by M. L. Huie
Mrs. Prentiss tilted her head, studying Livy. “You keep looking at the bar.”
Livy’d interviewed a lot of people over the last year, but this woman took the cake for overbearing.
Livy put her pencil down. “Mrs. Prentiss, I do apologize. I don’t mean to appear unprofessional in any way.” She leaned forward, affecting a conspiratorial tone. “The truth is, I know the man at the bar. The fellow in the gray suit with his back to us.”
Mrs. Prentiss shot him a look, her arched eyebrows like predatory commas.
“I really shouldn’t be saying any of this. I mean you are clearly a very perceptive woman and could tell I was just, well, a bit upset by seeing him here. But please, I apologize. This story is very important to my paper. Could we get back to—”
“Who is he?”
Livy cleared her throat. “Well … um … he’s … he’s a detective.”
Mrs. Prentiss took her first sip of the gin and tonic. “Go on.”
“You don’t want to hear all this.”
“Miss Nash. Go on.”
“All right. Well, my husband—he’s an American—and we separated after the war. He … um, it’s very personal, Mrs. Prentiss, but let’s just say I could no longer tolerate certain … indiscretions.”
Allison Prentiss, fashion expert, didn’t look shocked. She looked angry.
“So, naturally, I couldn’t stay married to a man like that. After all those times. But my husband couldn’t accept it, I suppose. You know how men are. Like little boys if they don’t have their way. Anyway, that was last year. Then, about six months ago, I started seeing that fella out and about.” She glanced at the Gray Man. “I’d see him out on the street when I went shopping. Or when I went to a picture with the girls. He was everywhere. Finally, I confronted him. He told me he was a private detective.”
Not even the ice in her drink could have been as cold as the expression in Mrs. Prentiss’s eyes. “Your husband is having you followed?”
Livy nodded.
“Even when you’re working?”
“Yes, and he’s probably around a lot more than I know. Anyway, as I said, please forgive me. I didn’t want to intrude on our interview.”
Mrs. Prentiss put up a hand. “Don’t.” Then she snapped her fingers twice for the bar waiter. A college-aged kid in dark pants, pressed white shirt, and a black vest scurried over. She said something quietly to the waiter, who then hurried off.
“Mrs. Prentiss, I’m very sorry—”
“Wait,” she commanded.
Less than a minute later, a very sleek man, who looked a bit like George Sanders with a pencil-thin mustache, waded through the bar tables toward theirs. He took Mrs. Prentiss’s hand and gave it a familiar kiss. She whispered in his ear, gestured toward the bar. He nodded and took his leave.
“Now,” Mrs. Prentiss said, turning to Livy, “we may continue.”
Livy, playing the puzzled, naive newspaper girl, shook her head and opened her notebook. “Um, what would you expect from Mrs. Dewey if she became—”
Before she could finish the question, two burly men in navy double-breasted suits strolled up to the Gray Man. Their arms bulged through their suit jackets. One leaned down and said something quietly. The Gray Man listened, gave each man a look, and stood up. The two muscular house detectives remained on either side of him as the Gray Man buttoned his jacket, picked up his slouching fedora, and followed them to the exit. He gave Livy a parting glance. No malice. Just the briefest of moments to say, “I see you.”
Livy didn’t need to act shocked—she was. The last thing she’d expected from the fashion expert opposite her was this kind of moxie.
Mrs. Prentiss smiled and took another sip of her drink as the three men disappeared into the lobby. “That was off the record, by the way.”
* * *
Livy had an early dinner that night at one of the Statler Hotel restaurants called The Embassy Room. Despite Mrs. Prentiss’s intervention, the encounter with the Gray Man left her more than a little bothered. There’d been an implied threat in the way he looked at her before leaving. Odd. The last thing a tail wants is to be seen. This man’s gaze felt like a direct challenge.
