Requiem For a Glass Heart (29 page)

“No. That was the only thing Sergei and I ever agreed on. What I did was an absolute secret. He used me very precisely.” She paused. “I always suspected that one day he might want me to get rid of one of them. It was always in the back of my mind.”

Bontate nodded, his eyes falling thoughtfully back to the fleck of ash.

“I think we should talk to him,” he said. “To Volkov.”

She was taken aback, but she was cautious. “Talk to him?”

Bontate looked up. “I am not going to lie to you. I cannot get the child out of Russia. I can’t do it. But I have a feeling Volkov can.” He shrugged. “It seems we have a lot to offer one another, the three of us.”

I
N ORDER TO KEEP HER OWN GIN CONSUMPTION TO MANAGEABLE
proportions, Cate volunteered to mix their drinks. After making two or three trips into the living room and seeing no end in sight, she simply brought the gin and tonic and ice bucket into the bedroom—Stepanov did not want to leave the debugged room—and put them on a table near her chair, continuing to mix his drinks and giving them to him as he asked for them. Stepanov, who remained in his armchair, relished being waited on. It was the least of Cate’s concerns.

While her own glass sometimes contained nothing more than water, she mixed Stepanov’s to his specifications, which meant that his glass received only a token splash of tonic. A serious drinker, he showed no effects from this prodigious consumption except to grow ever more garrulous. His monologues turned to grousing about the impossible demands made on him by the FBI, about having to run Krupatin’s business in such a way that he did not arouse suspicion in Russia while at the same time he did not take advantage of criminal opportunities. Because he was now working for the FBI, he could not promote the actual growth of a criminal enterprise.

Sometimes he sounded like a businessman burdened with the complications of competition and personnel management.
The complaints were universal and mundane, the global language of commerce. Gate had to keep reminding herself exactly what it was he traded in and what kind of personnel he managed.

Stepanov stopped, looked at his glass, and drained the last of the gin in it. She wished she had counted the number of times he had done this.

“Maybe one more,” he said, the same words he had used the last three times.

Once more Gate stood, took his empty glass, refilled it, added ice, and stepped back to his chair to give it to him. So this was what an evening with a
mafiya
boss was like. She recalled the accounts she had read of life in Hitler’s Bavarian hideaway: hours and hours, days and days of monumental boredom.

But this time when she handed Stepanov his drink, he took the glass with his right hand, and his left arm reached out and encircled her hips. Lulled by the monotony of the last hour, she was caught off guard. He held her there, looking at her, not smiling, his big hand on her backside, the amount of warmth coming from it surprising her. Since he was seated, his face was on a level with her stomach. She stared down at him. Was he testing her, or had the volumes of gin convinced him he could charm her? She didn’t move. How did she handle this? How much liberty did her role require her to give him? She froze, trying to remember her objectives, trying to remember the advice.

Sliding his hand around her hips to the front of her robe, he took the edge between his second and third fingers and pulled it back until he had revealed her naked stomach and shaved crotch. She remained frozen, her disconcertion gradually subsiding into a perverse self-control. Let him look.

“Why a poppy?”

“My husband and I were drunk,” she said, determined to treat his little investigation with a kind of brassy insouciance. “Considering my condition, I’m lucky it wasn’t something grotesque.”

Stepanov grinned and nodded. “Well, you were lucky,” he said, and she could feel his breath on the tender flesh of her groin. “It’s a beautiful poppy.”

Then, slowly but deliberately, his face began to move toward the flower.

She reacted quickly, without thinking it through. She sank the fingers of her right hand into his thick hair, gripped it, and pulled back, stopping his face just as he touched her, pulling steadily until his eyes rolled up to her and his head was arched back, his neck taut. He frowned, surprised. She twisted her fingers in his hair, getting a better grip, and she could see his eyes beginning to water.

“I don’t think so,” she said firmly.

