Requiem For a Glass Heart (32 page)

A
FTER
K
RUPATIN LEFT
, I
RINA REMAINED ON HER BED STARING
out at the armada of clouds still sailing into the city from the coast. With the rising light they had changed from ash to pale blue, their edges tinged with peach from the sun, which was still on the far side of them.

Her first impulse was to run. That was her first, primitive, gut reaction to her situation. Flight. But it had been a long time, a very long time, since Irina had acted on her first impulses. She had learned to suppress them, learned to disobey them, to defy them. Everything had been subordinated to necessity, to Félia’s survival. It was amazing what you could accomplish when faced with calamity. You began to think seriously about achieving the impossible; you began planning for the absurd as though it were an expected commonplace. You began to believe in miracles as regular occurrences.

So it was with her now. Everything in her was screaming that the circumstances surrounding this operation had gotten out of hand. Every time she turned around, another person, another contact entered the picture. But she thought of Félia and adjusted her plans once again. Where caution and creativity had served her well in the past, she now would have to rely almost entirely on creativity.

After bathing and drying her hair, she wrapped herself in
the robe again, ordered breakfast, and ate it in her bedroom overlooking the city. When she had finished her pastries and black coffee, she unfolded an ironing board and began pressing one of the two outfits she had worn alternately each day since she had left London for Paris and Palermo. Then the doorbell chimed. She knew exactly who it was. She walked through to the living room, went to the front door, and looked out the peephole, confirming her guess. Tucking her robe more tightly around her waist, she opened the door.

“I’m surprised it took you this long,” she said.

Izvarin’s smile, fluffed to its most charming in anticipation of meeting this mystery woman of Krupatin’s, imploded the instant he recognized Irina…He gaped at her, speechless, too stunned even to recover.

“Close your mouth and come in,” Irina said with weary insolence as she backed away from the door.

Izvarin recovered enough to move forward into the room, and as Volkov followed him in, his eyes lingered on her, she thought, a little longer than might have been expected. He did not seem so shocked to see her. But then, Volkov was not given to Izvarin’s emotional displays.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you,” Izvarin said, turning around in the middle of the living room, still in the process of recovery. He managed to begin another smile. “I didn’t know you … that it was you who was coming. Sergei didn’t say.”

“Are you feeling a little in the dark?” she asked.

Izvarin’s brave new smile crumpled. He didn’t know precisely how to respond. If he said no, she would ask him to explain what was going on, and since he didn’t know and she might know, he would be a fool to try to finesse a response. If he said yes, he would be admitting he didn’t have a clue what was going on.

“What do you mean?” he asked. His situation was pitiful.

“Sergei is not going to join us here at this hotel,” she said flatly. “He is going to remain inaccessible.”

“Inaccessible!” Izvarin was stunned, even alarmed.

“He is going to communicate with you only through me,” she added, “and he said to tell you that you might have to wait several days before he will have any instructions for you.”

“When did you speak with him?” Izvarin stammered.

“I spoke with him this morning.”

“By telephone?”

“Personally.”

“Here?”

“It does not matter,” she said. “That is all I am supposed to tell you.”

Izvarin stared at her. Volkov said nothing.

“I find this impossible to believe,” Izvarin said. “Impossible—that he would communicate with us solely through you … Shit!”

“Why?”

“Why! You’re a damn junkie, that’s why!”

She settled her eyes on him, her calm demeanor calculated to make him uneasy. She said nothing. Silence was always difficult for Izvarin.

“Two things,” she said finally. “One, we need to talk elsewhere. Two, I have to buy clothes. That’s where I’m going right now. I am taking Valentin’s girlfriend with me. Why don’t you follow us around? At a distance. When I want to talk to you, I will let you know. I will beckon to you, and you can come trotting over.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am serious.”

Izvarin’s face reddened with indignation. He didn’t know whether she was toying with him or Krupatin had indeed arranged this. He gambled. At great cost he managed yet another smile, an uncomfortable one that he must have hoped would portray a confidence he clearly was not feeling.

“Irina, I hope you know what you are doing,” he said. “If you want to talk to me, leave a message.” With as much assurance as he could muster, he walked out of the suite.

Volkov did not follow Izvarin. His stolid frame seemed rooted to the Persian rug in front of the fireplace. His thin lips and gray complexion accorded with his somber expression. He studied her with his round black eyes.

“You did speak with Sergei?” he asked.

