When the cabdriver pulled away from the curb, Ludmilla said to Remo: "What do you want of me?"
"No. What do you want of me?"
"To be left alone. You can start now."
"Do you dislike all Americans equally? Or is it just me?"
"It is just you," Ludmilla said.
"Why?"
"Because you are an American spy, a killer, a…"
"Wait a minute." Remo leaned over the seat until his mouth was close to the driver's right ear. He reached up his hands and touched the bony prominences behind and below each ear. He pressed slightly as he said, "Just for a while, I'm going to do something to your ears."
The driver turned and in heavily accented English said, "I can't hear you. Something is wrong with my ears."
Remo made the okay sign and sat back. The driver continued rubbing, first his right ear, then his left, trying to restore his hearing.
"You were saying?"
"You are an American spy, a killer, a brute."
"And you?" Remo asked.
"I am the Russia spy who has come to kill you."
"Do I get my choice of ways to die?" Remo asked. " 'Cause I've got some great ideas."
"Only if the way is slow and painful," Ludmilla Tchernova said.
"Definitely slow," Remo said. "But I'm not much on pain."
"Too bad, American. Pain is definitely on your agenda."
"Why aren't you afraid of me?" Remo asked.
Ludmilla took a deep breath that noisily rustled the shiny fabric of her suit. Even sitting, the suit pulled tight against the curves of her body. She was so perfect she did not seem normal.
"You Americans are all fools," she repeated. "You will never hurt a woman. Cowboy mentality. I have seen all the movies."
"I've killed women," Remo said casually.
"That is because you are an indiscriminate slaughterer," Ludmilla said. "All Americans are. Remember Vietnam. Remember John Wayne. Remember Gene Autrie. Remember Clint Westwood."
"All right," said Remo, "now that I know you hate me and you're going to kill me, do I get a last request?"
"Only if it is not offensive to the state."
Breakfast, it was decided, was not offensive to the state, and Remo told the driver to stop at the nearest cafe.
The driver kept going until Remo leaned forward and made twisting pressures with his thumbs behind the driver's ears. The driver's face brightened as his hearing returned and he suddenly heard the noisy honking of Paris morning traffic, the most unruly morning traffic of all cities, the traffic noise of a populace with a hangover.
"Stop here," Remo repeated.
He and Ludmilla ate breakfast at a streetside cafe under a bright umbrella that was the finest umbrella Remo had ever seen, at a table with a dirty tablecloth that was the finest dirty tablecloth Remo had ever seen, under a bright morning sun which Gallic ingenuity had arranged at just such an angle that it shone under all the umbrellas into all the diners' eyes, and which Remo decided, after much reflection, was just the finest bright morning sun he had ever had shining in his eyes, blinding him.
Unlike most Russian visitors to Western countries who gorged themselves with food as if Russia was just a vast empty icebox, Ludmilla ate only fruits with cream. Remo sipped Vichy water and picked at steamed brussels sprouts.
"Here, American," Ludmilla said, pushing a strawberry at Remo. "Try one."
"No, thank you."
"You do not have these in America," she challenged.
"Yes, but I do not eat them."
"An egg, then? I will order you an egg."
"No eggs."
"Aha, you do not eat strawberries and you do not eat eggs. Is this your secret?"
"What secret?"
"The secret of your power to overcome some of our best men," Ludmilla said.
"No."
"Oh," she said, and put the strawberry back into her own mouth.
"It is the Vichy water," she said.
Remo shook his head.
"Then what is your secret?"
"Clean living, clean thoughts, and pure motives. Not like those two friends of yours across the street."
"Where?" she said, looking surprised with a smile. It was one of the fourteen smiles she had down perfectly honest surprise.
"Over there." Remo nodded his head toward his right shoulder.
Across the narrow side street stood two men wearing heavy blue serge suits that bagged at the knees. They also wore brown shoes, white shirts, and black ties. Each wore a hat equipped with-as a conciliatory gesture to Parisian fashion and decadence-a small red feather in the brim.
Ludmilla looked them over as if she were a butcher inspecting a hindquarter that had turned suspiciously green.
"They are gross," she said.
The two men stared back stolidly at the staring Remo and Ludmilla until they apparently discerned that they were the watchees and not the watchers and they began to shuffle their feet, light cigarettes, and stare at non-existent overhead planes.
"I thought their disguises were wonderful," Remo said. "Who'd ever suspect they weren't Parisians?"
Ludmilla threw back her head and laughed. It was another of her fourteen perfections-a smiling laugh of wild abandon. Remo fell deeper in love, and he fell deeper still when he saw the long line of her swan-like but strong throat, as her head reached back and laughed toward the sky.
When the check came, Ludmilla insisted upon paying it. "Mother Russia does not take charity," she told Remo with a knowing lift of her eyebrows. She did not tell him that it was the first check she had ever picked up in her life.
She carefully counted out French franc notes and put them into the hand of the hovering waiter who, even in the morning, was dressed in a tuxedo and carried a silver tip plate.
"There," she said, looking at the man. "That is enough."
"Surely Madame has forgotten something," he said, looking at the bills.
"No. Madame has forgotten nothing."
"But surely, a tip?"
"There is no tip," Ludmilla said. "A waiter gets paid to wait. He gets paid by his employer, not by his customer. Why should I pay you an amount your employer does not think you are worth paying himself?"
"It is difficult to eat on a waiter's salary," the man said, still trying to smile, but his lips were pulled tightly across his teeth.
"If you wanted to be rich, perhaps you should have found some other career than being a waiter," Ludmilla suggested.
The man's eyes narrowed but the smile never wavered. "Ah, yes. But I was the wrong sex to be a courtesan."
"Keep trying, pal. You may make it yet," Remo said, standing.
"Perhaps Monsieur has something for me," the waiter tried.
Remo nodded. He picked something up from the table next to his. The waiter extended his always open, always hungry hand, palm up.
Remo ground out a cigarette on his hand. "How's that?" he said.
The waiter yelled.
Remo said, "Tell Lafayette we were here."
He walked off after Ludmilla. She did not walk, he noticed, like most Russian revolutionaries, who always seemed to have two problems: their pants were on fire, and they were trying to beat to the nearest corner a bus that traveled with the speed of light. Ludrnilla strolled like a young woman in Paris intent on giving as much as possible of the world a chance to see her.
"Before I have to kill you," she said to Remo, "I will give you the chance. Return with me to Russia. I will put in the good word for you."
"No," said Remo. "Counter-offer, You come with me to America."
Ludmilla shook her head. "It is a land of many beauties, your America. I have seen your women, your actresses and singers. They are most beautiful. Who would even see me?"
"You're a star that would shine in any heaven," Remo said.
"Yes," said Ludmilla, quickly converted to a point of view she had held all along anyway.