“My God. Two suits,” said Alexei.
Showered and suited he caught a few moments in a deep, luxurious chair in his suite and watched the sun dipping behind the onion domes of the Kremlin. Stretches of austerity back in Georgia were now tempered by the brief periods of the five star life such as this, or at the behest of a Dutch television company or a publisher in Germany. He heard the drunk French author make his way past, raucously complaining to someone about something. He thought of ringing Lucy – the Conference would pay – but decided to leave it till after dinner when the time difference would be better.
Wandering along the corridor to the lift he experienced a sensation of satisfaction. If a man is favoured, he is more generous with the world.
“Mr Agnew, could I have your autograph?”
When he turned the eyes froze him. They were a dead brown under the heavy lids. No light reflected from them. He was short, broad, built for violence. Max felt a paralysis hit him like poison. He looked round. The corridor extended forever behind and in front. A thickset man was standing at the far end watching. There would be another, lurking somewhere behind him at the lifts.
“Could I have your autograph, Mr Agnew?” Max saw the opened book and the pen held out by hard knuckled hands. These were the instruments that dismembered Gia, and no doubt, countless others, and they were here to deal with him.
“Of course.” He didn’t bother with his glasses, he could never have got them from his case to his nose. He took the book. It trembled. The man offered a pen. Max took it, “Thank you,” The bullet would come as he signed, as his eyes were turned down at the page. He could just about see what sort of a scribble he was doing and he had signed so often that day that his hands had developed a set of muscle messages. “Any name?”
“Tolya Verkovhensky.”
That was the name. This was the man. No doubt. The eyes in the dark. His time had come. Only the manner remained. Please God it is quick and painless, here in the corridor. Dumbly he wrote,
‘Best wishes to Tolya Verkhovensky from Maxwell Agnew.’
“Could you put the date?”
“Pardon?”
“Could you put the date, please? By your signature.”
“What is it?”
“The tenth.”
“Of course.” He scribbled the date, handed Tolya back his pen and the book and was drawn one last time to the gimlet eyes that had haunted him for so long. He and Gia would share the same final view, because Tolya would have made sure the last thing Gia saw were those merciless eyes.
“Thank you, Mr Agnew. Have a good evening.”
Max watched him walk to the lift. He moved with an animal grace, full of relaxed physical power. His fist pressed the buttons, he read as he waited and when the lift doors opened he stepped in, turned, saw Max again and smiled. The doors closed. The man at the other end of the corridor had gone. Max was alone. The dry smell of the carpet seized him; a light buzzed somewhere.
He fell against his door. His shaking hand struggled to get the electronic key in the slot. When it did he burst in and fell on the bed.
His heart felt as if it were trying to leave his chest and get back to Georgia. The fresh shirt that he had put on ten minutes before was soaked in sweat. Arteries were pounding in his ankles, the back of his head, his thighs; in places where he didn’t know he had arteries.
The low sun had hit the ceiling. He could imagine the sunset over the bay, Shota switching on the bulbs in the magnolia tree, the kids leaving the beach, the raft sliding gently in the distance and he wished he were back in his little house, making coffee, peeling an orange, listening to a play on the radio, watching the light change, preparing to amble up to Shota’s for a laugh and a moan.
Passing Alexei and Petra relaxing on a foyer sofa with a drink downstairs, Tolya made for home with his signed copy of Max Agnew’s life under his arm.
The UnAmericans Page 23