City of Spies

by Nina Berry

  Devin’s eyes flicked to her right, then back to her, then back to the right.

  She turned her head casually. In that area ranged a group of boys that looked the right age. She couldn’t see how many were all talking to one another in loud German because three broad backs were blocking her view.

  “It’s all set,” a boy next to her was saying. Pagan was nearly fluent in German, thanks to long afternoons spent with her grandmother as a child, but she had to listen carefully here. The words were familiar, but inflected differently. “While all the mongrels are distracted at the race, we’ll get to the docks.”

  Calling people mongrels. She turned her nose-wrinkle of distaste into a smile and sidled along the bar. She was moving toward the bartender and keeping her eyes on him, as if fascinated by how he was heating up the milk for their drinks. The boy next to her gave way, turning, and she was able to see more of the group he was talking to.

  “Tomorrow,” another boy was saying in German, “we tell the judios the time and place.”

  Judio. It took Pagan a moment to sort through the German words in the sentence to realize that was Spanish for Jew.

  “And we parlay with the Tacs to get more manpower,” a deeper voice spoke. The boys around her looked at one another, uneasy.

  What were Tacs? She didn’t recognize that word in any language. Some gang term, probably.

  “We don’t need those snobs!” the boy next to her said too loudly.

  Trust those who called people mongrels to get on their high horse about snobs. But she couldn’t think that way. She had to be one of them, for a little while at least.

  “If I say we need more manpower, then we need it,” the deeper voice said in a tone that brooked no disagreement. “You don’t like it, you’re out.”

  “Nein, nein, Dieter,” the boy said, shuffling his feet in apology, his voice rising in appeasement. “Whatever you say, of course. I’m sorry.”

  Dieter?

  “Excuse me,” she said in English as flat and American as she could make it. “Those submarinos looks so yummy!”

  The group of boys, maybe ten of them, opened up enough for her to see they were circled around a tall young man with bright blond hair in a crew cut. He was handsome in a square-jawed, sturdy sort of way, with flat blue eyes, thick, stubborn lips and a dark mole highlighting his right cheek.

  Pagan suppressed a smile of victory. Dieter Von Albrecht, son of the man she was hoping to identify. Perfect. From the looks of it he was surrounded by the gang Devin had told her about. So these were the kids who harassed Jews, defaced synagogues and the Israeli embassy with anti-Semitic slogans, and agitated against the current government in whatever way they could.

  This jostling, ogling, slightly sweaty group of teenage boys in their bowling shirts and slicked-back Elvis hair looked like any other group of boys you might see at the malt shop or soda parlor in America. Except for the edgy energy of their movements, and the tall blond boy at their center.

  Dieter overlooked them all with a wary, watchful eye, listening, judiciously granting one lucky boy or another his attention. From the way the other boys competed for it, it was clear Dieter was the leader. Unlike the others he exuded an impatient confidence that wasn’t about posturing or masking insecurity. Here was a boy who knew he was right.

  She turned to face him, and put her elbows on the bar behind her, leaning back and smiling, a pose guaranteed to get any man to eyeball your décolletage. But Dieter’s expression didn’t change as his gaze slid over her. The other boys were easier to read. They liked the view.

  “Glad to see this place has a good band,” she said, directing her words at Dieter. “But I heard sometimes there’s dancing. Is that right?”

  He gave her a condescending smile and replied in excellent English, “Real men don’t dance.”

  “We’ve got better things to do,” another boy chimed in. He and a couple of others had obviously recognized her and were elbowing one another, bumping around the way restless teenage boys do when they meet someone famous who happens to be a pretty girl. It had happened to Pagan a lot in her life, and it was normally kind of cute. Here it all had a fierce edge to it that raised the hair on the back of her neck.

  “Oh, yeah?” Pagan raised an eyebrow challengingly, again right at Dieter. “Like what?”

  “We’re going to...” began the other boy.

  “You brought in that indio girl,” Dieter said, his mouth lingering on the word indio. He cast a glance around and the other boys snapped to attention. “I don’t care what movies you starred in if you’re hanging out with trash like that.”

