Requiem For a Glass Heart (42 page)

It took a moment for Gate to absorb these ceremonial elements, the colors, the architecture, the textures of the polished stone and glass, the fragrance of flowers, the clear voice of the German lyric soprano—was she singing Schubert? Schumann?—the piano’s notes, clean, sharp, sad. It was an extraordinary orchestration of sensations that surprised and captivated her.

When the inevitable happened, when she felt the Asian undressing her from behind, she remembered what Irina had said about Cate’s nervousness being an enticement to him. She would not pretend to be other than she was. When the Asian turned her around, he was already undressed and was speaking Chinese to her, softly.

As he removed her clothes she looked at him—she couldn’t help it—and saw that his body was as flawless as his face. Even his erection, which she had dreaded confronting, was startlingly attractive in its proportions. It was in no way offensive, and, to her even greater consternation, was in fact wonderfully and appealingly erotic.

He dealt with her gently, surprised and intrigued by her tattoo and absence of hair. When they turned around again, Irina was lying on the elliptical red stone, her naked, extraordinary body reflected in its highly polished surface, her buttery hair undone. Her beauty was displayed in this imaginative setting as though it had been designed exactly for her, and the visual composition of what Cate saw caused her to take a quick breath.

In this moment she realized how she had deluded herself. This was no place for reason, no place for control, no place for discipline or restraint. Nor was this a moment that could sustain convention. Though Cate did not understand it, though she had never sought or experienced it, she could not refuse the attraction that she felt for what she saw on the scarlet stone. Irina was irresistible—to man or woman.

If Cate had resolved to be responsible for her own actions, she realized now, then she had no one to blame for her abandon. Time condensed. It expanded. At times a single sensation—a fragrance, a taste, a tactile experience—seemed to last endlessly and be of such intensity that it engulfed her, and she became entirely, wholly that sensation, to the exclusion of all others. At other times she was overwhelmed by an engagement of all her senses at once, tasting, hearing, smelling, feeling, seeing, so many sensations in so short a time that she could think of the experience only as an explosion—perhaps an implosion—of heightened erotic sensibility. She was helplessly aware of her unraveling emotions, of a profound spiritual havoc.

The soprano’s voice was limpid and melancholy, as though coming from the distant ether.

The piano notes fell gracefully, dreamily, like diamonds through leagues of clear water.

The grapes in the bowl of fruit were large and purple and dusted with bloom, and it was only because of Wei’s complete pleasure in Catherine’s body that Irina had the time to utilize them for one of Wei’s favorite gratifications.

She had taken the bacteria capsules from the address book back at the chateau and wrapped them in a small piece of nylon she had cut from a pair of pantyhose. While she and Catherine were dressing, she had surreptitiously pinned the small packet into her hair as she wound her chignon. Now, as Wei grew glassy-eyed with Catherine, Irina turned away and used a hairpin to puncture four of the grapes, then she inserted a capsule into each one. It took only moments.

Now, turning toward him so that Wei could see what she was doing, she artfully slipped each of the large grapes into her vagina. Five minutes later she looked down at him and watched with a smile as he greedily retrieved them with his tongue, one by one. He ate them all.

A
S SOON AS AS THEY COULD TELL FROM THE CONVERSATION THAT
Irina and Cate had arrived at Wei’s house, Hain spoke up.

“Jernigan,” he said, “you have a fix on that?”

“1511 Mousset.”

“Incredible,” Hain enthused, throwing himself back in his chair. “Christ! An hour ago we didn’t even know this guy was on the continent. Now we know his address.
And
Bontate. I don’t
believe
this implant. It’s goddamn incredible.”

“Curtis.” Ann Loder’s voice was all business this time, her emotions well under control. “What’s our response time if we have to send people in there?”

“I don’t know. Not quick. We’re not going to have to go in there,” Hain said.

“But if we did,” Ann persisted.

“Then we would,” Hain snapped. “There’s no way to back out of it now. She’s in. We’re learning shit we didn’t know before and it’s all happened in the last twelve hours, for Christ’s sake. Through Cate—it’s all been through Cate. So we’re in this up to our eyeballs, people. We’re
not
calling in the cavalry now, not yet.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that we do that,” Ann said, keeping her voice calm. “It was a contingency question.”

“Okay, well, you’ve got my answer, then.”

Everyone listening to Hain was thinking the same thing. At this point, Cate was on the short end of a triage decision. They were all acting as though she was not going to find herself in a life-threatening situation and then praying to God she wasn’t. They were going to sit tight for what Hain called “the big sweat”—when an agent was strung out farther than anyone could reach to help. There wasn’t anything anyone could do about it. They were lucky, and they were unlucky. Sometimes it happened that way. They just had to wait and listen and hope to God they didn’t hear the kinds of sounds that would give them nightmares for the rest of their lives.

