by Saul Herzog
She looked like Chanel paid her to wear the dress.
And that was the point.
The hard part of her job wasn’t tempting these men, but giving them a reason to believe a woman like her would want them.
This jowly Goldin from Rhode Island wasn’t an idiot. If a woman like her approached him in a place like this, he’d want to know the angle.
And she would give him one.
She took a seat at the bar.
“What’s the most expensive red wine you have?” she said to the bartender.
He looked up at her. “By the glass?”
“Yes.”
He thought for a second and said, “I’ve got a nice Bordeaux.”
She nodded.
The restaurant was a good place to make a move. It had a nice bar, plenty going on for this time of night. There were four single men at the bar, two couples, and a few people scattered around at tables. Everyone was done eating and the atmosphere was relaxed.
She’d been told Goldin would be there but she didn’t see him.
She noticed two men at the bar looking at her. That was nothing unusual. An attractive woman at a bar drew attention. But this target was from the top floor, which meant there was a chance she was being observed. For now that wasn’t a concern. She was where she was supposed to be, doing what she was supposed to be doing. It was later, when she went to meet Spector, that she would have to be vigilant.
She glanced toward the door.
Bingo.
Sheldon Goldin. Fifty-eight. Father of three. Senator’s office. Lobbyist. Providence, Rhode Island.
She’d have him in bed within the hour.
She waited to see where he sat and if he was with anyone. Perfect. A table for two but no date. He ordered a drink.
Tatyana took a sip of her wine and picked up her phone. She spoke into it as if answering a call, speaking in English.
“You can’t do this to me,” she said loudly.
Some people looked up, including Goldin.
His drink arrived, something amber in a rocks glass, and he took a sip.
“I’ll have nowhere to go,” she said into the phone. “I have no one here.”
She was a good actor. She brought tears to her eyes and motioned for the bartender to bring her another glass of the Bordeaux.
“You can’t do this,” she said again.
She put down the phone and looked around the bar. Every pair of eyes in the place was on her. She got off her seat awkwardly and made for the women’s washroom. In the washroom, she messed her eye makeup to make it look like she’d been crying.
On her way back to the bar she walked right by Goldin’s table and knocked over his drink.
“Oh my God,” she cried.
She bent down to pick up the glass and cut her hand on it.
“Don’t worry about that,” Goldin said.
She looked up at him, bent over by his knees, and the view down the front of her dress got his attention instantly.
“I’m so sorry, sir.”
“A little help here,” Goldin said to the hostess who was already on her way.
“I’m so sorry,” Tatyana said again, then started to cry.
“Please,” Goldin said. “Don’t cry. It’s just a drink.”
“I ruin everything,” she said.
Goldin looked from her to the hostess, as if she might know how to deal with her.
Tatyana stood up. Goldin tried to speak to her but she went back to her seat.
She gathered her coat and purse and asked the bartender for her bill. “Put the gentleman’s scotch on it,” she said.
Goldin heard her and came over. “That’s not necessary,” he said.
Tatyana knew she was moving fast, but it was working. If she could avoid drawing this out, she’d have more time to make her meet with Spector. She wasn’t sure how long he’d wait for her at the bar in the Village.
“Please,” she said to Goldin, tears still in her eyes, her mascara smudged all over her cheeks. “Let me pay for your drink. I’m so mortified.”
He acquiesced.
The bartender gave her the bill and she whipped a credit card from her purse. She made a fuss of going through the options, added a handsome tip, and then purposely entered the wrong pin.
“Let’s try that again,” the bartender said, re-entering the transaction.
“I’m so sorry,” Tatyana said. “I really can’t do anything right tonight. I should never have left the hotel.”
She went through the payment process all over again and again mistyped the pin. She did it a third time and the card got blocked by the issuer.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said, eyeing Goldin. By now, her makeup was such a mess she looked like a raccoon. “I can’t pay this bill,” she said.
Goldin reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. “Please. Allow me,” he said.
34
Goldin was surprised by how fast Tatyana moved. She hadn’t even bothered chatting him up. She just threw herself at him, got him to pay for her thirty-eight-dollar-a-glass wine, and then pulled him out of the restaurant.
“You can’t leave me,” she said when they got outside.
It was scarcely fifteen minutes since he’d stepped into the bar and he was beginning to worry they were moving too fast. Timokhin had specifically told him to stall her.
“I should get back to my hotel,” he said.
“We’ll share a cab,” she said. “I have no money. I need you.”
“Where’s your hotel?” he said.
“Fifty-eighth street.”
He got into the cab and tried to think of ways to slow her down but by the time they got to the hotel she had her hand in his pants and her tongue in his mouth.
There was nothing he could do but let nature take its course. That was what he was supposed to do anyway. It meant she’d be through with him sooner than Timokhin wanted, but the truth was, he couldn’t have held back if he’d wanted to.
