He sighed. “It would seem so.”
He turned and looked at her. “Do you remember the paddle boat?”
She sighed and her voice was exasperated. “I remember the paddle boat. I remember everything. It was twenty years ago.”
“I was completely happy that afternoon.”
“Ilya, I was there. I know what you were feeling. I remember resting my head against your thigh and watching you shave. You were magnificent!” She paused and grinned at him. “And you didn’t shave badly either.” Her grin broadened as a thought struck her. “How did you find that beach?”
He shrugged and grinned back, his abashed look a mixture of mischief and triumph.
“You rascal! I knew I wasn’t the first girl you’d gone skinny dipping with!”
“But the last.”
“No!” She was appalled.
He shrugged again. “I was busy. I was learning English—then the New York years. There was no time.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Jessica, dear, I was not a saint. I simply never got back to the beach.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I’d hate to think I’d purged your life of naked ladies. And speaking of naked ladies, you’ve heard the term ‘blown’?”
“Jessica, I am Chief of State Security.”
“Dear, it was the semantics I was inquiring into, not the actual fact. We have had our language difficulties in the past.”
“I’m beginning to look back on them with nostalgia. You think you’ve been blown, then?”
“Darling, blared would be a better term. I seem to have attracted the attention of everyone but you.”
“Then I’m the obvious one to help you.”
“Help me?”
“Well, it looks like you’re going to need help.”
She stared at him in consternation. She was really concerned for him now. “Ilya, you can’t afford to trust people like this.”
“I’m not trusting people, I’m trusting you. I know you.”
“But you can’t. You don’t know me. We’re two different people. Twenty years ago you were a taxi driver, and I was a singer. Now you’re Head of State Security, and I…” She paused.
“Yes?”
“I’m still a singer,” she finished firmly. “Ilya, don’t do this to me. I can stand you’re being angry with me, or feeling betrayed, but, damn, don’t walk in here and trust me. I can’t deal with that!”
“Which only shows how right I am to trust you.”
She wasn’t getting through. She had to pull him out of this, for both their sakes.
“Ilya, I am not going to be responsible for both of us because you trust me. I can’t and I won’t.”
She had succeeded at least in offending him.
“I wasn’t aware,” he said stiffly, “That I was asking you to take responsibility for me, I thought I was offering to be of assistance.” He looked so much like the easily wounded boy he had been twenty years before that she felt the familiar frustration of trying to get through to him without a language. Ostensibly, they could now speak the same tongue, but they were as far from communicating as they had been all those years ago. Finally, he grinned at her.
“You’re a hard person to help.”
“I’m trying to be. You can’t imagine that no one is going to notice what you’re doing? I’m not sticking around to take the consequences. You are. She looked at him sharply. “You are, aren’t you? You aren’t thinking of coming with me? Because I don’t think I could explain you to my parakeet.”
“Jealous, is he?”
“Insanely. He tries to peck himself to death if I have a man in the house more than two hours.”
“I could hardly endanger the well-being of your bird.”
“I knew you’d be sensitive to the finer issues.”
Thank God they seemed to be on the same wavelength at last. He looked at her, still smiling, but his eyes were shrewd.
“I’m staying. Let me worry about that side.”
“OK.”She gave in gracefully. Looking at him she wondered just how tough he was and whether it was enough. She wondered if he knew himself.
After Ilya left, Jessica dressed slowly. By the time she’d combed her hair and put on her makeup, she was in a more cheerful mood. And starving. It was too late for breakfast; but she could get an early lunch in the coffee shop on the ground floor of the hotel. She stepped out of her room into a hallway which was totally dark. She stood for a moment, blinking, still not alarmed. There were no windows on the interior corridor and lights seemed to fail frequently in Bulgaria.
She had closed her door and taken two or three strides toward the elevator before she became aware that there was someone behind her. She was normally an even tempered woman, but the events of the past few days had been exacerbating. She was suddenly furious at the cops and robbers, Mickey Mouse games. She whirled, took two giant strides and hit out as hard as she could. Years of unused unarmed combat training flooded back and she felt a special satisfaction as the figure in front of her gave a whoosh of pain and dropped to the floor. That one is for Mrs. Christopolis, she said to herself as she stood waiting for her shoulder to rejoin the rest of her body.
She reached down, grabbed the back of his collar and dragged him down the hallway until she reached her room. Fumbling with her key, she finally managed to get the door open. Light from the window illuminated the dark hallway. She looked down, sighed, and closed her eyes wearily, hoping that when she opened them again, the figure on the floor would be gone,
“Stefan, what are you doing here?”
“I was sitting outside your hotel…”
“Why?” She held up her hand. “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. And?”
“Colonel Christov is here.” He faltered. Her gaze was very cold. This was not the warm, friendly Jessica he loved. He didn’t feel he knew this formidable woman at all. He didn’t.
“How many rooms do you suppose there are in this hotel?”
He was still lying on the floor. He looked up at her as she sat down in the chair. “Many.”
“Over three hundred. Did it ever occur to you that Colonel Christov might possibly be visiting some other room?”
He looked miserable.
