve known it to happen before. The diabetes is mild, it’s under control now, and the break in training was mentally beneficial. The whole experience sharpened her motivation. She’s hooked on success. Totally.” He sighed, shaking his head. “It makes her pretty insufferable. Another reason they moved her out of the Village is she refuses to share a room with other girls.” He shrugged. “Wouldn’t surprise me if she had breakfast with the Ambassador. Caviar on toast.”

  *

  The Quarter-Finals of the 200 meters, in midafternoon, provided more confirmation that Ursula Krüll was under instructions to take a rest from record-breaking. She tagged the U.S. girl Shelley Wilson, keeping a conspicuous two meters adrift all the way up the stretch, finishing in 22.83 secs. In her heat, Goldine, too, refused to be drawn by Muratova, who delighted the crowd by equaling Eckert’s gold-medal performance of 1976, with 22.37 secs. To underline the achievement, a small girl was waiting near the finish to scamper across the track and present the Russian with a posy of flowers.

  Dryden was alone in the stands that afternoon, Melody having declared herself more interested in shopping at GUM. Since that first evening when they had met the vigilante between their rooms at the Ukraina, Melody had been disenchanted with Moscow. There was no room service, the waiters in the restaurants ignored you, and Soviet vermouth was no substitute for Campari. He wasn’t expecting a rave report on GUM.

  One of the consortium, at least, was more sanguine about the city. The previous evening, Valenti had arrived in the bar with Sternberg. After remarking that the kidnaping had obviously done Goldengirl no harm, he went on to describe his experience the previous evening, when the phone in his room had rung and he had taken a call from an English-speaking girl offering to play Olympic games for five rubles. “The best five rubles I ever spent!” he assured them. “If you guys had some sense, you’d be up in your rooms now, sitting by the phone. Me? I’m sated. Besides, I must keep back some rubles for a fur hat.”