‘Not me.’
‘Mind if I do?’
‘Go ahead.’
Yuri appeared to concentrate upon preparing his drink, busying himself with getting ice into a bucket and then making his choice of liquor, all the time intent as the woman chopped the lumps out of the tiny pile and from it made ready her line with the razor’s edge. Balancing his most recent thought, Yuri supposed there were some things never to be learned at a spy college. He hoped the accent would flatten out with his constant exposure and use of English.
‘You sure?’ she said.
‘Positive.’
She took a thin metal tube from its fastenings in her case, which was chamois, blocked off her left nostril to inhale half the line and then changed, gently breathing out between times, to complete the line in her right nostril. Almost at once she said: ‘Whee!’
Caroline was pressed back into the chair more directly in front of the ineffectual television, her eyes closed, but as Yuri carried his drink – Wild Turkey again, which he’d taken without interest or particular choice – to the adjoining seat she opened them and smiled at him. She appeared bright and alert, not soporific as he thought she might have been: more gaps in the training. Anxious to settle other uncertainties, he said: ‘How did you know I was one of the mysterious writers?’
‘Everyone knows,’ she said.
The concern settled deeper in Yuri’s stomach. ‘It’s hardly a big deal,’ he suggested, pleased with the way the sentence formed.
‘No big deal at all,’ she agreed. ‘Someone learned from the janitor that a Dutch publishing house were the leaseholders. I’ve only been here two years but there’s been quite a few of you guys through: the one before you was a miserable bastard, ignored everybody…’ She looked across at the rearranged magazines. ‘Just imagine what he got up to in here with that stuff!’
Yuri gauged it to be the normal sort of gossip, within an apartment block like this, but it would unquestionably require a warning to Moscow. Disconcerted though he had been – and could still easily be again – it definitely had not been a mistake to invite her in. Sat as she was, the sweatshirt was tighter, emphasizing her figure: he guessed her tits were easily as good as Inya’s. He said: ‘That’s the problem. We’re moving around so much there’s rarely the chance to be friendly.’
‘You’re being friendly,’ she said archly.
‘I’m glad we met,’ said Yuri, with mixed feeling.
‘So am I,’ she said.
A silence developed and Yuri didn’t want silence, he wanted to know what else was gossiped knowledge within the block. Calling upon his legend and his early concentration on American morning television he said: ‘I’ve just finished an assignment in Yellowstone Park. Never saw Yogi once.’
‘I’d be interested to read some of your stuff some time.’
So would I, thought Yuri. He said: ‘You get to know any of the other guys?’
Caroline shook her head. ‘That’s what makes this apartment so interesting: a place of strangers.’
Too much curiosity, thought Yuri at once. ‘Not any more,’ he said, to carry the conversation on.
‘Do you want to know something?’
‘What?’
‘I hid,’ admitted the woman. ‘When I heard the door open downstairs and the hall light went on I actually hung back on the stairs hoping it was someone from this apartment.’
‘Why?’
She shrugged and said: ‘Just because.’
The idiom didn’t mean anything to him but Yuri decided against challenging it. A safe house with a nosy neighbour living directly above (the smallest of drills, the most imperceptible microphone or lens) hardly qualified for the description of safe house. Except that the microphone or lens would hardly capture anything embarrassing, unless it focused on the lavatory where Granov hunched over his magazines. He said: ‘What would you have done if it had been the miserable bastard before me?’
‘Probably still said hello.’
Would Granov have been crept up upon so easily? That he hadn’t detected her still irritated Yuri. Time for curiosity of his own. He said: ‘We’re spending a lot of time talking about mysterious writers, who aren’t really mysterious at all. Just hacks. How does Caroline Dixon earn a living?’
She was in advertising, actually on Madison Avenue, completely responsible for five accounts and senior consultant on an additional four. ‘You know the ad where the plants don’t get fed the proper fertilizer so they all pull up their roots and walk to the next-door garden?’
‘No,’ said Yuri blankly. It would be necessary to confirm that Caroline Dixon did work for the Madison Avenue agency and was responsible for some nonsense involving walking plants. And not just a Caroline Dixon: this Caroline Dixon.
She seemed disappointed. ‘I got nominated for an award for it.’
‘I’ll watch out for it,’ promised Yuri.
‘You’re going to be here a while then?’
Yuri was instantly cautious, unsure of an answer sufficient to account for his infrequent use of the place. He said: ‘Away tomorrow. I don’t know for how long. But I’m assigned to America for the moment, so this is going to be my base.’
‘It’ll be nice, knowing my neighbour at last.’
Was the ice beginning to creak again, for different reasons? What real, positive danger was there? No schooling, no matter how intense, could properly equip him undetectably to mix as he was mixing now into the sort of Western environment in which he had to merge if he were to survive. Surely more advantage than danger, then? And he was sure those breasts would be spectacular. He said: ‘Are you in any hurry to go anywhere?’
‘No,’ she said at once, almost too quickly.
‘I’ve only just got back, so there’s nothing in,’ he apologized. ‘We could go out to eat, if you’d like.’
She smiled and said: ‘I think I’d like that very much…’ She looked down at her jogging outfit and said: ‘I’ll need fifteen minutes.’
‘Take as long as you like.’
Before she returned Yuri unpacked his carry-on case and positioned the William Bell passport again in such a way that he would know if it were tampered with while he was out of the apartment. This time he rearranged the magazines with the Dutch publications uppermost, in a recognizable way, but left the other signals as he had set them before. Finished, he considered another Wild Turkey and decided against it. The effect of the cocaine upon Caroline had not been as he expected; there had appeared no loss of control or lack of awareness at all: the opposite, in fact.
She wore pumps and jeans and a tighter sweater that confirmed Yuri’s impression, with a short jerkin jacket over it, and her hair was held back by a simple band. She still had not bothered with anything more than lipstick. ‘Didn’t need fifteen minutes,’ she said. ‘Where are we going?’
‘I don’t know Manhattan particularly well,’ he said. There was protection is playing the role of a stranger and it would not be a difficult part.
‘My choice?’
‘Your choice.’
In the street outside Caroline slipped her arm familiarly through his and although it surprised him he gave no reaction, actually cupping his hand over hers. Were all women in the West as immediately friendly as this? On Second Avenue she hailed the cab and he heard ‘Brooklyn’, but no more, so when he was inside he said: ‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Tourist stuff,’ she said.
Utilizing her earlier friendliness, Yuri put his arm along the back of the seat behind her, the movement enabling him to check through the back window for any pursuit. He didn’t detect any but the road was thick with vehicles so it was impossible to be completely sure: certainly the taxi appeared a genuine vehicle, not some counter-intelligence mock-up. Caroline maintained a constant babble of conversation, pointing out landmarks,
