Money for Nothing (7 page)

As he got to his feet he said, "Thank you. I hope I haven't taken time from a patient."

"This is my lunchtime," she said. "And for you, too."

"Lunch and work," he said. "Thank you for the prescription."

THEY'D NEVER GOTTEN MORE THAN the standard TV channels for the apartment in New York — out in Fair Harbor these days, Eve wallowed in the luxury of a dish — because they'd never thought of themselves as people who stayed indoors to watch television. Once Jeremy came along, it looked as though they might have to rethink that, but inertia had so far won the battle, so these evenings, alone with his AK-47s, he didn't have much choice in his TV-watching.

But he really did want to watch TV. In the first place, if he didn't fill his evenings with moving pictures, no matter of what, he'd get bored out of his mind, alone here in this little apartment. And in the second place, waiting for Mr. Nimrin to make contact — and knowing he might never make contact — would be completely unbearable if he didn't have something to distract himself.

Which is why, at ten that evening, still having no word from Mr. Nimrin, he roamed restlessly among the channels available to him and at last settled on a news-magazine program, mostly because it seemed to be the only thing on offer without a laughtrack. The first segment was about advances in geriatric health care, which, along with the attendant commercials for denture glue and worse, made it pretty clear what demographic he had now fallen among. All right, go ahead; those earnest white-coated people speaking to somebody just off Josh's right shoulder were at least soothing.

Harriet Linde had been soothing today, hadn't she? He guessed she must be a very good psychoanalyst, the way she almost casually diagnosed his immediate problem and went about treating it. And she was exactly the kind of very strong person that Mr. Nimrin needed, who would never invade his privacy and who would never ask more of him than he was capable of giving. And he would treat her with the same distant respect.

Sooner or later, I guess, he told himself, we all find the right person out of the five billion. Or most of us do. Like Eve and me.

I am being, he next told himself, bored into philosophy. Cut it out.

So he focused on the television set, where they had gone into the second segment of their program, this one concerning the upcoming visit to New York City of someone called Fyeddr Mihommed-Sinn, the premier of Kamastan, one of the smaller shards created when the Soviet Union got smashed, yet another Stan in among the Stans. It seemed that Premier Mihommed-Sinn would be leaving Kamastan for the first time in his life, as a result of the Olympic gold medal won by its ace sprinter, Drogdrd Ozak, the first Kamastanian athlete ever to compete in the Olympics, much less win. Footage was shown, with the sprinter's name superimposed on the screen as Ozak sprinted by.

It had now turned out that Premier Mihommed-Sinn was a mad sports fan, who had almost died with elation when young Ozak had won the sprint. In the footage of the premier going about his official duties at home, he looked in fact very little like a man who would die with elation and very much like a man who would kill with impunity. Short, muscular, glowering, he looked mostly like the kind of super who disapproves of the way you handle your garbage.

A man who had never before seen a reason to leave Kamastan, the premier would fly to New York City now because his first-ever Olympic gold winner would be receiving a special United Nations medal at a ceremony in Yankee Stadium. Athletes and politicians from around the globe would be present at the event.

It was hoped, the announcer explained, that this trip would be the beginning of a thawing process between Premier Mihommed-Sinn and the rest of the world. He was considered the most despotic of the despots who ran the Stans, and was roundly hated both inside his country and without. That sports had been the way to melt his icy heart was considered a wonderfully hopeful sign all over the place.

Premier Mihommed-Sinn had received other invitations for his stay in America, to visit the White House and the United Nations and Universal Studios, but had turned them all down. He would fly in Kamastan Air Force One into JFK, with a planeload of bodyguards right behind him. He would spend a night at the Kamastan Mission to the United Nations on York Avenue, he would autocade to Yankee Stadium, he would take part in the ceremonies there, he would spend a second night at the Mission, and then he would sky homeward. Taking with him, it was hoped, a clearer gentler understanding of the outside world.

All of this would occur over this coming weekend. The premier would fly in on Friday the twenty-ninth of this month, spend that night at the Mission on York Avenue, attend the ceremony promptly at two on Saturday afternoon, and would then sky back to his lesser Heaven on Sunday. The Saturday afternoon events would be shown live on this channel beginning at one-thirty. Various sporting exhibitions would be a part of the festivities.

