The Folks at Fifty-Eight (28 page)

Sarah and the blonde began dancing together in the lounge, but as the dancing became more intimate Angela, flustered, returned to the balcony. Behind her, she heard the sounds of passion. The girl was dominant; that excited her. Sarah was obviously in ecstasy; that brought back the trembling. When Angela heard the girl boast of having her next, the trembling became uncontrollable.

He asked if the thought of making love to a woman had excited her more than the act. She scoffed. It hadn’t been love, or even the pretence of love. It had been sex: raw, uninhibited sex. That was why she had been so helpless to resist. She said she had never felt such a surge of sexual adrenaline before, but when the two women came out to the balcony, she saw them smile and realized what a fool she had been. They had obviously planned this from the start.

She felt angry and cheap and ashamed. She got to her feet. She told them they were scheming bitches. She pushed them away. She picked up her handbag. She started to walk.

But refusal hadn’t been an option. Strong hands pulled her back into the apartment and dragged her to the floor. They held her still, while more hands stripped away her clothing. She blushed as she recalled her embarrassment and trepidation and excitement. The bitches had made such a meal of it.

She tried to get up, but their hands were everywhere, restraining and caressing, grasping and fondling. A tongue forced her lips apart and began exploring her mouth. More lips nuzzled at her ears and neck, and then moved to kiss her breasts, delivering her to that gentle world of delirium and pleasure she had always craved. She looked up and saw the blonde smile down in gloating triumph, while mischievous fingernails traced erogenous patterns across her belly and down. She gasped and jolted in response to each deliciously sadistic twist and turn, and then whimpered in shame and anticipation as commanding fingers gripped and lifted her buttocks.

Angela Carlisle couldn’t help herself and she couldn’t stop them. She closed her eyes, and spread her legs, and let them have her. It was as shameful and vulgar and disgusting as that, but it was also the most electrifying sexual experience she had ever known.

They took turns with her for most of that night, and she took turns with them, because she had never before felt so brazen and irresponsible and marvellous, and truly, truly, liberated.

Then, around a week later, Sarah came to see her. Apparently, someone else had been there.

She shuddered as she recalled the first time she saw the photographs. Sarah told her that she and the blonde were through. She said the girl wanted two thousand dollars for the negatives. She said Cat wasn’t a Danish name; she worked at the Russian Embassy.

Alan Carlisle stated the obvious.

“And that was when a little Danish dyke called Cat turned out to be a Katya, or Katinka, or Katerinka, or something equally unfeline and bloody Soviet, and equally bloody dangerous.”

Angela nodded. When Sarah claimed not to have the money, the girl said Angela was rich. She would have to pay, because Alan was an important man at the State Department.

Sadder and wiser, Angela Carlisle met the blonde in the park. She couldn’t believe the unfeeling woman who took her money was the same girl.

The blonde handed over the prints and negatives and walked away. Angela burned them when she got home. She put it down to experience. She thought that would be the end of it.

“For Christ’s sake, Angela, talk about naïve! Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“I hadn’t seen you for days. We weren’t even speaking.”

“God! What a mess.”

“You look tired.”

“Exhausted. I haven’t slept for three days.”

She nodded and said he should get some sleep, but when she asked to see the photograph he shook his head. He said a girl had bumped into him in the hotel. She took his wallet. The photograph was inside. He said the wallet was returned, minus the photograph. He assumed the girl worked for Paslov. Paslov wanted to see if he would make a fuss. If he called the police, it would mean he didn’t care about people seeing the photograph and wouldn’t bow to blackmail. When he’d said nothing, it told Paslov that he had a new informant in the State Department.

“In many ways you have to admire him. He’s a clever man.”

“He’s an evil bastard.”

“For anyone to survive around people like Stalin and Beria, I guess they’d have to be.”

He looked guilty. She asked why. He said Paslov had said something about Mathew.

Angela felt her heart suddenly stop.

“What about Mathew?”

Alan Carlisle moved to the coffee machine, poured another cup, and began to explain.

