The Tears of Autumn - Charles McCarry [118]
“What are all those red bumps? I felt them under the eiderdown.”
“Insect bites,” he said. “I’ve been in Africa.”
“Not the dreaded tsetse fly?” Molly cried, in an imitation of Sybille’s voice.
Christopher laughed. “You’ve learned to love Sybille?”
“I believe so. I do think it’s wonderful, the way she dances on the candle flame and flirts with waiters, other women, dogs, the English language—every thing and creature except poor Tom. She’s so filmy, like Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind.”
“Tom thinks she’s a wonder. They’re a sort of comedy team.”
“Tom’s been marvelous. He tells me all the time we’re safe in Zermatt because there are no roads up the mountain, only the train. He goes down and watches each train unload, then comes back and tells me once again that I can’t possibly be liquidated until the next one arrives.”
“That’s nice of him.”
“He’s mad to know what you’ve been up to,” Molly said. “I haven’t breathed a word. Sybille says he’s most impressed, the way I keep secrets.”
“I’ll tell him tonight.”
“Then it’s over?”
“I wouldn’t say that. I’m through with it.”
“Ah, and did you learn anything?”
“Everything, Molly.”
“Everything? Only the dead know everything.”
Christopher took his hands away. Molly grinned at him, drawing a strand of hair across her upper lip. Christopher laughed and kissed her; she laid her long body against his, toe, breast, and cheek.
“Ring down for a bottle of champagne, will you?” Molly said. “Let’s drink it and stay in Zermatt for a while. I like things as they are. I do love hours like this one—they’re like sailing ships, so reckless and inside the wind, and you don’t see how lovely they are until you get off and watch them sail away.”
2
Tom Webster, crossing the hotel lounge through a crowd of slender men and women dressed like actors in perfect ski clothes, looked as if he were costumed for the 1932 Olympics. His sweater was too small for his shoulders, and his trousers, too long for his muscular legs, were the old-fashioned kind that bagged at the ankles. Christopher, watching him, felt a wave of affection spread through his chest.
At the bar Webster ordered two hot buttered rums. “You have to drink these things up here,” he said. “It’s part of the cure, like mineral water at a spa.”
Webster saw an empty table against the wall, and dashed across the room to claim it. He didn’t like to have people behind him when he talked.
“I think you’re clear for a while,” he told Christopher. “There’s been no sign of Kim’s people in Zermatt. I’ve had the technicians and the translators rush the wiretap logs on Kim. He’s pulled off the surveillance he had on you.”
“Why?”
“Something you said to him in the airport in Milan. He thought you were going to kill him right there, in the terminal. He thinks you’re crazy.”
“That won’t last.”
“No. Kim spends half his time raving about you. He says you’ve got to be stopped. He may not use Vietnamese operators next time. It may dawn on him that white men are harder to spot in Europe.”
“I don’t know,” Christopher said. “They’re about to realize they’ve had a bad experience with a white agent.”
Christopher told Webster, in a few low sentences, what he had learned. As Webster received the information, his heavy face stiffened.
“What will you do about Molly?” he asked. “She’s changed you, you know. You care what happens. If you have to worry about her, she’ll bring you down.”
The expression left Christopher’s eyes, as if he were handling an agent. Webster’s glance didn’t waver.
“You ought to run,” Webster said. “I don’t blame you for wanting to go on with her, but it’s a mistake.”
“I’ve made worse mistakes. I’m worn out, like Klimenko. Would you say Molly’s a better choice than the one he made?”
“Prettier. But less likely to forgive and forget if you make the mistake of telling her as much as Klimenko’s going to tell us.”
“Molly doesn’t want to hear it.”
Webster picked up Christopher’s glass and handed it to him. “Everyone wants to hear it,” he said. “But what the hell —let’s have a good time. It’s New Year’s Eve.”
3
Webster