The Charm School (10 page)
“Try giving him three lire next time.”
The man laughed. “They’re not that bloody stupid. Name’s Wilson.”
“Richardson,” Hollis replied.
They tipped their glasses toward each other. “Cheers.”
Wilson said, “Did I hear you speaking Russian there?
Spasibo
and
pozhalusta.
Which is which?”
Spasibo
and
pozhalusta.
Which is which?”
“
Spasibo
is ‘thank you,’
pozhalusta
is ‘please.’”
Spasibo
is ‘thank you,’
pozhalusta
is ‘please.’”
“Oh, I’ve been getting it backwards. How do you get the bartender’s attention?”
“Call out
Komitet.
”
Komitet.
”
“Komitet?”
“Right. That should get his attention. Have you been in here awhile?”
“About an hour, I suppose. Why?”
“I’m looking for a friend of mine. American, in his twenties, blue jeans and windbreaker.”
“‘Windcheater,’ you mean?”
“Yes, windcheater.”
“I think I did see him. No one dresses in this benighted country. Damned Reds ruined everything. No manners either, and no style here, if you know what I mean. Of course I don’t fault you for wearing a leather jacket if no one else dresses.”
“Did you notice if he was speaking to anyone?”
Wilson looked around the lounge. “Saw him sitting over there somewhere. Yes, speaking to someone.”
“Who?”
“Ah, now I remember. See those two? Nicely dressed. Frogs, I think. They dress well if nothing else. Had a young chap with them. Could be your fellow. The lad had a few too many, and two people from the hotel helped him out. The boy became a bit . . . belligerent, I suppose you’d say. They hurried him off. I don’t think they would make anything of it—half the damned country’s drunk at any given moment. Probably took him to his room.”
“When was this?”
“About fifteen—twenty minutes ago.”
“Thanks.” Hollis moved through the cocktail tables and sat in an armchair across from the man and woman. “May I?”
The man grunted in reply.
Hollis asked, “Do you speak English?”
The man shook his head.
“And you,
madame
?”
madame
?”
She looked at him. “A little.”
Hollis leaned across the table and spoke softly and distinctly. “I am looking for a friend, an American, a young man. I understand he had a drink with you earlier.”
The woman glanced at the man beside her before replying, “Yes.” She added in good English, “He was ill. He was aided to his room.”
“This young man told you his name?”
“Yes.”
“Fisher?”
“Yes.”
“Did he seem . . . agitated? Worried?”
The woman did not reply but nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Did he tell you what was worrying him?”
The man stood and said to the woman,
“Allons.”
“Allons.”
She remained seated and said to Hollis, “He did not say. But he said they may come for him. He knew. I think the drink was . . . what . . . ?”
“Drugged.”
“Yes.” She stood. “My husband wishes to go. There is no more I know. I am sorry.” She stood.
Hollis stood also and said to the woman, “You understand,
madame,
this is a matter of some concern to the authorities here. They know he spoke to you and are curious about what he told you. You may be in danger. Do you understand?”
madame,
this is a matter of some concern to the authorities here. They know he spoke to you and are curious about what he told you. You may be in danger. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
The Frenchman walked away impatiently. The woman lingered a moment, and Hollis looked her in the eye. “What else?”
Her eyes met his. “Are you the attaché?”
“Yes.”
“He said you would come. He said to tell you some things that he did not say to you on the telephone.” The woman thought a moment, then recited quickly, “Dodson told him it was once a Red Air Force school. Now it is a KGB school. There are almost three hundred Americans.”
“Three hundred? He said three
hundred
?”
hundred
?”
She nodded.
Hollis found himself holding the woman’s arm in a tight grip. “What else did Mr. Fisher say?”
“Nothing. He became ill. . . . They came for him. A Russian spoke to us in English, asking what the young man was saying. My husband replied in French, saying we spoke no English and could not understand the Russian or the young man.”
