So Kirov’s first version of the Ring had been right, though now it did not seem important. Kirov realised why he had attracted the old man’s attention. The old man was talking to the skinny kid. The boy had forgotten to bring the drinks and was rushing to put the order together from the bottles and crates that also occupied the small living quarters. Craig meanwhile applied himself to his meal — a mouthful of chicken soup and a mouthful of blood — and Harry Korn watched as primly as a middle-aged woman observing a sexual peccadillo. Craig was still at his game of playing out pieces of sexual theatre to fascinate others and master the world and himself. When he was in control his voice had a caressing tone; his lips were stamped large, dark and vaginally red. Kirov looked to Nadia Mazurova to see what she saw.
‘What happened?’ he asked her.
‘He had a key to our room,’ she answered. ‘I don’t know where he got it from. I suppose that here he can do things like that.’
‘Are you alright?’
She nodded. Kirov watched her hands. They lay flat and shivering before her on the table. Her body was held erect and rigid, her face grey and composed. By an effort of will she had stripped herself of her sexual identity to avoid any dangerous cues, knowing that in the American’s frightening mood the slightest thing could prove fatal. He saw Craig’s arm wrapped around her body in a secure embrace, the hand holding a sharply pointed blade to the woman’s kidneys. In his tension Craig had pricked her with the knife. A scarlet stain, the size of a coin, marked her cotton dress. A drop of blood shimmered on the blade.
‘Why am I here?’ Kirov asked. ‘What do we have to talk about?’
‘A deal.’
‘What son of deal?’
‘You stay out of our business.’
‘Is that your idea?’
‘Of course it’s Bill’s idea!’ Harry Korn interrupted. His voice was too loud. At the front of the shop the Chinese youth halted his slaughter of another snake and spared them his empty gaze. Harry whispered, ‘Bill’s a reasonable man.’
‘No, I’m not,’ Craig said evenly. ‘I’d prefer you dead. But there are other interests.’
‘Bill!’
‘Keep your mouth buttoned, Harry.’
‘Whose interests?’ Kirov asked. ‘Ferenc Heltai’s?’
‘Could be,’ Craig assented. He had finished with the glass of blood; it stood on the table, opaque with red foam; his fingers played on it. ‘How come you know Frank?’ he asked. ‘He seems to have a personal interest in you.’
‘He tried to kill me.’
‘Did he?’ Craig said sceptically. ‘You’re still here. I get the impression Frank wants to save you from yourself. He seems to see himself as a father figure. What is he, a friend of the family?’
Kirov thought of the encounter in the snow at the Darvitsky Reserve. Heltai hadn’t pressed the chance to kill him. He thought of Riga.
‘I met him years ago,’ he answered.
‘Years? How many years?’
‘A long time ago.’
Craig picked up the words, looking for weapons. ‘Cream cakes and small boys — I figured that was Frank’s style.’ His lips parted, cruel as a sickle. ‘Your style too, Pete?’
‘Not mine,’ Kirov replied slowly and his eyes took up the other man’s and forced them away.
Bouncing in his seat, Harry Korn chimed in. ‘Let’s stop the sparring, shall we, fellas?’ He gave a tearful grin. ‘We could have an aggression situation here, if we’re not careful. That wouldn’t be a good idea, now would it?’ A loud splash marked the blood of another snake being squeezed into a glass and a groan went up from part of the crowd.
On the knife blade pressed against Nadia Mazurova, the drop of blood had become a small dark flow, and Harry was laughing.
‘Let’s all relax, eh? All this tension…’ Craig’s forefinger, hooked around the ricasso of the blade, was stained with blood. ‘All this tension…’ said Harry.
‘What deal am I buying?’ Kirov let the words snap out. They would all be as mad as the American if they didn’t seize some shred of sanity. ‘Tell me, Bill — what deal is it that puts GRU and CIA together?
‘That’s what you’ll never know,’ Craig answered. ‘Think of that, Peter! You’ll never know!’
Kirov recognised the power-play. Give in and he was lost.
‘It’s not enough,’ he said and got to his feet. Nadia looked up from her hands.
Craig said, ‘Walk away and I’ll kill the girl.’
‘Go ahead. Kill her.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘In a couple of seconds you’ll find out.’ Kirov pushed his chair back. It scraped along the floor and broke the thread of patter from the front of the shop. Craig looked sharply to the street. The crowd of Chinese were ignoring the snake handler and staring silently at him. He hesitated, then waved a hand at Kirov.
‘Sit down, Peter,’ he said. Kirov took his place again.
‘It looks as though Heltai has a hold over you too,’ he suggested. He looked away in order to emphasise his indifference. ‘I suppose he must have. These last few years he’s been supplying you with your own private madhouse. How many girls have you got through, Bill?’ Kirov’s voice made it clear that he didn’t care. As long as he didn’t look at Nadia he didn’t care. Instead he let his eyes focus on the stack of cages piled near them against the wall, and the condemned snakes moving sluggishly and flickering their tongues. ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘What’s the deal? What are you and Heltai really up to?’
‘Tell him, for God’s sake!’ Harry Korn urged. Good old Harry, oozing fear — spraying fear everywhere so that everyone got his share. Kirov could have thanked him for it since Craig was also affected; the American’s confidence was cracking. Reality was leaking into his fantasies. When he opened his mouth it was a smaller voice that spoke.
‘Do you want to know what your people and my people both want?’
‘Not my people. Heltai maybe.’
Craig contradicted him quietly. ‘Yes, your people too. They want things to continue like they’ve always been.’ He fell silent. Only a snake moved with a dry rustle of scales.
‘And that’s it?’ Harry Korn asked. He looked from one man to the other with incomprehension. ‘So what happens now? We all go home?’
‘Be quiet, Harry,’ Kirov told him. He could see the knife-tip buried into Nadia Mazurova’s side. How deep? How could she hold back the pain? There was blood all down the blade; it was smeared all over Craig’s hand; the crimson stain on her dress was weeping a long hanging tail. ‘Go on,’ he said to Craig. His voice sounded gentle as the warm air.
‘Who wants all this change?’ Craig’s eyes glazed over as he began. Nobody there. Talking to himself. ‘Whose idea was it? Mine? Yours? Do you think that dumb bastard Grishin wants it — having the past dragged out and raked over? Believe me, Peter, nobody wants it!’
‘Persuade me, Bill.’
‘We had something,’ the other man went on, ‘and it worked. It wasn’t clean, it wasn’t beautiful, but it worked. For damn near fifty years America and the Soviet Union have been facing each other, hating each other, suspecting each other. You don’t have to like it, but at least you know where the other guy is coming from — and because you know that, it’s safe. You think we want the Soviet Union to disarm? The hell we do! We’ve got generals and armies and industries and jobs that don’t exist if that happens and we don’t have any idea how to structure the alternatives. Do you think the Russian people want to change the economy? Not a chance! Maybe they want the other guy to change and work harder so they get more — but they don’t want to change themselves. Even the black market capitalists love Communism. It creates opportunities for guys like Viktor Gusev to get ahead. That’s how it is. It’s corrupt and it stinks, and we all wish the other guy would do something about it. But good or bad, that’s how we’ve made the world — and that’s how the world has made us. You can’t change it and take it apart without remaking the people.’