  So he knew who she was, and he didn’t care. This was not going the way she and Devin had hoped. She opened her mouth to reply, to lie and say Mercedes was nothing but a servant, but Dieter’s gaze wasn’t on Pagan anymore. It was burning a path across the café, aimed right at Mercedes.

  Damn it, he was supposed to be interested in Pagan, to be mesmerized by her fame and her pretty face. Not that Pagan gave a fig for any of that, but if he liked her enough he might invite her over to the house where his father was holed up. All she needed was to set one foot in that house, somehow. Dieter Von Albrecht was her way in. But he wasn’t playing along.

  “I just...” Pagan reached out a placating hand and touched his arm.

  Touching young men usually got their attention. But Dieter walked away without looking at her, heading for the table where Mercedes was seated, an empty chair between her and the uneasy Emma.

  The group of young men by the bar followed Dieter like sweaty ducklings, weaving between the tables. Such a large group moving with determination turned heads, and brought some to their feet. Pagan ran after, trying to catch up to Dieter, but he had stopped beside Mercedes already.

  “What are you doing here?” Dieter said, towering over Mercedes. He spoke in Spanish, inflected with the Argentinean lilt.

  Mercedes did not appear surprised, shaken or curious at his hostile, unprovoked question. She swung up to stand in front of him, her hands loose in front of her, and met his gaze without hesitation.

  “We haven’t been introduced,” she said in English.

  Dieter’s eyes flicked up and down her body, his lips curled back in a predatory smile. “I know your dirty kind,” he said, also in English. “And I don’t allow them to sit next to my sister.”

  So Emma was Emma Von Albrecht, Dieter’s younger sister. Devin hadn’t said anything about her being here, too. Maybe he hadn’t known. Pagan was still twenty feet away from the scene. The press of bodies between her and her friend was impeding progress. Not that there was much she could do against Dieter and ten other boys if she got there.

  “Dieter, she didn’t know,” Emma was saying. “It’s okay...”

  “Shut up,” Dieter said casually. His eyes were still fixed on Mercedes. “How are you going to make it up to me, negra?”

  Dear God, was he somehow interested in Mercedes? That’s what it looked like. But how could that be when he insulted her so?

  Mercedes didn’t bother surveying the young men ranged around her. She looked right into Dieter’s eyes and her face went blank and cold.

  That same look had terrified Pagan the first time she’d seen it. It was a look that made armed adults clear their throats and change the subject. It had intimidated rival gang members into giving up their drugs and their money and sent hardened reform-school girls scurrying. Pagan had tried practicing that look herself when she was alone, in case she ever needed it.

  Now Mercedes became so still, so ready, like a cobra about to strike, that the boys beside Dieter drew back. They threw questioning glances at their leader, whose own version of the look was fading under Mercedes’s glacial stare. Dieter Von Albrecht wasn’t used to people with more confidence than him.

  The café had gone mostly quiet. Cig
arettes burned, disregarded, between fingers as people stared, waiting.

  Only Pagan continued to winnow her way toward her friend. Almost there.

  Dieter didn’t break eye contact, but he shifted his weight uneasily, sticking his chin out, and tapped the back of a chair with his fingers.

  Pagan slowed, relaxing. If what Mercedes had taught her was right, Dieter wasn’t going to hit Mercedes, at least not right now. He was trying to figure out how to back down without looking like a chump.

  “Come on, Emma,” he said, and held a hand out to his sister.

  Emma exhaled, in relief or exasperation, and stood up. “Fine,” she said, and stomped off to the bar without taking her brother’s hand.

  That was it. Surrender without the white flag. The other boys meandered away from the table. Dieter grabbed the back of the chair Mercedes had been sitting in and lifted it a few inches to slam it hard on the floor.

  Mercedes didn’t blink.

  “Stay away from my sister,” he said, and stalked back to the bar.

  Pagan got there as Mercedes slid back into her chair, face impassive. “Cripes,” Pagan said, keeping her voice low. “Are you okay?”

