Red Square - Martin Cruz Smith [129]
Irina said, “That’s interesting, coming from someone who has run twice.”
“It’s hilarious,” Stas said. He closed the café door and fell back against it, a rain-soaked mime of collapse. “Irina, the next time you vanish, leave a forwarding address. This is the most exercise I’ve had since Laika learned to fetch.”
His clothes looked wrung, body and all, but he stayed on his feet and concentrated his attention on Max.
“Are you all right?” Irina asked.
“I may throw up. Or maybe I’ll have a beer. Max, you were lecturing on political morality? I’m sorry I missed that. Was it a short lecture?”
Max said, “Stas doesn’t forgive me for going home. He hasn’t accepted that the world has changed. It’s sad. Sometimes intelligent men cling to simple answers. Even the fact that you’re in Munich proves how things have changed. You don’t claim to be a political refugee, do you?” He tilted toward Irina. “Let Renko come or go, I don’t see what it has to do with us.”
Irina said nothing. Like a man who senses a growing gulf, Max edged his chair closer and lowered his voice. “I want to know what kind of wild stories Renko has been entertaining you with. All of a sudden he seems to have assembled an audience here.”
“They were probably happier without us,” Stas said.
“I only want to remind you that Renko is no unsullied hero. He stays when he should go; he goes when he should stay. He’s the master of bad timing.”
“Unlike yours,” Irina said.
“I also want to point out,” Max said, “that your hero probably just came to you because he was frightened.”
“Why would he be frightened?” Irina asked.
“Ask him,” Max said. “Renko, weren’t you with Tommy when he suffered his fatal accident the other night? Weren’t you with him right before it?”
“Is this true?” Irina asked Arkady.
“Yes.”
Max said, “Stas and Irina and I have no idea what kind of disagreeable business you’re involved in. But isn’t it possible that Tommy is dead because you dragged him into it? Do you really think you should drag Irina into it, too?”
“No,” Arkady admitted.
“I’m only suggesting,” Max said to Arkady, holding up his hand to stifle Stas’s protests, “I’m only suggesting that you came to Irina simply because you want to hide.”
Stas said, “Max, you really are a shit.”
Max said, “I want to hear the answer.”
Water dripped from Stas’s chin. Max looked unmeltable. For a moment the only sound was the ring of china on the counter and the slow release of steam.
Arkady said, “I heard Irina on the radio in Moscow. That’s why I came.”
Max said, “You’re a devoted fan. Get an autograph. Go home to Moscow and you can hear her five times a day.”
Irina said, “We can take him to Berlin.”
Max’s voice went flat. “What?”
She said, “If you’re right, Arkady should get out of Munich. No one connects us to him. He’ll be safe with us.”
“No,” Max said in disbelief. Arkady saw that he had come to a totally different conclusion; he had carefully and confidently built a seamless, logical argument with only one way out, a perspective of Arkady disappearing over the horizon. Irina had ignored all of it. “No, I am not taking Renko to Berlin.”
“Then, go without me,” Irina said. “Arkady and I will do fine here.”
Max said, “We’re not staying at a hotel. We’ll be in the new apartment.”
“It’s a big apartment,” she said. “You can have it all to yourself if you want.”
Max reassembled his composure, but for a moment Arkady recognized one reason why the man had returned from Moscow. The worst of reasons.
Love curls around like a snake and crushes two men at the same time.
III
BERLIN
August 18–August 20, 1991
Max drove a Daimler, a sedan with the woodwork of an antique cabinet and the sound of a muted trumpet. His attitude was friendly, as if they were off on a lark, as if becoming a threesome had been his idea.
The German landscape lay under folds of rain. Sitting in front, Irina was the tangible warmth in the car. She propped her back against the door to include Arkady when