“Did the Russian believe your husband?”
“I think so.”
Hollis released her arm. “Then perhaps you will be all right. But take the precaution of contacting your embassy. Tonight. In person. Not on the telephone. Then leave the country immediately.”
“I understand.”
“Good. Thank you,
madame.
”
madame.
”
She smiled weakly. “The boy borrowed from me two kopeks . . . he seemed a nice sort . . . and now . . . now he is . . . what? Dead?”
Hollis didn’t reply.
She shook her head. “What times we live in.” She walked away.
Hollis finished his drink, then made his way out of the lounge and into the corridor. He went to the south wing of the hotel and took the elevator down to the Zaryadye Cinema, which had just let out. Hollis mixed with the crowd in the lobby and exited the door that faced the Moskva River embankment. He followed a group down a flight of stairs that led to a passageway under the road.
Hollis walked through the long, tiled tunnel, watching his breath mist in the cool air, listening to the echoing footsteps around him. A few of the Russians glanced curiously at him. He recalled a time two years before when he’d first come to Russia. He’d had occasion to walk this underpass at night and had been impressed by the discovery that there was not a scrap of litter on the floor, nor a line of graffiti on the walls. Moreover, the citizens of Moscow walked without fear. He was still impressed, but two years had given him a broader perspective. The streets and subways were immaculate, but little else was. There was no fear of street crime, not because there was none, but because it wasn’t reported in the news. This was a society that thrived on good news, most of it manufactured.
Yet the average citizen’s own observations told him one thing, and the government told him another. Predictably, Soviet men and women developed frayed circuitry, jerking along through life believing neither their senses nor the newspapers, neither in themselves nor their leaders, neither in God nor their fellow man. It was a nation of illusion, delusion and collusion, a Potemkin village on a national scale, a place where men and women could disappear without a trace, and all evidence of their ever having existed would disappear with them. “I tried, Fisher. I tried.”
Hollis came to the end of the tunnel. He ascended the stairs and went out onto the pedestrian walk of the Moskvoretsky Bridge, over which he and Brennan had driven nearly an hour before. He walked about twenty yards onto the bridge and stopped. A fog rose off the Moskva below, and the ruby red stars of the Kremlin towers glowed spectrally through the mist. There may have been a fine rain falling, but Hollis had never been able to distinguish Moscow’s mist from its drizzle, and it didn’t matter.
Hollis turned up the fleece collar of his leather jacket. Moscow by night, Hollis had discovered, was unlike any other great city he’d lived in. You could walk the streets and squares of Moscow until dawn, as he’d done a few times, and never meet with an adventure or a misadventure. There were no public bars, no discos, no prostitutes, no street people, no nightlife. No all-night markets, no midnight movies, no midnight mass, no midnight anything. Most of the city was quiet by ten
P
.
M
., shut down by eleven, and the last taxis disappeared by twelve. All public transportation ceased at one
A
.
M
., and after that you were on your own, which was to say you were stranded.
P
.
M
., shut down by eleven, and the last taxis disappeared by twelve. All public transportation ceased at one
A
.
M
., and after that you were on your own, which was to say you were stranded.
There was one class of citizen, however, who stayed out until the last possible moment; and one of them, a young man of about eighteen, now approached Hollis. He carried a nylon Adidas bag and wore a cheap synthetic leather coat of three-quarter length. He had on American jeans, but his shoes were definitely Soviet. He spoke in good English with exceeding politeness. “Excuse me, sir, do you have a cigarette?”
“No, do you?”
“Yes.” The young man gave Hollis a Marlboro, lit it for him, and lit one for himself. The boy looked up and down the bridge. Hollis noticed a few other black marketeers observing the action. The youth said, “My name is Misha. I am pleased to meet you.” They smoked awhile. Hollis threw his unfinished cigarette off the bridge. Misha’s eyes followed it, then he turned to Hollis. “Do you see this end of the square?” Misha’s gesture took in the south end of Red Square, bordered by the Kremlin Wall, the back of St. Basil’s, the Rossiya, and the Moskva River. “That is where the German, Matthias Rust, landed his aircraft. I was here that day. What a sight it was.”