  “Is every evening out with you this much fun?” Mercedes asked with unusual sarcasm.

  “What if he’d hit you?” Pagan asked. “You swore off violence, but no one would blame you if you smacked him.”

  Mercedes shook her head. “I knew as soon as he saw I wasn’t scared of him that he’d fold like a card table.”

  “So you don’t think he’s dangerous?”

  “Oh, no, he’s dangerous.” Her matter-of-fact tone made the words all the more unsettling. “And he’s angry now. We should get out of here. And you should stay away from him.”

  “Well, don’t worry. He couldn’t care less about me. So much for Devin’s grand plan. I think Dieter actually liked you, except maybe like isn’t exactly the right word for it.”

  “He wants what he hates.” Mercedes’s nose wrinkled. “It’s disgusting.”

  “Do you mind if we stay a little longer?” Pagan looked over toward the bar and found Devin’s dark head, exactly where it had been before. “The bartender just finished our submarinos.”

  “And Devin’s here.” Mercedes cracked a smile. “I saw. Don’t worry. No one’s going to bother me now.”

  Pagan patted her arm. “Be right back.”

  Devin was paying for the submarinos as she walked over. “My treat for two brave ladies,” he said in the flirtatious tone of a man buying drinks for women he didn’t know. “My name’s Devin.”

  “Pagan,” she said, and they shook hands, hanging on to each other for a second longer than strangers would. It was like some weird game. “We’re lucky my friend Mercedes knows how to handle herself.”

  “She sure does.” Devin picked up one of the submarinos. “Let me take this to her.”

  His eyes shot to the empty bar stool behind her and back to her face. He was trying to tell her something. “Wait for me here, if you don’t mind,” he added in a quieter tone.

  She looked at the empty bar stool again and realized that seated next to it was Emma Von Albrecht, all alone again while her brother and his crew talked loudly at the other end of the bar.

  Pagan leaned in to Devin and said quietly, “Plan B?”

  “And C,” he said, and he headed over toward Mercedes.

  Wrapping her hand around the hot glass of the submarino, Pagan settled onto the bar stool and plopped a chunk of chocolate into the milk.

  “Do I stir?” she asked Emma, who had glanced shyly over at her as she settled in.

  “You can,” Emma said. “Sometimes I like to put my straw up against the chocolate at the bottom and drink it. It’s more chocolate than milk at first that way.”

  “Let’s try it.” Pagan dropped another square of chocolate into the steaming milk, followed it with her straw, leaned in and drew on it. “Mmm!” Her eyes got wide. “Scrumptious! You’re a genius.”

  Emma laughed, blushing, and ducked her head, her eyes sparkling, almost like she was flirting.

  Maybe she was.

  Pagan’s heart gave an off-beat thump. Flirting with a girl had never occurred to her. There was no reason why it should feel weirder than flirting with a man. But it did. So much of flirting was deception and withholding. She was used to being herself with girls.

  But maybe flirting with a girl involved being yourself? Or maybe there was some secret code or something... Oh, don’t be silly, she told herself. If you can try to beguile a boy like Dieter, you can sure as hell give the much nicer Emma a smile.

  Still at sea, Pagan gave Emma that smile. “It’s strange being alone in a foreign city,” she said. “It’s easier to meet people, but when you go back ‘home’ it’s still a hotel room, and you’re all alone in it, you know?”

  “Are you alone?” Emma glanced back at Mercedes, who was chatting with Devin over at her table. “Isn’t that your friend?”

  “Just a girl I met on set.” Pagan internally apologized to her friendship with Mercedes as she gave a dismissive little wave of her hand. “She’s okay, but we really don’t have anything in common.”

  “Does that mean you’re shooting a movie here in BA?” Emma asked, eyes wide. “Who else is in it?”

  “Nobody big.” Pagan made a note. “BA” must be how locals referred to Buenos Aires. “I have to shoot a scene with a blockhead named Tony Perry tomorrow, and I hate him more than stiletto heels that are one size too small. I was hoping to make friends I could go out with and do fun things with, you know? Like this, here, now.”