File footage was also shown of Premier Mihommed-Sinn reviewing some of the troops of his giant army. Apart from sports, his giant army was the only thing in the world the premier was known to love. These troops wore uniforms of a very dark green-brown, with black-and-red boards on the shoulders and red chevrons on the sleeves. Their military hats, with a longer hard brim and higher front peak than usual, made the tough faces under them look even tougher.

Josh gaped. The footage changed to Yankee Stadium, where a security expert talked about the extraordinary measures that would be taken to protect the world-hated premier during his visit, but Josh just went on gaping.

He knew.

TUESDAY HE DID GO INTO THE office again, where he wasn't much use to anybody, including himself. But he felt that he ought to keep up his regular schedule as much as possible, both to keep Levrin and his people lulled into believing everything was still all right with Redmont, and also as the best way to make it possible for Mr. Nimrin to get in touch. If Mr. Nimrin ever wanted to get in touch.

Mr. Nimrin
had
to want to get in touch! Josh was on the verge of blowing this whole thing up, out of nothing but blind fear and maddened panic. If there was a way to survive this mess without a whole panoply of bloodshed and madness, Mr. Nimrin would know it. Mr. Nimrin, it seemed to Josh, was a survivor. The thing to do was stand next to Mr. Nimrin.

But where
was
he? Hadn't Harriet Linde told him the state Josh was in? And yet, nothing all day Tuesday. He didn't particularly want a taxi home tonight, would have been happy to walk, clear his head, but since Mr. Nimrin had used a cab to make contact that first time, Josh — with difficulty — hailed one again today, and rode all the way home alone.

But he wasn't alone once he got there. He walked in his front door into the living room and this time, sitting on the sofa there, drink in hand, completely relaxed and at home, was not Levrin with his scotch and water but a very lanky long-haired brunette in a silver sheath, holding in one hand a tall champagne glass he recognized as one of his own, containing no doubt champagne. Yes; there on the coffee table, atop a Tweety potholder, was their white ceramic ice bucket, with an opened champagne bottle angled up out of it, very like, he suddenly noticed, a howitzer out of a fort.

This woman, who might be thirty in a minute or two, rose when he came into the room, and was very tall indeed, probably six foot three, at least an inch taller than Josh, and about a hundred pounds lighter. Her nearly black hair fell in long folds to frame a long but delicately beautiful face and to brush her bare shoulders as she moved. Her smile was frank, but not quite suggestive. "You are Josh Redmont," she said, with a charming hint of accent.

He almost said,
I'm married
, but a more appropriate moment for that statement would arrive eventually, he was sure. So all he said was, "Yes, I am. I live here."

"It is a charming little apartment," she told him. "I am Tina Pausto. I am to be billeted with you for a while."

"Billeted? You're moving in?"

"Andrei Levrin thought," she told him, "you would be too lonely here, without your family. As the day approaches, you see, we must all concentrate. You will forgive me if I say nothing about the operation itself."

"Sure," he said, because she didn't
have
to tell him anything about the operation itself. He already knew far too much about the operation itself.

With a graceful gesture, and a slight dip of the knee, she said, "Would you join me? Champagne at vespers."

An empty glass stood on the coffee table beside the ice bucket. Josh looked at it, looked at the half-full glass in Tina Pausto's hand, and said no, thank you. Or that's what he thought he was saying, but what he heard was, "Yes, thank you."

She did a perfect bunny dip, emphasizing her breasts by not displaying them, and poured him half a glass, then topped up her own, then, as the bubbles receded, topped up his. As she put the bottle back into the icebucket and he reached for the glass, their arms did an intertwining thing, all in motion, never quite touching, that Josh found stunning, as though he'd just entered some sort of electric field. Like those science fiction movies where people shimmer through doorways because they're entering a different dimension.

Well, he didn't
want
to enter a different dimension. Levrin and Mr. Nimrin had him in trouble enough, with the FBI and no doubt the CIA and all the police departments of the world, and the giant army of Kamastan, and who knew who all; he wasn't going to let them get him in trouble with Eve.