She ordered a steak, a Caesar salad, and something called steak fries. Livy found the meat undercooked and the thick, finger-like fried potatoes far too much. She picked at her salad and thought about Margot. She wondered if there had been any more signals, or had they stopped completely? Was the signal even from Margot? The listener had identified her distinctive wireless signature, but he could have been wrong. For a few moments Livy picked at the bloody meat and considered that this whole misadventure might very well be a fluke. False leads and futile missions were far more frequent than any intelligence agency would ever admit. The idea that all this could be for nothing clung to her like the guilt she still felt from last night’s vodka shots.
After dinner she returned to her room. Someone knocked on her door at exactly eight PM. The courier carried a rectangular box, wrapped in brown paper, and wore a neatly pressed gray uniform and peaked cap.
“Your dry cleaning, ma’am,” he said.
Although she knew the courier had been sent by Keller, she tipped him.
The box had a sticker on the top corner, which said, “Dupont Circle Cleaning & Laundry.” She tore open the box and found a plain gray file folder. It contained two typed sheets of white foolscap topped by the letterhead for the United State Department of the Air Force. A stamp at the bottom indicated the documents had been transferred to the Embassy of the United Kingdom.
Livy threw away the box and the file, folded the typed pages, and put them into her purse. She turned down the lights in the room and sat in an armchair by the window overlooking K Street. She needed escape.
She found her heavily worn copy of Hamlet in her case and thumbed through it. The play had been a gift from her father. Although he’d been a circus man and of Irish descent, Archie Nash always referred to Shakespeare as his “favorite Englishman.” As a child, Livy had played Horatio in an all-girl production at her school. Reading the lines now, as the prince teases an overzealous actor—“Speak the speech I pray you …”—helped to ease the tremor she had noticed in her right hand.
She recited the lines out loud, giving them a bit of emphasis. But the anxiety remained. Putting the play down, she fell to the carpet and began doing press-ups. That didn’t ease her tension either. She knew the one thing that might allow her to get a moment of restful sleep tonight was waiting for her downstairs.
After an hour of reading and exercising, Livy fixed her hair, tidied her blouse into her skirt, and took the lift to the lobby. She sat as far away from the bar of the Embassy Room as possible. Her voice quivered slightly when she gave the waiter her order. “An old-fashioned, please. With Old Grand-Dad bourbon if you have it.” She’d heard Fleming place that very order many times.
The waiter came back with the drink. Livy looked into the deep amber of the whiskey and promised herself that she and Margot would be back home soon.
Chapter Seventeen
“I’ll be with you in just one minute, dear. Take a seat. Won’t be a tic.”
The young woman sitting behind the second desk at the entrance to the British Embassy looked to be about Livy’s age, perhaps a couple of years younger, and sounded Yorkshire to her core.
Livy stepped away from the desk. The embassy compound, which took up a wide swath of Massachusetts Avenue, felt distinctly English among the American style of architecture that typified many homes in DC. Livy stood in the main hall in the center of the U-shaped brick building. Discreet lace curtains on the ground-level windows filtered sunlight through the entranceway. The marble floors added a touch of elegance, but the utilitarian furniture assured visitors that austere Britain was not footing the bill for the glamorous life on this side of the Atlantic.
“How can I help you, dear?”
Livy approached the desk. The woman behind it wore a smart, light blue blouse
with a dark skirt. She had big brown eyes, matching hair, a pointed nose, and a jaw that would keep her out of boxing if she were a man. The ID tag pinned to her chest identified her as Alice Dawson.
“We’re doing a follow-up on some of the missing from the war.” Livy showed her passport and press credentials. “I have a couple of names I’d like to see if you have files on.”
Alice’s mouth turned down. “We’re not really accepting press requests for that sort of thing. The files of the missing and all. Between you and me, they like to keep it quiet, you know, about the girls who fought and didn’t come back. Morale and all.”
Livy’s heart sank. The night before, as she sat in the hotel bar, she’d thought about Margot and tried to remember her face. Maybe it was the bourbon, but she couldn’t readily picture her friend’s features. She wanted a photo of her. That was the talisman she needed. That, she told herself, would get her through.
