Bearpit (21 page)

‘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, insisting he lean forward for a better view of the skyscraper when they went by the United Nations, which he did in apparent straight-faced interest.

‘Costs millions and is complete crap,' judged the woman. ‘Just a lot of supposed diplomats living tax free of the fat of the land telling countries to stop fighting each other and being given the straight middle finger in reply.'

What did ‘supposed' mean? Thinking of his own country's use of the organization, Yuri said: ‘It must serve some purpose.'

‘Yet to be discovered,' Caroline insisted.

When the car started to cross the bridge, Yuri said: ‘We're going to eat in Brooklyn?'

‘Wait,' she insisted.

The driver was unsure so she leaned forward to give directions before they left the bridge, gesturing for the immediate right turn, which again enabled Yuri to look back. There was still no indication of any following vehicle but the packed road made it as difficult as before to be sure.

‘The River Café,' she announced when the car stopped. ‘Recognize anything?'

‘Not at once,' said Yuri doubtfully.

‘Better inside,' she said.

Yuri followed her into the restaurant, intent on everything around him, straining for the recognition she apparently expected but unable to find it.

‘There!' she announced, when they reached the bar.

Yuri looked across the river to the illuminated skyline of Manhattan, at once relieved and then thankful at last for the training-school videos and the television. ‘The famous view,' he said.

‘Isn't it great!'

‘Terrific,' agreed Yuri. Caroline had to be too ingenuous to be any sort of counter-intelligence plant!

‘Just the beginning,' she said.

He imagined they were going to eat there but she said they'd only come to drink, matching him martini for martini and then guiding the new cab driver back across the bridge and downtown to a Mexican café in Greenwich Village, which was an area of the city he had not explored. Ordering nearly became a problem because Caroline announced she would defer to an experienced travel writer: he recognized tacos and chilli on the menu and chose for both of them and was lucky, too, with Margueritas, which she declared to be a drink she liked. Yuri was confident she had not detected his hesitation. Caroline continued to lead the conversation and Yuri was happy to let her: it gave him the opportunity to study her, seeking the slightest hint to warn him that she was part of some entrapment operation. She talked of a San Francisco upbringing and of a Berkeley education and a marriage that lasted two years (‘we woke up one day and couldn't understand why we'd done it in the first place; we send each other Christmas cards') and of coming to New York to make a clean break and of loving advertising (‘you sure you haven't seen the advert with the walking plants!') and slowly Yuri began to relax. He offered scraps of his carefully prepared legend, improvising a Dutch father for his English mother to account for the newly discovered accent and of never having had time to get married, aware as he talked of Belov's wisdom in choosing a European background to account easily for any further slight mistakes he might make.

Yuri thought the Margueritas were bland and suspected the tacos would give him heartburn; Caroline said wasn't everything wonderful and Yuri agreed that it was. After the meal they walked aimlessly through the village and Caroline took him to a bar called the Lion's Head because it sounded English. She went to the toilet while he ordered and as he did so Yuri realized Soviet security would already have alerted Granov of his failure to return at the expected time. After Levin's defection they'd be very nervous of unaccountable absences but regulations forbade his making any contact from an insecure telephone. They'd just have to sweat. It would mean an inquiry and an official report the following day but Yuri was not really concerned, sure of a satisfactory explanation. Besides which, he was enjoying himself.

They left after only one drink, and in the uptown cab to their apartments Yuri wondered if Caroline were as curious as he was at what might happen when they got there. She did not appear to be. She went into the block ahead of him, pumped the courtesy light automatically and said: ‘You won't have any coffee, having just got back. So it looks like my place.'

As he entered her apartment Yuri saw that it really was exactly like his, but without the strident colour of the Mexican rugs and bed covering. Instead the focal point of her decoration was a series of blown-up photographs and prints of what he presumed to be advertising promotions with which Caroline had been associated. He couldn't see any illustration involving walking plants.

The coffee was excellent and she had French brandy and insisted he take the enveloping easy chair while she settled herself upon the bed, legs screwed up beneath her. She said: ‘I've had a great evening.'

‘So have I,' said Yuri. Had it been the test he'd set it out to be? He thought so. Successful, too. Nothing positive, producing guidelines. What then? An attitude, he decided: a feeling of becoming comfortable – at ease and apparently accustomed – in what could have been an uncomfortable situation. And he
had
been uncomfortable, beyond the nervousness that Caroline's pick-up had not been as casually accidental as it initially appeared. He was at least quite sure now about that: she was an adoptive New Yorker, nothing more.

‘Where are you off to tomorrow?'

He'd already told her he was leaving the following day so it was an innocent enough question. Prepared, he said: ‘Canada. Life-in-the-Rockies type of article.'

‘How long do you expect to be away?'

Yuri hesitated: innocent enough again. He said: ‘It's never possible to be sure: as long as it takes.'

‘Oh.' She seemed disappointed.

‘Weeks rather than months.' Why had he said that, making some sort of promise? Tonight had been a test, an experiment, and valuable even though it was officially forbidden. He should not – could not – consider anything more.

‘So there'll be other times?'

‘Yes,' he said. No! he thought.

‘You think I'm a pushy broad?'

Broad had certainly been a word taught him by the disillusioned American defector. He said: ‘No, I don't think you are a pushy broad.'

‘Want to know something?'

‘What?'

‘I was trying to impress you, with the coke and the tour of New York. All that stuff.'

Yuri supposed she had succeeded. He was unsure how to respond. He said: ‘Why?'

She shrugged, seeming embarrassed at the blurted confession. ‘Don't know. Nervous I guess.'

‘And the coke helped?'

‘Didn't do a lot for me, actually. It was a gift, from a client: sort of thing they do in Madison Avenue and Wall Street. I've had it a long time. I wasn't really sure how to do it.'

Yuri said: ‘It's not really important, is it?'

‘It's just …' She stopped, shrugging once more. ‘There seems to be a way of behaving here,' she started again. ‘Everything's brittle and finger-snapping; this minute is the last in my life, to hell with the sixty seconds coming next. I guess I behaved instinctively, imagining you'd be the same …'

The anxiety flooded back. Needing movement, Yuri put the half-finished coffee on a side table but retained the brandy snifter. Forcing the casualness, he said: ‘And?'