“Did you remove the light bulbs in the hall?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
“I did not want to be seen.”
“I should hope not! I shudder to think what Colonel Christov would say if he knew you were following him around.”
“I have not been following him. Only when he is with you.”
“Marvelous! He’s going to love that.”
She launched into a logical, detailed exegesis of the situation, lucid, compassionate, beautifully wrought. Pausing for breath, she looked down at Stefan who was gazing up at her blissfully. She was forcibly reminded of a young man she had known years before who had said to her, “I don’t hear a word you say, I just adore the way you say it.” She had never seen him again, making it what she could only regard as one of the wisest decisions of her life. If she could only practice a similar exorcism on Stefan. Mercy killing? She sighed. Much harder than generally supposed to get rid of bodies, even in friendly countries. If she only had time.
“Stefan, dear, try the chair. You can move now? Good. I’m sorry about that, but living alone in New York and Washington, one learns to be self-reliant.”
He moved very gingerly, trying not to grimace. She smiled inwardly. It served him right, the young idiot! She had to unload this albatross.
Finally, Stefan left and she went down to have lunch. She had scheduled an early rehearsal with Jim and Karl and Paeter, and she arrived at the club to find them waiting for her. They were planning to add new material; their patrons tended to stay longer each night.
“Let’s do, ‘Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.’ Can you give me a torchy piano on that, Karl?”
“Of course.” He demonstrated, “Like this?”
Jessi
ca and Jim looked at him in amazement. “How come you know about torchy piano?”
He shrugged. “I had a misspent youth.”
“From the sound of that piano, you must have spent fast and loose,” Jim said mildly.
“I spent some time in the United States,” Karl said.
“Did you?” Jessica was surprised. “Where?”
“In Pittsburgh,” Karl said.
“Oh, Pittsburgh!” Jessica and Jim said in unison. “Well, that explains it,” Jessica said. “There’s a lot of that going around in Pittsburgh.”
They rehearsed for another hour. Finally, Jessica turned to Jim. “Have you tried bowing? We might try it on ‘Blue Skies.’” She paused, a little taken aback by the look of intense surprise on his face.
“Are you a witch? I’ve been practicing bowing for months now, but nobody else knew.”
She shrugged, smiling. “My friends in New York are all trying it; these things seem to go in cycles. I worked with Mo Edmonds last week. He’s beginning to sound like Charlie Mingus.”
Again he was staring at her in amazement. “You know Mo Edmonds? What’s he doing?”
“Having trouble with his car.”
He laughed. “That’s Mo all right. Christ, I haven’t seen him for fifteen years. It can’t be the same car?”
They looked at each other and burst out laughing. “Well, it could be,” Jim said finally. “Does he still have a boat on his terrace?”
She nodded. “And a tree stump. I think he’s praying for a flood.”
“Jesus, he’s got a patient wife. He fishes all day and works all night and keeps a dead tree on the terrace.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know that it sounds all that bad! Fresh fish and a quiet life. Having a musician around the house all day is not everyone’s idea of bliss.”
Their eyes met briefly and there was a touch of bitterness in his laugh as he said, “What you say!”
They had walked over to a table in the corner as they talked and Jessica sat on the edge of it and looked up at Jim.
“Have you ever thought of coming home?”
“Home? Home is where the heart is, and I decided years ago I didn’t need no heart. I make my way. I’m not getting rich, but there’s no one dependent on me, and I’m not dependent on anybody. I am looking out for number one.”
She started to speak, but paused as the sound of voices rose from the back of the room.
Jessica had a keen eye for trouble, but it took no special sensitivity to detect the dismay in Paeter’s face as he approached accompanied by a young woman.
“Miss Winter, this is Rada Stamovitch, a friend of Stefan’s.”
She was a plump rosy-cheeked girl, who might have been the inspiration for the term bucolic.
Jessica seized her hand. “So nice to meet you,” she said warmly, “Stefan has told me so much about you.”
The fact that she had never heard of the girl before this minute gave her not a moment’s pause.
“He has?” the child said uncertainly.
“Never stops talking about you. Unofficially engaged, I believe he said?”
Let him talk his way out of that one.
“Well,” the girl was really flustered now, “Our families, that is, Stefan never…”
“Shy,” Jessica said firmly, “Young men so often are. I’ve seen it time and again. Can’t talk of anything but her when they’re away from the girl, but nary a word to her.” She was out-crimminsing Mrs. Crimmins.
The poor girl had spent two days stiffening her courage to confront the hussy who had stolen Stefan’s heart. She was totally unprepared for this warm reception by a woman who seemed far more like her mother than the siren she had envisioned,
Jessica was throwing herself into the role with characteristic abandon. She mentally gained twenty pounds, a white apron, and a dab of flour on her cheek.
“Stefan is a very talented boy.”
The girl nodded eagerly, with a look of pure adoration.
“Oh, God,” thought Jessica, “So that’s how it is. Well, we’re going to have to knock that out of her.”
“Of course,” she said aloud, “He wants managing.”
Confusion, uncertainty, and something akin to awe chased across that open countenance. Clearly, this was not how Rada saw the relationship.