No press requests? Fine. New tactic.
“Hmm. West Yorkshire, I’d say. Somewhere in the vicinity of … Huddersfield?”
Alice’s wide jaw broke into a grin. “Further north. Halifax.”
“I knew it.”
“And you? I sussed you as Lancashire first thing. But I’m no good at guessing towns, so you’ll just have to tell me.”
“Blackpool.”
Alice eyes widened. “My mum and dad took me there every season before the war. The Illuminations. Oh, and the circus. But then I suppose Lancashire has to have something to offer.” Her eyes widened as Livy registered the playful slight.
“Oh, that’s the way it is?”
For centuries the two English counties had waged a mostly peaceful rivalry that extended to food, scenery, as well as hundreds of years of history.
“I mean we have you lot beaten in size—certainly in cricket championships—and Yorkshire pudding travels a bit further than hot pot.” Alice smiled.
Livy quickly parried, “I’ll give you the games and the food, but we won the War of the Roses.”
“Ancient history, dear,” Alice fired back. “But your football club is downright formidable.”
Livy dropped that her dad had been an acrobat in the Blackpool Tower Circus, and Alice’s day was made.
“Oh my, I do miss home sometimes,” she said.
“Is it always this bloody hot?”
“Summers are misery here.”
Livy checked her watch and sighed. “The thing is, luv, my boss—he’s a Yank—he wants a profile of one of these girls, and the only one I could find is … um … let me see.” Livy fiddled about in her handbag, pushing past the folded classified documents she carried for Kostin, and pulled out her reporter’s notebook. “Dupont. Margot Dupont. Her father was something in the Foreign Office and was stationed here for a bit in the thirties. Thought you might have something on her. Just background, you know. I’m on a bit of a deadline. Otherwise, I’d let you show me if there’s a place to get a decent English breakfast round here.”
“Tell you what. Let me see if we have a file, and maybe you could sneak a peek, Okay? Be a dear and watch my desk. Won’t be a minute.” Alice laughed. She turned and trundled down the long hallway.
Livy felt a bit bad laying it on so thick for homesick Alice. She seemed like a nice girl. Truth was, Livy knew exactly how she felt.
* * *
She left the embassy with a promise to meet Alice the next morning at a pub owned by a man from Leeds who catered to ex-pats and embassy workers. Alice promised “a better English breakfast than you’ve ever had in Lancashire.” Margot’s file would have to be pulled by an archivist, but Alice promised to bring it when they met, and let Livy have a look.
Her plan was to hail a cab to Price’s office in Georgetown, but Alice suggested the streetcar, so Livy walked along the edge of Dumbarton Oaks Park to Wisconsin Avenue to wait for the car. The nerves from last night had returned. Her right hand shook only slightly as she surveyed the area, wondering if the blue Packard might make another appearance.
Kostin had said he’d find her today. She assumed the most likely place might be her hotel, but depending on his level of caution, he could prefer something more public. Livy half-expected the Russian to walk up behind her at any moment.
Always onstage, she felt the “performance” taking its toll only a few days in. Her mind went to Anka. Now she saw her as a woman trying to cope with the stress of her war. Livy’d had her own battles overcoming the past, and she wondered if perhaps she was living in a moment she’d again struggle to put behind her.
It wasn’t even noon and she wanted another drink. This is how it starts. Experience told her that. She had to be disciplined. But how the hell else was she supposed to cope?
Waiting for Kostin. Livy hated feeling like a pawn in someone else’s game. A part of her wanted to take a cab to the airport and go home. Tell Fleming to stuff it and then curl up in her own bed for days.
The visit to the embassy hadn’t settled her nerves her as much as she hoped it might. Livy prayed Margot’s file would contain a photo. She needed to see her. Remember her. Needed that part of the operation to be real. It had to feel like more than just a pipe dream that she could reach across the world and the years to try to bring her back home.