She nodded. “This morning.”

“We are to wait to hear from him—through you.”

“That was what he told me to tell you.”

“And Stepanov?”

“The same.”

Volkov nodded, seeming to want to hear more.

“Frankly,” Irina said, “I know nothing more than you. This is Sergei’s forte, you know.”

“Yes,” Volkov said without expression, “I know.” He looked at her for another moment, and she wondered with a slight flutter in her stomach if Bontate had already spoken to him. Was he trying to decide if he should say something to her now? Then the moment passed, and he turned and walked out the door too, pulling it closed behind him without looking back.

Irina stood in the middle of the room with her arms crossed. Then, stepping over to the telephone, she called Stepanov’s room.

Stepanov answered.

“This is Olya Serova,” she said.

There was a long pause. Then he said, “Hello. I recognize your voice, even though it’s been a long time. I’m surprised to hear from you.”

“I just spoke to Nakhimov and Bykov,” she said. “Nakhimov is upset.”

“Really.”

She couldn’t read him very well. In many ways he was more difficult to deal with than Izvarin. Stepanov had been running the American enterprise a long time. That kind of independence, away from Krupatin, had instilled a lot of confidence in him. His paranoia was in much better control than Izvarin’s.

“The main office is going to be sending instructions to you through me. I will pass them on as soon as I know what they are.”

“Mmmm. More surprises.”

She didn’t respond to that. “Did your friend Catherine tell you that we talked last night?” “She did.”

“I would like to speak to her.”

Stepanov hesitated. “When do you expect to hear from the main office?”

“It may be a couple of days.”

“Really? That long?” He paused. “Okay.”

She heard him lay down the telephone and say, “It’s Olya Serova.”

The fact that none of them knew what they were doing there was working on each of them in different ways. Blind
operations were not unheard of, but none of them had ever been involved in blind operations in America. That was different. America’s law enforcement agencies were second to none, except for Israel’s, and no one liked going against them blind.

Krupatin had put them all in a very precarious position, and the way he was handling his information did nothing but foster suspicions among them. And as always he knew exactly what he was doing. That, as much as anything, was what worried all of them the most.

T
HEY TOOK A TAXI AND WENT STRAIGHT TO THE
G
ALLERIA AND
began shopping. Cate watched Irina with fascination. With no hesitation she quickly identified the most exclusive shops, and with little contemplation she selected the fabrics, colors, and styles that suited her best. The first thing she did was buy a new suit to wear, asking the clerk to throw away the one she had worn in. When she asked for alterations, she told the seamstress why she wanted them made and exactly where and how to make them. She agreed to pay outrageous fees to have the alterations made within a few hours. It was clear she was used to having no financial restrictions whatsoever.

They went from shop to shop, making what seemed to Cate to be quite specific purchases. Often Irina would walk in and mention a style or a designer name or a color, and if the store had nothing along those lines she would walk out. Yet even though she shopped with precise preconceptions of what she wanted, she seemed to do this in an offhand manner, not looking in the windows, never stopping to examine something that might catch her eye unexpectedly, never browsing with a vague yearning for something to surprise her. And she never asked Gate’s opinion, as other women often did, either out of curiosity or from a desire for confirmation. Rather, she shopped as though she were completing an assignment, an
assignment that she was repeating from other times, other cities, other countries. This was simply a variation on a theme with which she was intimately familiar.

Cate noticed something else as well. None of the fabulous clothes she was buying ever seemed to delight her on purely aesthetic grounds. Though she chose her clothes with an artistic eye, she seemed to take none of the artist’s pleasure in what she was doing. Her taste was unfailingly accurate—even the women who waited on her were clearly delighted to find someone with such sure and correct opinions about what was best for her particular features. But there was no satisfaction in the process, no appreciation of the beauty of the clothes she was acquiring. She knew they were beautiful, but it was a cognitive recognition, not an emotional one.

When they finished in the Galleria, around two o’clock, they had not yet stopped for lunch. Cate suggested Cafe Annie, near the Palm Court, where there were even more exclusive shops if Irina wished to continue shopping.

Even though they arrived well after the height of the lunch hour, the trendy restaurant was still quite full. Irina’s striking appearance demanded the instant attention of the maitre d’, and when she asked for a table with as much privacy as possible, she got it without question. Heads turned as they made their way to their table, and though Cate had been feeling increasingly dowdy as the morning progressed, she now realized she no longer had to worry that anyone would notice. Irina was the one who made the herd raise their heads from grazing as she made her way across the restaurant.