For the next fifty minutes they listened to Cate’s transmissions in taut silence. It was the silence of concentration, fascination, embarrassment, natural human curiosity, discomfort, voyeurism, and trepidation. Except for the voice of the soprano, the transmissions were rarely articulate. They were only sounds. Occasionally Wei spoke in Chinese. There was labored breathing. There was moaning. The women’s voices—the sounds they made—were not always distinguishable. There were long pauses when only the piano could be heard.

Cate lay on her back on the red stone bed, the polished surface cool against her naked back and buttocks, her head resting on one of the damask pillows. She had just washed herself at the stone basins, and as her damp skin dried in the cool air, it prickled lightly, as though covered with a thin film of effervescence.

At the foot of the oval bed, the Asian sat alone with his bare feet on the jade floor, his naked back to her, smoking hashish, lost in his own thoughts as he stared out at the city lights and listened to the solitary notes of the piano that came from nowhere and everywhere, slow and soft and timeless.

Irina was standing at the stone basins, where she too had just finished washing. She was combing her hair, and Cate could feel her green eyes studying her.

When Cate had committed to this assignment, at the very moment when she knew there was no turning back, she also had made up her mind not to torture herself afterward over what she might have to do. And yet in the quiet aftermath of her abandonment she found herself struggling, despite her
brave convictions, with a web of shame. Her conscience already had begun to spin the fine threads of guilt’s cocoon about her.

But an extraordinary thing had happened during the past hour, during which she had experienced a welter of conflicting emotions. Cate had never had sexual intercourse with another woman, and now she doubted if it would ever have happened at all if the other woman had been anyone other than Irina. Irina’s beauty was simply undeniable, and sex with her had been as good as it had ever been with a man. If Cate felt ashamed of what she had just done, it applied only to the Chinese. She felt no shame about what had happened with Irina. She acknowledged the inconsistency of this. She didn’t understand it. That’s just the way it was.

But that wasn’t all. Something else had happened that was just as disturbing, and it brought to mind the sight of Irina standing over Stepanov and Izvarin curled up in the mucus-filled cavities of the piles of raw hides and firing into them. She had been willful about it, passionless. That side of Irina, Cate feared, was a very large part of her, a larger part than Cate wanted to let herself admit.

She turned her head and looked at Irina, who was still looking at her as she folded her red towel. Dropping the towel onto the jade floor, she sat down on the stone, lay down, and turned over to Cate. She nudged herself a place on the damask pillow and laid her long, graceful arm across Cate’s stomach.

“Are you all right?” she asked softly, her face next to Cate’s, her breath warm against Cate’s ear.

“I’m fine,” Cate said. They were almost whispering. The Asian ignored them or didn’t hear them. “I need to talk to you.”

“All right. What about?”

Cate moved her head slightly and looked toward the foot of the stone dais.

“Oh, forget him,” Irina said. She leaned against Cate until their bodies touched along their full length and her breast lay against Cate’s. She bent her right knee and her long thigh moved across Cate’s, and Cate could feel the mound of damp hair between Irina’s legs pressing against her own hip. Irina’s lips touched the lobe of Cate’s ear as she spoke. “Right now he hears nothing, cares about nothing. He smokes a special
kind of hashish. Very strong. He is lost to us now, adrift in a green Asian haze.”

Cate could feel her heart pounding. But she had to know.

“Did you drug him?” she asked. “Is that why he is like that?”

“No, why do you ask?” Irina snuggled up against her like a sister—no, like a lover. The scent of flowers had given way to the sweet resinous smoke of hashish. It hung above them in a still, coiling ribbon, like a river of incense.

“I saw you do something to the grapes.”

Irina didn’t move. There was a long pause before she spoke. “I killed him,” she said, her voice a husky whisper.

“What?” Cate could not help herself; she looked again at the Asian. “What are you talking about?”

“I killed him.”

They could feel each other breathing. Cate didn’t know what to say.

“It was one of the last things I had to do, Catherine,” Irina said. “I did not have a choice.”

“Jesus Christ. What are you talking about?”

“I poisoned him,” she whispered. “A very slow poison— it will take a few days.”

“Oh, God …”

Irina’s arm tightened over Cate’s stomach. Her face moved closer. “Do not be seduced by any moment of kindness, any thing of beauty that you might experience when you are with these people,” she said. “The truth is, they live ugly, cruel lives. Never, never forget that.”

“But why—”

“Shhhh … whisper, softly. Why? I told you, I have things to do for people.”

“You did this for someone?”

“For someone, yes. But ultimately for me—for Félia. You lose sight too easily, Catherine. There are many twists and turns between what we desire and what we accomplish. I had to do it.”