He said Mathew had called and told him that he had met a girl in Paris, someone special. They wanted to go skiing. They needed money. He had wired the money, because he assumed Mathew had meant skiing in the French Alps: Meribel or Val D’Isere or somewhere sensible.

When he didn’t receive any further contact from Mathew, he called a colleague, who checked into it. Mathew and the girl had taken a flight to Austria, but disappeared after arriving in Vienna. He assumed they’d gone skiing in the Tyrol.

Angela didn’t understand. How could they just disappear? Surely Vienna was one of the safest and most civilized cities in Europe? He said it used to be, but the occupying forces had sectionalized it, much the same as Berlin. The city was in a state of flux. Worse still, although the British ran the airport, the Soviets controlled the surrounding area. When Paslov showed him the photograph, Carlisle said he wouldn’t betray his country for anything, least of all blackmail. However, when he started to walk away Paslov said something else. He said Angela having lesbian sex must have made a refreshing change from incest.

Angela blurted an explanation she didn’t believe.

“He was bluffing, he had to be. He couldn’t possibly have known about that. Somebody obviously saw how tactile I was with Mathew. They can’t have any proof.”

“What if Mathew had told him, or, more likely, told the girl?”

“Mathew would never do that. He’d never tell a soul.”

A rare smile softened Alan Carlisle’s tired and anxious features. He said he had thought that, too, but then he remembered when they first met. He said he had been so in love with her, he’d told her secrets he wouldn’t tell another living person. He said that was the way love gets to you sometimes; especially when you’re still young and naive.

Angela’s mind was cluttered and racing. Why hadn’t he told her about Mathew as soon as he got home? Hadn’t Mathew been important enough? Was some stupid photograph more important to him than the life of their son? How could he be so selfish?

She could feel what little affection she held for her husband receding by the second. She assessed the sequence of events and broached another question.

“Why are they targeting us like this, Alan? They are targeting us, aren’t they? First me, and then you, and now Mathew. Why are they doing this to us?”

Carlisle said ex-Nazis were working for the West. Paslov wanted details of their identities and locations. He assumed they intended assassinating them.

Angela came to an instant decision. He had to give Paslov what he wanted. Carlisle shook his head and said he didn’t have that information. He knew the people. He spoke to them often enough, but always in secure environments. He didn’t know where they lived, when they were away from those environments, or the security measures in place. It wasn’t his responsibility.

Angela was panic-stricken. He had to find out. He had to give Paslov what he wanted. He said it would make him a traitor and result in murder. She scoffed. He wasn’t a traitor. Nobody cared more about America than him, but this was their son. Who cared if the lousy Russians killed a few more murdering Nazis?

He relented. He said, if they hadn’t heard from Mathew in a few days, he would visit Conrad Zalesie and try to get the information from him. Angela remembered the name.

“Conrad Zalesie? That name’s familiar.”

“He’s the head of the ATLI Corporation. He’s also been the linchpin and conduit for every important defection from Europe since we entered the war.”

“And he’ll have this information, the information you need?”

“He’s bound to have it. Whether I can get it from him is another matter.”

“Alan, we have no choice. Whatever it takes, we have to do it.”

“Gerald, it’s good to hear from you.”

“How are you keeping, Emma?”

“Fine, fine. You?”

Most of the ensuing conversation was small talk. He made a couple of tongue-in-cheek remarks about her social calendar. She congratulated him on his new job. Then he invited her for a drink. She asked why he was calling her, after so many months of not speaking, and reminded him of the last time they’d spoken. He had been less than polite and they’d parted acrimoniously. He refused to apologize. He said, after the way she had behaved, if anyone should apologize, it was her. She snorted, but she didn’t hang up.

He said he wanted to see her. He said he needed to ask her something, something important. He didn’t tell her what. When she asked, he said it was nothing to do with their relationship, but it was important. She sounded intrigued and asked again: why did he want to see her?

“I can’t talk on the phone. Meet you in the cocktail bar at the Washington, about an hour.”