So, as Tina Pausto resumed her place on the sofa, gesturing for him to join her there, he stayed on his feet. He said, "How many people are going to live here now?"

"Just we two, at present," she said. "When you go away for the weekend, others may drop by."

To suit up, no doubt. Desperate to quantify the dangers that surrounded him, and even eliminate one or two of them if possible, he said, "Are you supposed to sleep with me?"

She raised an eyebrow at him, with the faintest of smiles, as though he were guilty of some breach of politesse, as though he'd raised a topic that would not have been voiced in gracious company. "That was not discussed," she said.

"Well, where
are
you going to sleep?"

"Wherever we decide," she told him. "The apartment is small, but not
that
small. I'm sure the living arrangements will sort themselves out."

She
was
supposed to get him into bed! To keep his loyalty, to interrogate him when he was befuddled, for whatever reasons spies had when they employed femme fatales.

Damn damn damn. If he were tired of Eve, or if he were by nature an unfaithful kind of guy, what a hell of a week he could have before the shit hit the fan.

But, no. "Maybe that sofa'd be okay," he said, nodding at it.

She patted the cushion beside her hip. "Very comfortable, I should think," she said, not as though she believed it, and the phone rang.

Josh leaped like an adulterer. "That's my wife! She calls every—" In motion, he said, "I'll take it in the bedroom."

"I shall not listen in," she assured him, and he ran to the bedroom, shutting the door, thinking that it hadn't even occurred to him that she
might
listen in.

"Eve—"

"Barnes and Noble," Mr. Nimrin's voice said. "Broadway and Sixty-fifth Street. An author reading on the third floor at seven P.M."

"But—" Josh said to the dial tone, then broke the connection and, before he could think about it, speed-dialed the Fire Island number.

"Yes?"

"Eve, it's me, I couldn't wait to talk to you."

"Just a minute, I'm feeding him. Hold on."

"Should I call back?"

"No no, we're almost done. Damn! Oh, that's all right, sweetie, Daddy never liked that plate anyway."

"Our damage deposit," Josh said, "is going to look like the far end of a Ponzi scheme."

"There!" she said. "Just a little cleanup…"

Josh heard water running, a baby crying, more water, more baby, then just baby, then receding baby, then door closing. Not slamming, closing. But forcefully.

"
There
! How are you?"

"Things are getting worse around here, to tell the truth," he said. "I'll give you the ugly details on Friday."

"Should I come back for a day? I could leave Jer—"

"No no, that's fine," Josh said, preferring to describe his new roommate to Eve from afar on the weekend than have her see Tina Pausto in situ and in the flesh. "What's going on out there, anyway?" he asked, because it was always possible to change the topic to the latest beach gossip.

They chatted a few minutes, about nothing at all. During it, Josh fervently wished that nothing at all was all they could possibly chat about, and when they were finished, winding down, he said, "Tomorrow, I'll wait for you to make the call."

"That is better," she said.

"Love you."

"Love you."

In the living room, Tina Pausto, like her predecessor on that sofa, sat leafing through the
New Yorker
. Josh said, "I have to go out for a while. You'll take care of your own dinner?"

She gave him a comfortable smile. "I am very self-sufficient," she assured him. "Like a cat."

THIS POSTER-STYLE SIGN rested on an easel beside the ground-floor escalator. Josh rode up, the bookstore becoming more open to him as he rose, with a few dozen customers visible, none of them apparently here for Volume VII of the Farbender Netherbender Series.

It was a little trickier to find the next escalator, and then there he was on 3, where a more generic poster read AUTHOR READING with an arrow. Josh followed the arrow to a corner of the building, where the late summer twilight showed Broadway beyond the windows. Within, a carpeted lecture area had been constructed. Within an L of bookshelves about thirty wooden chairs faced a lectern beside a small desk, on which hardcover books were stacked, their spines all reading
ENCHANTRESS
in large letters, and on a second line
of Nyin
in smaller letters, and then some even smaller letters that were presumably the author's name.