Instantly Stepanov dropped the edge of her robe, and his great hand shot up and grabbed her wrist, his grip violent, threatening. But she didn’t let go of his hair. They stared at each other. Her heart pounded as she saw the anger swimming in his eyes. She tightened her fingers in his hair, astonished at her own audacity.

“Let. Go. Of. Me,” she said slowly, evenly.

They glared at each other. Her eyes grew dry, but she didn’t blink. Stepanov’s mouth was rigid, and she knew that the only thing that kept him from knocking her across the room was the fact that she was an FBI agent. Banking on that protection, she twisted his hair until she thought it would come out by its roots. Suddenly he released her wrist, and she opened her fingers as he jerked his head away from her.

He said something in Russian; he spat it out as he ran his fingers through his hair. She didn’t give a damn.

Infuriated by her resistance, Stepanov quickly drank the glass of gin she had poured and then sat sullenly in silence. He didn’t ask for another drink, and after a while he got up from the armchair and slouched to the bed, where he untied his robe, dropped it on the floor, and crawled between the sheets naked. He never said another word to her. In a moment he was breathing heavily, asleep.

Relieved, Cate now made a strong drink for herself, turned out the light, and took the drink into the living room to be alone. Not bothering to turn on the lights here, she sat on one end of the sofa and looked out at the pale green illumination in the courtyard. The outdoor furniture looked lonely.

Jesus Christ. What a situation. What an incredible, bizarre situation. She thought of Stepanov’s sad boredom, and then she thought of Tavio. God, how she missed him. He was a man who could not abide the kind of tedium that Stepanov found so natural. How Tavio hated to be bored. He had been a restless, man, and she realized only after he was gone that
that was a large part of what she had loved about him. She remembered the time, shortly after they were married, when he was due back from an assignment of several months. She had been anticipating his return with mental images of the two of them lazing by the pool, taking in late movies, sleeping in, eating breakfast at eleven, lunch at three in the afternoon, and dinner whenever they felt like it.

It didn’t happen. When Tavio got into town, he already had the week planned out—a surprise, he said. Rising early the very next day, he leased a plane, and the two of them flew down into central Mexico. There, in a small town, they borrowed a jeep from a man Tavio knew from some former and vaguely described experience, and then they drove all day over dirt roads that grew increasingly less passable as they climbed up to a mountain village on the slopes of the Sierra Madre. They stayed one night in a primitive bungalow and early the next morning packed backpacks, picked up two guides, and began hiking. Tavio never told her what they were doing.

After hours of hiking, ascending steeply past ten thousand feet and then descending into a forested valley, they finally rounded a curve in the trail and stepped into yet another valley. A golden valley. The world suddenly became a vibrating, glittering, shuddering landscape of brilliant living gold. They had come to the winter home of the monarch butterflies, billions of them hanging like dripping honey from every botanical surface, even from the towering gray-green
oyamel
trees. It was a scene from a fairy tale. She had a picture in her mind, an indelible image, of Tavio standing amid this incredible assemblage, his arms outspread, covered with monarchs, little of him showing but his white teeth as he smiled. It was an unforgettable sight. It was a gift of inestimable value, a
recuerdo
of a restless man.

The memory faded, leaving her surprised all over again, leaving her longing for him anew, her anger at him confused and tempered and regretful. God, there was nothing comfortable about the man, leaving her with surprises even in his death, keeping her wondering even in memory.

She got up from the armchair and stood with her glass in her hand, not knowing what to do with herself. She thought of the naked Stepanov in the only bed. Where the hell was she going to sleep? A suite with one bed. She shook her head. It
didn’t matter anyway; sleep was not about to happen to her anytime soon.

She finished her drink and thought about mixing another. Idly she wandered over to the liquor cabinet to see if there was another bottle of gin. She was looking at the assorted bottles in the dim light when she was startled by a knock at the door. She stared at the door, at the thin seam of light at the bottom. She put down her glass and wiped her hands on a towel that was lying there. There was a second knock. Putting down the towel, she stepped over to a lamp and turned it on. Then she went to the door and opened it.