Irina refused the chair the maitre d’ offered her, the one from which it was easiest to see the others in the room and that best allowed the others to see her. Instead she politely sat where a column would obscure not only her view but her face. The maitre d’ was crestfallen. Irina and Gate ordered wine and a light lunch, and for the first time since they had left the hotel, Irina allowed her green eyes to settle on her companion. Her face softened.

“These shopping frenzies happen to me more frequently than I like,” she said, seeming to want to explain the unusual morning. “My business often requires quick trips for which I have no opportunity to pack or plan. I’ve shopped so often in unfamiliar cities that I seem to have developed a … a method of concentration that tunes out everything but the
task at hand.” She sipped her water and sighed. “I do appreciate that you saved me the time of hunting down the shops.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone buy so much in so short a time,” Cate said. “It looked fun.”

Irina tilted her head to the side and shrugged. “Not fun,” she said.

The wine arrived, and Irina asked the waiter to please open the bottle and leave it on the table without pouring. He did so and left. She poured for both of them.

“I’ve got to get these shoes off,” she said, and slipped her feet out of her heels and crossed her legs. “Prosit.”

They drank. The white wine was cold and dry. Irina studied Cate.

“You have very good taste in clothes,” she said. “That color is perfect for you. Auburn hair and your complexion are beautiful to work with. Soft colors, strong colors—both work if you know how to use them.”

“That’s nice of you to say.” Cate glanced away, suddenly uneasy at having the attention brought around to her. “I wish my budget allowed me to shop in the places we’ve been in today.”

Irina shrugged indifferently. “Well,” she said, “beautiful clothes are small comfort. In fact, they are no comfort at all. There are other things I would much rather have. These things, they are what I can have … so I have them.”

“What would you rather have?” Cate asked.

Irina looked up at her. Her face portrayed nothing at all of what she was thinking.

“A peaceful night’s sleep,” she said. “With no dreams. That would be a good beginning.”

Cate frowned quizzically.

“An odd thing to say?” Irina asked. “Yes, of course.” She sipped her wine, her eyes looking at the glass as she set it down on the table. “We know so little of each other—strangers. I almost have forgotten what it is like to have … well, a circle of friends.” She looked up. “‘Circle,’ is that what you say?”

“Yes,” Cate said. “A circle of friends.” There was a moment’s hesitation before she asked, “Why don’t you have a circle of friends?” Instantly she remembered she had been cautioned about asking questions and tried to negate the gaffe
by offering her own benign answer. “You travel too much, I suppose.”

“Yes,” Irina agreed, nodding. “Too much travel. That is exactly the reason, much too much travel.”

Their lunch arrived very quickly, and they conversed about inconsequential things while they ate. At least, they seemed inconsequential at first blush. It was nonetheless curious. If Cate had been cautioned against asking too many questions, Irina evidently had no such reservations. She kept up a steady string of queries throughout the meal. At first Cate was tense, cautious, thinking that Irina was testing her, fishing to catch her up or hoping to hear a false note in her responses. Then after a while it seemed that Irina’s questions were merely one woman’s interest in another woman’s life. She seemed to be searching for a similarity of experience, some grounds of commonality. Once Cate realized this, Irina’s questioning actually took on an unexpected poignancy. Suddenly it struck Cate as a revelation: this woman was, as Ometov had claimed, simply lonely.

Irina pushed away her plate before her food was half eaten, losing interest in it. She poured another glass of wine.

“Tell me,” she said, leaning forward, forearms on the table, her hands resting lightly on the stem of the wineglass, “what is your interest in Stepanov? If that is not too rude a question. Excuse me when I say that … Really, you are so attractive, this is your city, where you must have many friends—how can you be interested in Valentin, who it is clear to see is no romance idol?”

The question could have stopped with the first terse sentence. And if it had, Gate’s response might well have betrayed an uncertainty. But Irina’s elaboration gave her a moment to gather her wits.

“You are a beautiful woman yourself,” she said, “and yet you tell me you are lonely. How do you explain that?”

“I told you, I travel too much.”

“And I don’t travel enough. There’s not so much difference when you think about it.”

Irina looked at her for a moment. She was not about to be stopped with a clever riposte.

“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand that. I don’t see it as the same thing at all.”

Cate was preparing to make another run at it when Irina spoke again.

“Do you have a child?”