She started in the car, then rushed him through the lobby of the hotel like they were lovers reunited after a long separation. She had the buckle of his belt open before they got out of the elevator. Within minutes of getting him into the hotel room she was screwing his brains out.
She ran the gamut, made sure she made excellent tape for whoever was recording them, and when he was spent, grabbed a pack of Russian cigarettes from the bedside table and lit one.
Her body was slick with sweat.
He hadn’t had a workout like that in a while. He wasn’t a man of particularly ravenous appetites, and she’d coaxed three climaxes from him in less than an hour.
She was a worker, he’d grant her that much.
It was a shame he had to kill her.
“You can’t smoke in here,” he said as she lit a cigarette.
She shrugged. “What do I care? My credit card’s already been declined.”
He smiled. “You’re not afraid of what they’ll say?”
“Believe me, I have bigger worries than the maître’d.”
She got up and stood in front of the window. The sky silhouetted her body perfectly. Outside it had started to snow. The flakes floated by like ash. Her purse was on the sill in front of the window and his mind went to the Browning. For the briefest of seconds, he wondered if she was going to reach for it.
She turned and looked out the window.
“Have you ever been to Russia?” she said.
He got up and crossed the room. She didn’t turn and he pressed his body against her back.
“Why do you ask?”
“I’m just curious.”
“Never,” he said. They stared out the window together and he wondered about her. “Do you get homesick?” he said.
She freed herself from him and went into the bathroom without answering. He waited until the door was locked then rooted through her purse until he found her Browning semi-automatic pistol. He was surprised by it, by the age of it. It was from the Second W
orld War. He withdrew the magazine, then removed the chambered bullet. He replaced the magazine with the one he’d brought, loaded with blanks.
When Tatyana returned he was lying on the bed, his flaccid member on his lap in front of him like a worm. It wasn’t flattering but it served to distract her. She glanced at it and then away.
She’d fixed up her makeup.
“I have to be somewhere,” she said.
Goldin had to give her credit. She was a smooth operator. It had been less than an hour and she was already done with him and moving on to the next item on her agenda. She had what she needed and saw no reason to keep up pretenses.
If he’d really been her target, ending things this abruptly might cause a little suspicion, but what did she care? The GRU had their kompromat. He’d learn soon enough what this had been about.
“What’s the rush?” he said.
She was applying underarm deodorant.
“I usually charge a thousand,” she said.
Goldin laughed. “What?”
“A Russian never works for free,” she said.
“I thought that was all you did.”
She smiled thinly. “You thought wrong.”
She was putting on her tights and he said, “I don’t have a thousand dollars.”
She shrugged. “Then get it. You can leave it in an envelope with the concierge. Room 4546. A thousand. Plus tip.”
“What is this?”
“What do you think it is?”
“In this country, we usually negotiate the price up front.”
“Well, you didn’t seem in the mood for negotiations when you had your tongue down my throat,” she said.
He couldn’t believe it. She was a real piece of work.
“What if I don’t pay?” he said.
She smiled again. “Someone who works for a senator would never walk out on a bill like this.”
“You slut,” he said.
She raised a hand. “Don’t make me angry, Sheldon. It won’t go well for you.”
He had to admit, he was impressed. It was effective. It would get him out of the room. It would piss him off but looked legit. And it would give her an envelope of cash. Something Moscow didn’t know about. She did that enough times, she could build up a nice little nest egg. That had to be useful to someone in her position.
It also reminded him of something he’d heard about Stalin once.
“Is it true,” he said, “that during the Stalin years, when the government killed someone, they sent the family a bill for the bullet?”
Tatyana looked at him for a second. “I thought you’d never been to Russia.”
“I haven’t.”
She pursed her lips. He shouldn’t have said anything.
“It’s a myth,” she said.
“It doesn’t feel like a myth.”
“That was the Chinese.”
“Really?”
“A bullet fee. The Chinese did it. And the Iranians.”
“But not Stalin?”
“You want to know about Stalin? Here’s some advice.”
Goldin looked at her. She had an answer to everything. He was genuinely sorry he had to kill her.
“Stalin said, if you’re afraid of wolves, keep out of the forest.”
Goldin chuckled. He wasn’t going to antagonize her. He needed her to feel like she was in control, that everything was going according to plan. He didn’t want to give her any reason not to make her rendezvous.
“A thousand’s kind of steep, don’t you think?” he said as he got dressed.
“Don’t be cheap,” Tatyana said, holding the door for him. “You did pretty well for yourself tonight.”
“You want me to leave the money with the concierge?”
“Cash. In an envelope. A thousand. Plus tip.”
“Tip?” Goldin said.
She nodded and put her hand on his groin. “It’s not my fault you have expensive taste,” she said, closing the door in his face.