The woman was tall and blond and incredibly striking. Her skin was flawless, her lips were a deep, moist wine color, and her eyes were the exact, precise color of her emerald suit. Gate’s only thought was, why in the hell didn’t Ometov even mention her beauty?

“My name is Olya Serova,” she said. “I am sorry to bother you at this hour, but I would like to speak to Valentin.”

She held a small clutch bag of such a deep green as to be almost black. She stood with her weight on one leg, her hips canted slightly.

Cate backed away, opening the door. “He’s in the bedroom,” she said.

Irina walked into the suite and paused in the middle of the room, turning half around while Cate closed the door. Their eyes met, and in that moment Cate felt the woman take her in, all of her, without ever moving her eyes. She was an extraordinarily handsome woman, having not only the figure but also the graceful manner of someone used to being considered a remarkable beauty.

“You said he is in the bedroom,” Irina said.

“That’s right.” Cate nodded, gesturing with her hand to the room in front of her.

Irina looked at her, hesitated, though not apprehensively, and then walked to the half-open door and stepped in. She stopped, standing a few feet into the room, and looked at Stepanov on the bed. With her back to Cate she remained motionless for a moment, and then turned and came back into the room. She tucked the clutch bag under one arm and laced
the fingers of her hands together, her arms hanging down in front of her.

“He has passed out from drinking, hasn’t he? How long has he been like that?”

“A couple of hours.”

“Were you drinking with him?”

“I was watching him drink,” Gate said. “I’m just now starting. Would you care for something?”

Irina shook her head without hesitation, dismissively, and then she stopped. She looked at Cate, changing her mind in a split second.

“Please,” she said glancing at the liquor cabinet. “Whatever you are drinking.”

Cate returned to the liquor cabinet, a murmur of excitement stirring in her chest. She picked up a bottle of scotch— she didn’t want to go into the bedroom for the gin—poured some into two glasses, and turned and gave one to Irina, who had not been looking around the rooms as anyone might but was standing perfectly still, looking at Cate.

She took the glass and slowly held it up. “Prosit.”

They each drank.

Irina touched her tongue to her wine-red lips. “Who are you?” she asked.

“Catherine Miles,” Cate said, and put out her hand. Irina extended her long arm slowly, exploring Cate’s face and eyes for some clue as to the kind of woman she was. They shook hands.

“Have you known him long?” Irina asked.

“I’ve seen him several times during the past year,” Cate said. “I hardly know him.”

Irina smiled at this. She nodded and sipped her drink. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

“No, of course not,” Gate said, motioning to the sofa nearest the courtyard. “It’s good to have someone to talk to. I guess you work with Valentin.”

“We are business associates,” Irina said with an ironic smile.

“Russians.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Times have changed, haven’t they.”

“Oh, yes.” Another smile. Irina’s long legs were very much a part of her attractiveness. Her suit skirt was just
above the knee, and when she sat she crossed her legs in a way that made them seem even longer, entwining them. She laid the clutch bag on the sofa beside her. She looked around. “So what were you doing? Just watching him get drunk?”

Cate managed a smile. “Well, I was listening to him talk.”

“Really? But why weren’t you drinking too? You were just letting him get drunk without you? That seems odd.”

“I don’t like getting drunk.”

Irina’s green eyes widened in mild surprise. “I wouldn’t have thought Valentin would keep company with a woman who doesn’t like getting drunk.”

Cate shrugged and looked down.

“So what kind of things were occupying Valentin’s mind?” Irina asked.

“He seems unhappy.”

“Unhappy? Recently unhappy or generally unhappy?”

“Recently, I guess,” Cate said.

“And what is he unhappy about?”

“His work, I guess. It seems not to be going well.”

“Oh.”

“But I guess you’d know about that.”

Irina shook her head. “No. He lives in New York. I live in Brussels. We travel, see each other in London, Paris, Munich, but we come from different business involvements. I don’t know about his troubles. What kind of complaints did he have?”