I have a young brother just like Stefan,” Jessica said. “If you pamper him and agree with everything he says, he becomes absolutely impossible, but if you’re firm with him, he’s much happier.”
The girl was timid, but receptive.
“Of course,” Jessica said, warming to her theme, “You have to do it carefully. It shouldn’t be too obvious. It’s rather like managing a high spirited race horse.” She paused. Perhaps that was a little outside the girl’s experience. “Or a jackass,” she added helpfully.
A slow smile spread over the girl’s face. She was never again able to view Stefan with quite the same unquestioning adoration.
There was a movement in the back of the room and Stefan emerged from the shadows. He stopped short as he saw Rada and looked at her in consternation. “What are you doing here?”
“She came to say goodbye,” Jessica cut in smoothly. “She says you have been neglecting her.”
Rada opened her mouth and closed it again firmly. She was out of her league. Stefen gave her a furious glance; she widened her eyes, shrugged apologetically. Good girl, thought Jessica. She zoomed in for the kill.
“I have explained to Rada that we have needed extra rehearsals because we have not worked together before, but now that we know each other’s movements, it will no longer be necessary to spend extra time learning to follow.”
It was another well-aimed kick to the stomach. She smiled benignly at them. “You two go and chat while Karl and Paeter and I run through a couple of things.”
“That was formidable,” said a voice from the doorway. “I could have arrested him, but I think you have been even more effective; I wasn’t thinking of a life sentence.”
She smiled demurely. “It depends on whether you aim for justice or mercy.”
He smiled slightly. “You consider that mercy?”
“Oh no. Definitely justice. To what do we owe this honor, Major Borov? Have you solved your mystery?”
“Unfortunately, there are still questions. Are you certain you have never seen the man before? After all, he was an American.”
“There are two hundred million of us, Major,” she murmured.
“Which does not answer my question.”
“Perhaps not.” She knew she was in trouble. She had nothing but respect for Micha Borov; she knew a great deal about his career as a partisan, and she found it hard not to respond to him personally. Sitting there questioning her gently, if inexorably, he exuded fatherly competence. It was a real effort not to lay the whole thing out before him and ask his advice.
She managed to resist temptation, however, and stuck to reciting the facts of finding the body in her dressing room. She was on solid ground there, she had been surrounded by people all evening. She did just wonder why he hadn’t questioned her about her activities in Varna. Ilya had known that Ray had been in Varna and that he had disappeared there. Yet Micha Borov never commented on her visit to Mrs. Christopolis, or the death of her brother. She didn’t believe much happened in Bulgaria that Borov didn’t know. So why the cat and mouse game? Maybe to produce just the kind of confusion she was now feeling. She sighed deeply.
Micha Borov looked up from his notes. She shrugged. “I am sorry for the man, naturally, Major. But I can only believe it is a coincidence. Perhaps they meant to leave him at the American Embassy next door. Have you thought of that?”
He nodded gravely. “It is certainly a possibility. We are looking into all aspects of the situation.”
“Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’m keeping busy musicians from working.”
She rose and looked down at him. “I’m always happy to chat with you, Major Borov, but I don’t r
eally see how I can help beyond what I have told you and Colonel Christov already.”
“You are most gracious to give us your time in this affair, Miss Winter. We are both appreciative that you have been so cooperative.”
A Mexican standoff. Well, she’d bought some time. Or had he?
She walked back toward the bandstand where Karl and Jim had been standing, trying not to eavesdrop on her conversation. Paeter was sitting at one of the front tables reading a paperback book. She grinned at the three of them and said, “I’m safe to associate with now. For the moment. Karl, could we use that small electric organ back there?”
He jumped up, happy to have something to do. “Of course, “Of course, I’m sorry I haven’t suggested it before.”
She laughed and patted his hand. “It hasn’t been necessary before. But I’d like to try something special tonight if you don’t mind. I have a very effective arrangement of ‘A Song for You,’ which really requires two keyboards. If you would do the organ, Karl, I’ll do the piano part.”
“I didn’t know you played, Jessica.”
“Only for my own amusement.”
They moved the organ into position, hooked it up, and Karl sat down and looked at her. She handed him a sheet and sat down at the piano.
“It’s a blend of gospel and swing. Karl, if you could start out on the organ like this…,” she demonstrated on the piano, “That same torchy gospelly sound you gave them in Pittsburgh.” He glanced at the sheet and began playing with some chords. “Good,” she said. “Keep that up.”
“I’ve been so many places in my life and time,
Sung a lot of songs and made some bad rhymes,
I’ve acted out my love on stages, with millions of
people watching me,
Now we’re alone and I’m singing this song for you.”
They worked their way through the next three verses, Jess making suggestions. “Now, Paeter, kick it on the last chorus so that it really swings. Karl, bring the organ up and wail a little. Jim, give him a good strong beat. Got it! Wonderful!” She clapped and grinned delightedly at all three of them. “You gentlemen are a joy to work with! We’ll pull Stefan in when he gets back. There are a couple of bare spots he can cover.”
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