A child? Wouldn’t one normally ask, do you have children? Or do you have any children? The singular noun gave Gate her clue. She wiped her mouth with her napkin, taking her time, and picked up her own wineglass and drank before she answered, hoping to portray reluctance.

“I have a daughter,” she said.

Irina’s eyes reflected a spark of excitement, which she immediately brought under control.

“A daughter? Really? How old is she?”

Cate was grateful that their conversation had not turned to this earlier, when Irina might have revealed the existence of her own daughter. This “coincidence” of daughters would work only if it came from Cate’s direction first.

“She’s three.”

Irina stared at her, unable to hide her excitement now. “Three … oh God, so young. Does she live with you?”

“Yes, she does. She’s with my parents right now, of course, for a few days.”

“Yes?” Irina was still staring. “I have a daughter too,” she said eagerly, bringing one hand up and placing it flat on her chest. “She is five years old. Not so much different from yours. I remember so well when she was three.”

Cate smiled. “You must miss her when you travel.”

The animation subsided from Irina’s face. “Yes, I miss her terribly.” She shook her head. “But she does not live with me anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” Gate said. “You’re divorced too, then?”

Irina shrugged. “Something like that.” She grew serious and turned and looked at the few tables she could see from where she was sitting. Her manner seemed to indicate that she wanted to change the conversation almost as abruptly as she had seized upon it.

“Listen,” she said, turning suddenly back to Gate. “You don’t know what you are doing with this Stepanov.”

“What?”

“You haven’t known him long, you said.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, you don’t know what it is you are getting into with him.”

“I’m not getting into anything,” Gate said.

“Oh, yes, you are.” Irina leaned forward again. “I can guess. You probably met him at a club, a hotel bar, wherever business people go for drinks after work. You struck up a conversation. He was a foreigner. That is interesting. Russian? Really? Even more interesting. He buys you several drinks. Why not? After a few, he offers to take you out to dinner. Well … okay, why not? During the meal, maybe over more drinks, he makes a polite pass at you. Very polite. You laughingly brush him off. He drops the subject. A few more drinks. Again he brings up the subject. What if you slept with him just this once? What harm could come of it? He knows you are not a prostitute, but he is lonely, so very lonely. He travels so much. No, you say. Sorry, really. Look, he says, what about … what if you slept with him just this one time, and he gave you two thousand dollars. No, three thousand dollars. You laugh. Cash, he says. That’s ridiculous, you say. No, please, he says. He understands. What about four thousand dollars?” Irina paused and looked at Cate. “It was something like that, I would guess.”

Cate studied her. Jesus. She looked down at her drink again.

“Look,” Gate said. “This is the only time in my life I’ve ever done something like this. I’m not a prostitute, for God’s sake.”

“No, no,” Irina protested, and she reached out and placed one of her long hands on Gate’s. “I understand all too well. He probably pays you more money for one night than you can make in one or two months. And after all, what is going to bed with someone? It’s not like you are selling your soul. People do that, even with people they have just met. A fling.”

Cate looked at her and shook her head. “I can’t turn down that kind of money. It’s a hell of a lot of money. No one knows. This guy’s a total stranger. I can make fifteen thousand dollars the five days he’s in town. I don’t care where the money comes from. I don’t have a dime in savings. My ex-husband hasn’t sent me a single dollar in over a year.”

Irina squeezed Gate’s hand, leaning forward over her glass of wine. From a distance they were two well-heeled Houston wives, gossiping.

“Listen to me,” Irina said, almost pleading. “I know what
you are saying. This man is experienced with women such as yourself. He seeks out and understands vulnerability. If he were blind and could not see it, he could smell it on your breath. But I am telling you …” She looked at Cate, her words stopping just behind her teeth, her face betraying her temptation to say more than she knew she should. She let go of Cate’s hand and sat back, looking at her.

“Look, let’s drop the subject,” Cate said. She smiled a little. “I appreciate …what you’ve said. I appreciate that you don’t judge me because of it. It’s good to have someone who understands, who knows what it’s like-—to be alone, to have the responsibility …”

She let her voice trail off, allowing Irina to fill in the rest with her own imagination. The conversation had taken a dramatically different turn from what Cate had expected, though it had been very much to her advantage. She did not want to deflect Irina from pursuing her
own
thoughts and interests, which so far had been advantageously revealing.

“How long has Valentin told you he will be in the city?” Irina asked.