He got to the Washington Hotel fifteen minutes early, ordered himself a large scotch, and her a martini with two olives. Then he sat and watched the people toing and froing, seeing them strut and posture, and remembering when he had been young enough and stupid enough to be impressed by such things.

She arrived on the dot, faultlessly made-up and dressed to the nines in a tight black skirt and dangerously high-heeled shoes. He watched her glide into the room and saw everything he had fallen in love with. The archetypal head-turning Washington socialite beauty, stylish and stunning, with that delicate arrogance which seemed to tower over would-be suitors and less fortunate rivals alike. He still loved her, he always would, but now something had changed.

He suddenly realized. It was the pain; the physical pain he had felt since returning from Europe to find her gone. That gnawing ache in his heart and his stomach that had hurt him so much whenever he saw her or thought about her; it was no longer there.

He stood up and waved to her and smiled a weak smile when she crossed the room to his table. The kiss on her cheek was dutiful.

“I got you a martini. Two olives. I assumed that was ok?”

“Yes, thanks.”

She eyed him suspiciously.

“That was all a little perfunctory.”

He grinned.

“Maybe I’ve come to terms with things. That was what you said you wanted, wasn’t it?”

“I suppose so.”

“Well, good. . . Come and sit.”

She sat down, but continued to eye him with that same suspicious look on her face.

“You’ve met someone, haven’t you, Gerald? I can tell. So, have you brought me here to tell me about her, or ask for a divorce, or both?”

“Neither. I wanted information, and I need your help.”

“Invitation or introduction?”

He didn’t smile.

“I want you to talk to Marcus Allum for me.”

“Is that all? I thought he was your friend. And didn’t someone tell me that you work for him nowadays?”

“Yeah, but we don’t talk much. I think he likes to keep me at arm’s length; channels and all that. Look, before I say anything else, I want your word that none of this will go any further.”

“Sure.”

“I mean it, Emma. This is serious. . . It could be dangerous.”

She stopped smiling.

“All right, Gerald. If it’s important, you have my word.”

“I want you to tell me if you know these people.”

He produced the photograph that Paslov had given to Carlisle. She studied it for a few seconds; her mouth open, her eyes shocked wide.

“Good God! I don’t know who the other two are but. . . No, wait a minute, yes I do. The one with the long hair is Sarah, Sarah Pearson: screaming lesbian, and a real aggressive bitch. I guess you already got that from the picture. She married some bible-thumping rake from Utah, or Pennsylvania, or somewhere out in bible-thumping land. He divorced her when he found out she’d tried it on with just about every good-looking player in Washington.” She gave a wicked laugh. “People used to say it wasn’t his wife’s flagrant infidelity annoyed the bible-thumping rake so much, it was because so many of his mistresses claimed she was better in bed than him.

“I haven’t seen her around for a while, but no surprise there; she did burn a few bridges. I have no idea who the blonde is, but the one getting all the attention is Angela Carlisle.”

“You mean Alan Carlisle’s wife?”

“If you’d ever gone to a single social function when we were together, you’d have known that. But yes; real miserable cow, and the last person you’d imagine as being up for this.”

Emma talked a little about Angela Carlisle, all of it defamatory, most of it unrepeatable. She asked about the photograph. He said he’d stolen it from Carlisle’s wallet. She grinned and called him a thief. He said he sent back the wallet and contents, minus the photograph, of course. When she asked why Carlisle had the picture, he spoke of the meeting with Paslov, and his belief that Paslov had used it to blackmail Carlisle.

“And does Carlisle know you’ve got it?”

“No, or I hope not. He thinks a girl stole it in the hotel lobby.”

“Why would he think that?”

“Because I nudged her into him, after I’d lifted the wallet.”

She eyed him again and he knew why.

This was a side of him he’d never shown her before. He had always treated her as a fragile ornament, wrapped in cotton-wool and protected from anything to do with the more violent or clandestine aspects of his work. All he had ever allowed her to see was a doting fool of a husband, and she had wanted so much more. He could see that now.