Goldin walked down the hallway. He knew she was watching him through the peephole. He made his way hesitantly to the elevator, looking back at the door twice as if conflicted about what had happened.
He entered the elevator, got out at the ground floor, made his way through the lobby, and got in one of the many cabs parked in front of the hotel.
He handed the driver a twenty and told him to wait. The driver started the meter and sighed.
“I ain’t sitting here all night,” he said. “Just so you know.”
Goldin handed him another twenty and told him to shut up.
He watched the door of the hotel, gambling Tatyana would come out the same way they’d entered, and she did. She didn’t get in a cab though, which threw him.
She began walking. It was after midnight and there were so few pedestrians she would have noticed anyone following her on foot.
She cut a distinctive figure in her dress, heels, and black trench, and Goldin sat tight until she turned at the end of the block.
“Drive,” he said.
“Where to?”
“Just to the corner,” he said, handing the driver another twenty.
The driver went as far as the intersection and stopped at the light. Goldin peered down the street. Tatyana was just getting into a cab and Goldin told his driver to turn right.
“I’m in the wrong lane,” he said.
“Do it,” Goldin said and the driver turned onto Park.
They followed Tatyana’s cab as far as the West Village. She took a few detours and eventually stopped outside a bar called the Horse’s Head. Goldin’s cab was a block behind.
“Stop here at the lights,” he said to the driver.
35
Tatyana was spooked. She knew something was wrong. She hadn’t survived this long without developing a sixth sense.
She didn’t know if he was with the Americans or her own side, but that asshole was following her. She was just glad she’d managed to get out of the hotel room without having to fight him. Goldin was in better shape than any senator’s aide she’d ever met. She’d been more than close enough to tell. Fighting him off would not have been easy.
The entire night had been off. Too easy. He’d done everything she wanted. It should have taken her hours to talk a married man like that into bed. And a lot more alcohol.
The file said he went to church.
It didn’t add up.
All she knew was that getting to this meeting with Spector just got a whole lot more urgent. Whoever this Goldin creep was, Spector would take care of him.
She looked behind her out the window. Goldin’s cab was still there.
“Can we step on it?” she said to the driver.
One thing was certain. What she’d been told about Goldin was not true. Igor’s file was wrong.
The question was, did Igor know that? Did the top floor? Were they on to her, or was Goldin with the Americans?
She clenched her fists and took a deep breath. She wasn’t thinking clearly. Goldin had been heaving and panting on top of her, sweat on his forehead, the wiry hairs of his chest brushing her face, when she realized something wasn’t right. It came over her like a chill. The kiss of death, her grandmother would have called it.
She’d kept her cool, wrapped things up without letting him know anything was wrong, and got herself out of that room. That had been her first priority. She didn’t want to have to face off with him in the room. He’d have flung her around like a rag doll.
She was armed with a pistol, chambered in a 9mm parabellum, but she didn’t know anything about him. Everything she’d learned in her years as a spy told her never to get in a fight without all the facts. You needed to know your opponent. And you needed to have surprise on your side. Goldin was holding all the cards. He knew everything about her. All she knew about him was that he was circumcised. Not exactly the tactical edge she needed.
Goldin’s cab driver certainly wasn’t a pro. He did none of the things a trained driver would. That
was something she could use.
”Turn right here,” she said.
“Why?”
“I need to check something.”
Her driver turned, and sure enough, Goldin’s did the same. He even signaled his turns when her driver did.
“Okay,” she said.
“What’s okay?”
She thought about aborting. She could get dropped off somewhere crowded, the train station maybe, and disappear. There was nothing Goldin could do to prevent that, not with the driver he had.
But this was her chance.
If she didn’t meet Spector now, she didn’t know if she ever would. She’d risked everything to get in contact with him. And if her cover was blown anyway, meeting Spector was the only thing that mattered. She had nowhere else to go.
She looked at her watch. She was already late. She prayed he was still there. He’d never given her the impression he was a particularly patient man.
“Lady?” the driver said. “Lady? You all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just get me to that bar.”
“It’s up ahead.”
She had to force herself not to think about what had gone wrong. There were too many permutations, and the situation at hand was more urgent. She had to get through the next few minutes, get to Spector, get this Goldin off her back, and then she could figure out how much shit she was in.
She’d brought this on herself. She’d known it would cost her. There would be a price, and she was ready to pay it.
She just wanted desperately for it to be worth the cost.
The cab pulled up outside the Horse’s Head and she peered out the back window. Goldin’s cab was behind them at the last set of lights.
She looked around the street. It was all but deserted. There were a few cars crossing at the intersections, there was a guy walking down the street smoking a cigarette.
She reached into her purse and felt the reassuring steel of the pistol.
“I ain’t got all night, lady,” the cab driver said.
36
Laurel looked at her watch for the thousandth time. It was almost one AM.
“Hey lady, I’ve really got to get going,” the bartender said.