Hollis nodded. Rust’s landing spot had become part of the unofficial tour of Red Square. The average Muscovite, usually cynical by nature, had been captivated by the young man’s flight. The Soviet court gave him four years. Hollis, as an air attaché, had been inconvenienced by the fallout from that flight when some of his better contacts in the Red Air Force and Air Defense Ministry had been sacked. Nevertheless, as a pilot, Hollis could appreciate the young flier’s daring. Hollis thought that he would like to try something insane like that one day.
Misha said, “He flew for peace.”
“So did Rudolph Hess.”
Misha shrugged. “No politics. Economics. Do you have anything to trade?”
“Perhaps. What do you have, Misha?”
“I have unpressed black caviar. Three hundred grams. Very excellent. It is sixty dollars in the Beriozka. But I would trade it for a carton of American cigarettes.”
“I have no cigarettes on me.”
Misha looked around again, then said, “Well, forty dollars then.”
“It is against the law for us to deal in currency.”
Misha backed away. “Excuse me.”
Hollis grabbed his arm. “Have you been on the bridge all night?”
“A few hours. . . .”
“Did you see an American car on the embankment road about two hours ago?”
Misha drew on his cigarette. “Perhaps. Why?”
“It’s none of your business why.” Hollis pressed Misha against the bridge rail. “Do you want to make forty dollars, or do you want to swim in the river?”
Misha said, “I didn’t see the car myself. A friend told me he saw it. On the embankment road about two hours ago.”
“What sort of car?”
“He thought it was a Pontiac Trans Am. It had a rear spoiler. Dark color.”
“How did your friend know it was a Trans Am?”
“Magazines. You know. I give three dollars American or fifteen rubles for
Car and Driver.
Same for
Track and
—”
Car and Driver.
Same for
Track and
—”
“Did your friend see where the car went?”
“The Rossiya.” Misha added, “Then a strange thing happened. They hurried over to the Rossiya to see the car and to talk to the driver who they saw in the car—a young man—maybe American. But as they got to the Intourist wing, they saw the car going up Razin Street, away from the Rossiya, with two older men.”
“Two Russians?”
“Two Russians.” Misha hesitated, then said, “The type with closed faces. You know what I mean?”
“Yes. Did you or your friends notice anything else unusual tonight?”
“Yes. About an hour ago. I myself and everyone here saw a blue Ford Fairlane going very fast over the bridge. A cop was chasing it, but the bastard never had a chance. Those Fords can move on the straightaway. The American embassy uses them. Are you from the embassy? Was that your car?”
Hollis turned and walked back toward the underpass. Misha followed. They went down the steps, and Hollis handed Misha two twenty-dollar bills. Hollis said, “I’ll take the caviar.”
Misha reluctantly took the tin of caviar from his gym bag and handed it to Hollis. Misha said, “I’ll give you three more tins and an ancient Russian cross for your jacket.”
Hollis put the caviar in his pocket and said in Russian, “Go home, Misha, and never come back to this bridge. The men with closed faces will be asking about you.”
Misha’s eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open.
Hollis climbed to the top of the stairs and walked back to the bridge. He crossed it on foot, aware of the stares of the other entrepreneurs. Capitalism, Hollis thought, like sex, was hormonal; it existed on the Moskvoretsky Bridge and behind St. Basil’s, a stone’s throw from the Kremlin. It existed around every hotel and every farmer’s market throughout Moscow, in small isolated cells that might one day spread and weaken the whole state. Like communism in czarist Russia, capitalism was the new subversive ideology.
Hollis walked out onto Ordynka Street, working out in his mind a Metro route that would get him back alive.
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