like this yesterday, he would have wanted to hurt him, may even have followed him, beaten him, and taken his money and the watch he was wearing, kicked him two or three times in the face.
'I don't like it,' Yakov said.
'One day,' said Jerold. 'Then you'll be on a plane for Paris. Money and Paris.
And then Las Vegas.'
'I don't like it,' Yakov repeated, looking at himself in the mirror, scowling at himself. He was sure Carla would laugh at him when she saw what he looked like. She would laugh at him in spite of what he would do. She would laugh at him, and he would throw her through the window again. And then he remembered. How could he forget that? Carla was dead.
She wasn't going to laugh at him.
Jerold looked over Yakov's shoulder and smiled. 'You look fine. No one will notice you. Let's go over it again.' ' 'I know it,' said Yakov, turning from the mirror.' 'I don't have to go over it.'
'We go over it one time more, maybe two,' said Jerold gently, reasonably, 'and then I give you two capsules. No, I'll give you four.'
Yakov make it clear that he was annoyed with a surly response of 'All right.'
And with that Jerold lifted a briefcase onto the table, opened it, and revealed a compact piece of finely polished, smooth maple wood, with a pistol grip on one end, and tubes of metal and a telescopic sight painted black, each piece firmly and neatly held in place by at least two black straps.
Yakov stood in front of the open briefcase and looked at Jerold, who pulled out a stopwatch.
'Twenty seconds last time,' said Jerold. 'Let's get it down to eighteen. Fifteen gets you two extra capsules. Now.'
Yakov moved quickly. His fingers were too short for playing the guitar, which was what he planned to do- learn to play the guitar and start a rock band in Las Vegas. But Yakov did not have the discipline to play a musical instrument.
Jerold helped him, coached him, told him he was talented, assured him that he would make it, that the idea of a Soviet rock band in Las Vegas would create a sensation. He told Yakov of American girls, and Yakov listened and took the capsules.
'I have an important question,' Yakov said in English, his fingers moving to the sections of the Walther WA 2000 in the briefcase. 'I have been thinking much about it.'
'Yes.'
'Does Madonna have real yellow hair?'
'It is real,' said Jerold quite seriously.
'You have seen?'
'Yes.'
'There,' said Yakov, holding the assembled weapon in his hand, the same weapon with which he had shot through the door at Emil Karpo.
'Eighteen seconds,' Jerold said, putting the watch down and smiling.
Yakov nodded his head knowingly. He knew he was getting better.
In fact, he was not. Jerold had lied. It had taken Yakov twenty-two seconds. He had lied because he wanted an excuse for giving Yakov the extra capsules, wanted the excuse for bringing Yakov Krivonos closer to death, as close as he could possibly bring him after Yakov completed the task that had been set for him with the weapon he now lovingly cradled in his arms like a favored stuffed animal.
Not long after Sasha Tkach opened the door to the apartment in Engels Four, two women in Yalta, sitting on a park bench, began laughing.
The women had started early in the morning with a cup of tea just inside the lobby of the Lermontov Hotel. Had either Sarah Rostnikov or Andy McQuinton had a better grasp or any real grasp of each other's language, they might have abandoned the outing. When they had left the hotel, the sky had been gray and getting darker. A wind threatened, and the temperature had dropped to fifty degrees Fahrenheit, but they were formidably dressed and suitably determined.
They had smiled at each other in the lobby and exchanged shrugs, indicating the awkwardness of the situation into which they had been cast the night before. In spite of that awkwardness, it was clear that they wanted to share each other's company. It was also clear that Sarah would take the lead. She knew a little English compared to Andy's complete lack of Russian.
Besides, it was her country.
What surprised Sarah was that she was the more physically able of the two.
Sarah, who was only weeks beyond major surgery, was by far the more vigorous, and in spite of Andy's willingness to go into town on the bus, it was clear that she was not well.
What they lacked in health, they made up in determination. The bus dropped them at the end of Roosevelt Avenue in Yalta's Old City. The grayness of the early morning gave way to sun and the cold dawn and turned into cool morning. They turned left out of Roosevelt onto Lenin Street, Yalta's main street, which runs along the sea. When they crossed the bridge over the Vodopadnaya River, Andy was slowing noticeably.
When they reached Gagarin Park, just a bit beyond, Andy was breathing heavily.
Sarah found a bench near the statue of Gorky, just inside the entrance to the park.
The temperature had climbed to sixty, and robed bathers hurried past them through the park to the nearby beach.
Andy was breathing a bit less heavily. She pointed at the statue and opened her eyes wide.
'Maxim Gorky,' Sarah said. 'You know?'
'Gorky, writer. Yes,' said Andy.
Andy's face was pale and her well-kept hair a bit disheveled.
'Gorky,' Sarah said, searching for words in English, 'live…'
She pointed toward Viokov Street, where Gorky had lived at the turn of the century, just doors away from where Anton Chekhov's school stood. Sarah's plan had been to walk down to the beach, but considering Andy's face, she changed her mind.
The women smiled at each other and watched the determined bathers of all ages head for the cold waters of the Black Sea. A young man with his hair cut quite short and a
pretty young woman with long dark hair laughed their way past them.
'He looks a little like my son James,' Andy said.
'Gavaree't'e, pazhaha'lsta, me'dlenn'eye,' Sarah answered, and then said in English, 'Please speak more slow.'
'I'm sorry,' said Andy. 'Wait.'
She opened the knit purse resting in her lap, found a leather sheaf of snapshots, and opened it. She handed the photos to Sarah and pointed to the picture of a young man and woman.
'Jim,' she said. 'My son.'
'Sin,' said Sarah, reaching into her purse to pull out her wallet. She opened it to a photograph of Iosef, still in his army uniform.
'Handsome,' said Andy.
Sarah pointed at the photograph of Jim and said, 'Jim, too.'
They both laughed, a laughter that would not stop, a laughter they both enjoyed and did not want to let go of, a laughter well beyond the humor of the situation. Tears came and people passed. People smiled and wondered.
The barrier of language had not been bridged. It had been abandoned. They could only sense the potential for warmth or wit in the other that existed beyond language. And their laughter was friendship, and then: laughter was frustration.
At the entrance to the park, a small man with one artificial eye listened to the women as he checked his watch and pretended to be waiting for someone. He had followed the women from the hotel and had done so with a dignity of which he was proud, a dignity that did not betray his belief that he had, as always, been given the least important task. Pato-he could not bring himself to think of him as partner-his colleague, had been given the task of following Rostnikov. So be it. There were times when he, Yuri, could demonstrate his determination, take advantage of opportunities to show his skills. It was he who had almost gotten Vasilievich to talk to them, to tell