“Ometov …”

“Ometov?”

“You said you had a few things to do for Ometov.”

“No, of course not. Not Ometov. It doesn’t matter who it was for. After tonight I won’t have to do it ever again. This is the last of them.”

Cate was stunned.
This is the last of them.
Them? Again she saw Irina firing into Stepanov and Izvarin. She smelled the exudate of skinned hides. Good God.

“Catherine, I know … no, I can only imagine how this must seem to you.” Her lips skimmed Cate’s ear as she breathed these words into her. “Or perhaps I cannot even imagine. There is much of me that is gone now, lost in the confusion of my sins. There are innocent ways of thinking that I can no longer remember, nor will I ever again.” She paused. Her hand moved against Cate’s hip. “But do not think that I am evil. Only try to understand that you cannot understand. If God had put your soul into another heart … Who knows? Be careful that you do not find too much comfort in your own righteousness.”

Dumbfounded, Cate grew clammy in Irina’s embrace. She saw the Asian on his knees between Irina’s spread thighs, eating his own death while Irina leaned back and smiled down at him. Cate’s stomach turned; her mouth grew dry. She wanted to take a deep gulp of air but couldn’t.

“Now I have to go to Sergei’s,” Irina said.

“Now?”

“Soon.” She moved her hand up along Cate’s rib cage and lightly cupped the underside of her left breast. “I want you to come with me.”

“What?” Gate was startled. She fought to remember her role as if she were fighting to keep her head above water in a powerful undertow. Catherine. She was Catherine. How would Catherine react? What would Catherine do? Now there was little difference between Catherine and Cate. Both of them were astonished. Afraid. Trying to understand how to behave in the face of such unbelievable developments. “Why, what do you want with me?”

“What do I want with you?”

Cate remembered Ometov’s insistence on the importance of Irina’s loneliness. It was a point of leverage, an opening that Cate could use to her advantage. But Cate couldn’t use it. Not now. If she had thought of it earlier, if she had made use of it earlier, maybe. But now, how could she now? She finally gathered enough saliva to swallow, just as she realized that Irina had suddenly stiffened. Had she sensed something?

“Irina, please … understand. I’m scared. I don’t understand
this. I’m afraid … I don’t even know what to say. I’ve done this—for you. I don’t know what else I can do.”

“It is very simple,” Irina said. “I have to pick up a package from Sergei. Money. A lot of money. Usually he gives it to me in one or two small bags. I could use help in carrying it.” She paused. “And I will pay you for this evening. More than Stepanov would ever have given you. Much more than that.”

This caught Cate by surprise. Catherine could hardly turn down the money. She probably would even think she had it coming to her. She had been through a lot.

“Is it going to be safe?” Cate asked hesitantly. She dropped her hand down and found the inside of Irina’s thigh and let it rest there. “I mean, what about Stepanov … and the other one?”

“He does not know that they have been killed.”

“How do you know?”

“It does not matter. Take my word for it. There have been arrangements for communications. He believes I have done what he wanted me to do. All he has left to do is pay me.”

“But what about me? He doesn’t know me—what’s he going to do when he sees me?”

“I am taking care of that.”

“How?”

“I cannot tell you, Catherine.”

Cate shook her head skeptically. “I don’t know—this scares me. All of this is crazy. I want to help you … I do, and God knows I need the money, but I don’t know how much of this I can handle.”

“No, there is nothing to be afraid of,” Irina said soothingly. “This is routine. I pick up my money. This is all.”

Cate moved her hand on the inside of Irina’s thigh. “How long will it take?” she asked.

“I have to call him to get directions. I don’t know—not more than an hour, I would think.”

Cate waited a moment, thinking it over. “We’re just going to pick up the money and that’s all. Just get the money and go.”

“That is all,” Irina said. “And then I am through.”

“And what about your daughter?”

“Sergei will give me instructions about her when we see him. I have fulfilled my obligations to him.”

Cate was silent a moment. She realized now that not
much of what Irina had been telling her had been adding up. She had said she had messages to deliver for Krupatin and things to do for Ometov. So far Cate hadn’t seen any of this happen. Irina had said she had a message to deliver to the Asian, in addition to the sex. Cate had seen what had become of that. It seemed that Irina was making up all of this as she went along. There was more unseen than seen here, volumes more.

“Irina,” Cate said, and she pressed her hand into the inside of Irina’s thigh, unsure of what exactly this gesture might convey, “I. …. I don’t want to die in this … nightmare. Don’t do that to me.”

Irina dropped her hand from Cate’s breast and hugged her. “No, no, no—never. I would never put you in that kind of danger.”

Cate breathed the breath that carried Irina’s words, she felt anew her lovely, seductive nakedness, and she wondered which of them was telling the other the greatest lies.