The rumble of the approaching streetcar brought her back to the moment. The green, blue, and white car, with its snubbed nose and sleek design, reminded Livy of a rocket ship out of Flash Gordon. She climbed aboard. The noon lunch crowd packed the car, making it standing room only. A wall of men in gray and blue suits, with big slouching hats, crowded the center of the aisle, leaving the seats along the windows to moms with toddlers, and younger women with department store bags, headed home.
Livy held her handbag tight. She grabbed the overhead rail as the car lurched forward. The driver wore blue overalls and stood in the middle of two great gears. He turned his head and half-shouted, “Next stop, Burleith. That’s Burleith, next stop.”
Livy found a small area of space between two much taller men, both of whom held today’s paper in front of their faces. One chortled as he read the comics, while the other scanned the front section.
Behind her a shorter man, who chewed gum with the intensity of a bullfighter, smiled at her. She gripped the handbag and moved away, turning toward the center of the car.
There, over the shoulder of the man reading the funny papers, stood Yuri Kostin. He had his fedora pulled down to the bridge of his nose, but she recognized the unmistakable curve of his lips and the V-shaped chin. He lifted his head, and for a moment they made eye contact. Then he turned to the window.
He must have been following her the whole day. How else could he have gotten on the streetcar without her knowing it? How could she have missed him?
Five minutes later the streetcar came to a stop and allowed passengers to get off. Both newspaper readers left, as did a number of the women along the window seats. Livy glanced in Kostin’s direction. He didn’t move. His head still down.
“Ma’am.” A lanky man in khakis and a blue shirt gestured for Livy to take the seat closest to him. She smiled, quickly glanced at Kostin, and took a seat with one empty space beside her. Kostin’s head turned in her direction as the streetcar began to move. The last stop had thinned out the car by almost half. Perhaps the Russian felt safer to make some form of contact, because he shifted as if to take the seat.
Then a young woman and a little girl of about five hustled into the seat next to Livy. The woman had dark hair and eyes. She moved like it had been a long day, dragging her daughter behind her. The little girl, who wore a straw hat with a Woolworth’s price tag attached to it, sat down first. He mother bustled her out, plopped down beside Livy, and pulled the little girl on her lap. “Here we go, honey. Sit down—sit right here.”
Kostin angled away from the window, his hat still low on his face.
“Sweetie, take that off.” The mom swiped the hat off the little girl’s curly head and used it to fan herself. “It’s way too big
for you anyways.” The little girl looked at her mother and turned away without a word.
“Well, I thought it was funny,” the woman said, just a bit too loud. She said to Livy, “You have kids?”
“Um, no—no, I don’t.” She smiled at the mom, her eyes still on Kostin.
The mom raised an eyebrow. “Well, they’re a pain in the bee-hind most of the time, but once in a while they can be good for a few laughs.”
Kostin tipped his hat back and looked at Livy. The corners of his mouth turned up, almost as if he found the situation funny.
“This one is sure a handful sometimes, but her brother—just like his Daddy—never stops talking,” the mom said. “Quit squirming, Maggie, that hurts Mama.”
The driver boomed out, “Next stop, Oak Hill.”
Livy gave the little girl a smile and tried to look away, but the mother leaned over to her. Her eyes went all mysterious, and she lowered her voice.
“Do you know that fella in the gray hat?” The mom indicated Kostin. Livy held her breath and shook her head. “Well, honey, let me tell ya, that man’s got a thing for you. So, unless you do know him, you might want to be careful.”
Livy’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“I know a little something about men. That guy right there hasn’t taken his eyes off you this whole time. And, believe me, I know that look.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
The mom leaned in, whispering. “I’d be careful if I was you. Man looks like trouble. ’Course, you know, some girls like that.”
“Do they now? Your daughter is lovely, by the way.”
“Yeah,” the mom said, “and she knows it too.”
The streetcar eased to another stop. The mom scooted her daughter off her lap and, grabbing her hand, made for the exit. Kostin wasted no time in taking the vacant seat as more passengers got on and filled the car back to standing room only.
Seconds later, it began to move.