  Emma gave her another shy smile that made Pagan flush a little with shame. Why was she feeling like more of a jerk for cozying up to this girl than she ever would with a guy?

  “I’m having fun now, too,” Emma said. “Hey, I got some new 45s yesterday—the Marvelettes and that new Dion song. Would you like to come over to my house tomorrow after school, maybe, and listen?” Then, as if overcome at her own temerity, she shrank back and added, “You’re probably busy at rehearsal or something. That’s okay. Never mind.”

  “No, no, I’d love to come over!” Pagan’s heart was singing. To hell with Dieter Von Albrecht and his ugly soul. With a little help from Devin and the downtrodden Emma, a way into the house had been found. “I have my first day on set tomorrow, but I could come over by, say, six o’clock. Would that work?”

  Emma sat up straight, eyes bright, her mouth falling slightly open in such surprise and delight that Pagan was more ashamed. “Six o’clock is perfect! We live on Vicente Lopez, near Montevideo. Here...” She turned to the bartender. “Have you got a pen?”

  Pagan didn’t really need the address. Devin would know it. But she patiently sipped her delicious hot chocolate as Emma scribbled it down. In the meantime, the band had left the stage and another had taken its place. This one had eight members, but instead of guitars and drums, these men had a violin, a viola, a piano, a double bass and three small concertinas called bandoneóns, which they took, groaning, out of their cases.

  The crowd had also grown larger, and more diverse. Among all the light-haired people with paler skin were scattered now more people with hair and skin of darker tones. Dieter’s group had tightened into a defensive circle. They were talking in lower tones, glancing around nervously.

  Emma lifted her head at the sound and glanced over at her brother’s group. “Uh-oh. An orquestra tipica. Tango music. Dieter’s not going to be happy.”

  “Terrible dancer?” Pagan couldn’t help a smirk. “He won’t mind me coming over tomorrow, will he?”

  “Oh, he won’t care,” Emma said, and hesitated. “You’re not bringing your friend, though, right? Sorry.”

  “Her? No.” Pagan sucked down the last of her submarino with a noisy burble. “I don’t
want any trouble.”

  “Sorry,” Emma said again. Pagan had the feeling she was often apologizing for her brother. “Dieter’s not into making friends outside his usual circle.”

  “But his sister is already an expert diplomat,” Pagan said, taking the address on the cocktail napkin from her with a smile. “Don’t worry about it, and thanks. I’m really looking forward to hanging out tomorrow.”

  “Me, too.” Emma was blushing again. Pagan fought another twinge of sympathy for her.

  The band had launched into an insistent, fleet, old-fashioned tango, and some of the patrons were pushing the tables back from the bandstand to clear a dance floor. Two couples already had their cheeks pressed together, shoulders close, hips angled slightly away from each other so that their feet could stalk and kick and intertwine. They looked so much more comfortable together than Pagan had been with Tony Perry. The man was leading, but they looked like they were moving as one.

  A slim male form sliced through the press of bodies, heading toward the back of the café. Devin paused and glanced over his shoulder, and their eyes met. He tilted his head toward the door to the kitchen and kept going.

  “I need the little girls’ room,” Pagan said to Emma. “But see you tomorrow!”

  “Goody!” said Emma, sounding like an eager kid. It was sweet.

  Too bad that she, Pagan, was evil.

  She wound past the dancers and around the bandstand. She was on her way to see Devin, and with every step toward him, her senses heightened. She became acutely aware of how the heavy beaded silk of her dress brushed against her thighs. Cigarette smoke burned the back of her chocolate-milk-coated throat. The concertinas groaned like lovers entwined as the dancers’ bodies coiled and twisted on the dance floor.

  She placed one hand on the dark wood of the swinging door to the kitchen and pushed it open slowly, casting a glance back. Had anyone seen?

  The violins slashed through a haze of pizzicato notes as she crossed the threshold. They merged with the crash of plates being thrown in a sink. A sweating man in an apron behind a screen of hanging pots yelled at another in Spanish to hurry, hurry!