Quiller Balalaika

'No.'

Of course it was perfectly true: it was in point of fact important that I saw Vishinsky. There were other capos here, but I didn't have even the slender connection to any of them that I had with the Cougar – an acquaintanceship with Mitzi Piatilova. If I left here without seeing him I would leave here without access for Balalaika, and I would not, my good friend, sleep well. Oh, fair enough, the executive doesn't often gain access on the first day of the mission, though a few of us have done it – Vine, Teaseman, myself. I suppose I wanted to do it now out of pride, since the Chief of Signals himself was my control. But if Croder had known my thinking he would have flayed me with that tongue of his: pride can be deadly if you give it rein.

'Would you be able,' I asked Claudette, 'to find some club stationery for me?'

'I think so.'

'Just one sheet and an envelope.'

When she came back from the office near the doors I wrote the note and sealed it and put it into my breast pocket. 'You've been very kind,' I said. 'Possibly more than you know.'

A shimmering smile, the first I'd seen, a stunner. 'Whatever you're going to do,' she said, 'be very careful.'

'But of course.'

On my way to the private room I passed Mitzi, and she caught my arm. 'Is Claudette going to help you?'

'She already has.'

'You're going to talk to Vishinsky right now?'

'I'm going to try.'

Mitzi got off her bar stool, her eyes concerned. 'Without anyone taking you in there?'

'There would have been a risk for Claudette.'

'So you're going in alone.'

'Don't worry. I shall use great charm.'

'Shit,' Mitzi said.

The bodyguard was still at the door, flexing his ankles, eyeing me with a vacant stare as I went up to him.

He said no, of course, when I gave him the envelope. 'It's a matter of urgency,' I told him. 'I need to make sure the Cougar knows what's happened.'

He turned the envelope over to scan the other side. 'So what's happened?'

'It's for his eyes only. But when he hears the news from someone else and I tell him you stopped me at the door, you'll finish up in the forest. Now move your fucking arse and go in there and give it to him. Move.'

His eyes went hard. 'So who the fuck are you?'

I wasn't making any headway so I used a half-fist under the rib cage and he doubled over and I opened the door and went into the private room. It was full of cigar smoke.

Four men were sitting at a table with cards fanned in their hands. They were perfectly still, looking at me. Ash dropped from one of their cigars onto the polished redwood table. The five bodyguards were standing against the walls, one of them moving into a half-crouch because the man outside was moaning and it must have looked quite clear what had happened. I kicked the door shut behind me.

He would be the one on the far side of the table, Vishinsky. He was watching me in silence, his eyes smouldering with rage, his long narrow face paler, perhaps, than normaclass="underline" this was my impression. His hair was cut en brosse, and shone with oil; his mouth was a bloodless slash across the lower part of his face, and I found myself thinking that his smile, if ever it came, would bear semblance to the look of a predator on sighting prey. He was wearing a perfectly cut dinner jacket – they all were, the men at the table – and the bow was black velvet, the corner of the handkerchief in his breast pocket monogrammed. Then at last he moved, with just a jerk of his head, and two of the bodyguards closed in on me, one of them frisking me, and thoroughly.

'Where is your gun?' This from Vishinsky.

'I don't carry one.'

'Why not?' His eyes were fixed on me now with a reptilian stare: he'd got the rage out of his system.

'It's not the way I do business. Call me a peaceful trader.'

'You're lying. There's no such thing in Moscow.'

'There's a first time for everything.'

The man outside was still moaning, and Vishinsky looked at one of the guards. 'Go outside and take over. Tell him I want to see him at nine o'clock in the morning, unarmed.'

Looking back to me: 'What did you do to him?'

'Nothing very much.'

'He sounds in a lot of pain.'

'He's just winded.'

'Why did you do that to him?' Vishinsky's voice was suddenly very quiet. 'What could have made you even contemplate such a thing, with one of my bodyguards?'

'I asked him to bring a note in for you. He refused.'

'You haven't answered my question.'

At the edge of my vision I was taking in what I could of the other people in the room. Their heads turned to look at Vishinsky when he spoke, to look at me when I answered. They reminded me of umpires at Wimbledon.

'I thought I had,' I told him.

By now I was having to keep the impatience out of my tone. He'd decided to treat me like a schoolboy, possibly for the benefit of the other three men. But there was no point in getting impatient; the thing was to leave here with what I'd come here for: access for Balalaika.

'No,' Vishinsky said. 'You weren't listening. I asked you what made you even contemplate such a thing, with one of my bodyguards.'

'I came here tonight to do business with you. I don't like being obstructed by minions.'

'And do you think I like being insulted?'

'That's just the way you're taking it. I heard you were a businessman, and I came here to talk business. When do we start?'

He left his stare on me, looking for something in my eyes: apprehension. I don't suppose he ever looked into any man's eyes without seeing it. Apprehension or fear. I didn't think the bodyguard would go to see Vishinsky tomorrow; by nine o'clock in the morning I thought he would probably be in St Petersberg, or out of the country; even with a neck that thick he must have a modicum of sense.

'I do business in my office,' Vishinsky said. 'Not in gaming rooms.'

'It's rather urgent. The shipment just came in, and I want to make a deal as soon as I can.'

'You don't listen, you see. I told you I don't do business in gaming rooms.'

'As a businessman, you'll see that this can't wait, when I tell you about the pelts, and the price.'

In a moment, 'Who told you I was a businessman?'

'No one in particular. It's your reputation.'

'Reputations are built on what people say. I want to know who said that. I want to know who said anything at all about me.

I decided not to use Mitzi Piatilova's name after all. She was perfectly right: this man was dangerous, and might take it out on her if he objected to anything I said – he'd already objected to what I'd done. In any case I hadn't intended to use the Boris thing as my reason for coming here: the proposal of a deal worth only fifty thousand dollars would only enrage him again, and I needed to use him.