Then, in Tretiak’s private master suite, he was struck by inspiration. Unlike other Russians, Tretiak had heat. He also had hot water.
He actually did it — he walked casually into the master bath and turned on the tap. Ten minutes later, while Tretiak and his co-conspirators were revealing all to a hidden microphone, Simon Templar was stretched full length in a steaming bathtub, innocently playing submarine with the sponge and a bar of soap.
Later, towel dried and freshly scrubbed, the paint crew’s extra man simply exited the mansion and rendezvoused with Frankie. Together, they listened to the recorded conversation crackling over a cheap tape recorder speaker in her sparse, barracks-like apartment, to Tretiak’s voice:
“Karpov is such a fool. No one’s guessed the simple truth of where the heating oil went.” Tretiak laughed as he clinked fresh ice into his drink. “Those ‘in the know’ think I sold it abroad. The liberal press has been hunting for a paper trail that doesn’t exist.”
The gloating distorted laughter was too much for even the Templar to stomach. He reached past Frankie and flicked off the machine.
“Tretiak’s morals are lamentably defective from whatever angle they’re viewed,” muttered Templar. “I need a moment with President Karpov. The old KGB must’ve built tunnels under the president’s home, and I bet someone as clever as you would have the map.”
Frankie emitted a harsh laugh, then crossed to the window where she’s stuffed fresh, dry newspaper into the cracks to keep out the bitter Russian wind. She uncrumpled page one of Ekho Moskvy and translated the headline. “ ‘Embattled President Retreats Behind Kremlin Walls. Under siege from critics and freezing populace, Karpov has moved today from his home to a sanctuary behind barricades.’ ”
Templar seemed unconcerned.
“Then I’ll break into the Kremlin.”
Frankie’s jaw dropped in stunned incredulity.
“That’s crazy! You kid, yes?”
“I have a highly refined sense of humor,” he acknowledged, “but I kid you not.”
Frankie gulped and shook her head.
“You amaze me. I don’t know if you brave or crazy or both.”
“Probably both,” said Templar pleasantly. “You drive, yes?”
“Better than any cabbie,” she bragged. “I even have a classic Zhiguli motorcycle complete with sidecar.”
“Sounds a bit chilly for this weather.”
“So, you got a car?”
“Frankie, my dear,” said Templar as he placed a warm hand on her shoulder, “I’m the man who has everything.”
“You rich or something?”
Simon sat down at her worn table. They could see their breath in the air.
“Sit down, Frankie. I have something to tell you.”
She regarded him warily.
“No, really it’s fine, sit down.”
She sat.
“I’m rich. Very rich. Ridiculously rich.”
Frankie’s smile increased in expansion with each repetition of the word rich.
“How very very ridiculous rich?”
“How rich is rich to you, Frankie?”
She looked around the simple and frigid apartment.
“With all my hustle, all my icons and replicas and tourists, this is the best I can do. And I don’t do it all for me, you know. And not just Toll, may God rest his soul, but...”
The smile in her eyes was betrayed by the tear in her voice.
“There are others in this building we care, I mean... without Toll... I care for...”
She became shy at the topic of her own generosity.
“I’m not such a big tough cookie as I pretend sometimes, yes?”
Templar recalled her returning the Bulgari Chronograph.
“So, you ask me how rich is rich to me,” she said thoughtfully. Frankie stroked her chin as if she had a beard, which she certainly did not.
“A million dollars American money would be more than anyone I know could imagine. You have that much?” The lilt in her voice was admittedly hopeful.
Templar smiled, for Frankie had only a veneer of guile, a slick outer coating of opportunism. She was, by her own reluctant admission, selfless.
“Let me take you to dinner, Frankie. And I mean the fanciest restaurant in all of Moscow.”
“Oh, I am so sure of that! I could not. Not me.”
Templar laughed and his breath made warm clouds in the air. “Why not?”
“I might like it or think I deserved it, for one thing,” she explained. “Or you may think you get more than friendship and justice, no?”
“No,” clarified Templar, “my motives are pure, really. Besides, my appetite is coming back.”
She looked at him in a way that caught him off guard, for her eyes seemed to read his very soul.
She took his hand. “I think you are a very rich man, like you say. And maybe that’s more than a million American dollars, or two million—”
“Or fifty million plus mounting compound interest.”
“Wow! Fifty million. Plus interest mounting. Well, no matter,” continued Frankie. “I believe you because you don’t know, or maybe forgot, about being poor.”
“I’ve been poor, Frankie. I was raised in a Hong Kong orphanage until I was thirteen.”
“You Chinese? Part, at least I think, yes?”
“I think, yes. Some. I don’t look very Chinese, but you’ve heard of Mendel’s Law?”
“I probably broke that one, too,” said Frankie, and Templar suppressed a smile. “But the point, Mr. Templar Rich Man is this: For what you spend on two meals at fancy place in Moscow, I could feed the famines in this building. You buy me big meal, I would choke on it thinking of the people here. You understand?”
“Let’s order out,” chirped Templar.
“Order what?”
Templar stood with an expansive gesture. “I hear that in Russia, everything is unavailable. Unless you have money. Then, everything is very available. True?”
Frankie rolled her eyes. It was too true.
“I provide the money, you go shopping. We’ll have a big meal and invite the neighbors — we feed them all. If you can find an electric space heater, buy a few of those, too.”
Frankie’s eyes grew larger and larger. “You’re not kidding?”
Templar tossed an absurd amount of cash in her lap. “I trust you, Frankie. Let’s eat.”
Simon Templar knew he was fumbling at friendship. At worst, he was buying it. At best, he was practicing it.
The thick flakes fell in hefty blankets over the city of Moscow, and it was not long after Templar extended his offer that they returned to her apartment building from a thrill-packed visit to a decidedly clandestine supermarket.
Bag after bag of groceries and goodies were hauled in, much to the delight of the many invited guests.
Doors between apartments were propped ajar, and soon the heady aroma of sizzling meat, cooking cabbage, and sautéed onions blended with the laughter and camaraderie of the about-to-be well fed.
Samovars were heated, tea was brewed, and Templar basked in a warmth beyond coal or oil. He had not allowed himself the luxury of honest companionship in decades, and the pleasure of its simplicity ignited a spark within him.
Frankie resisted showing off her rich friend as one would a carnival prize, and instead introduced him as a long-time acquaintance and occasional business partner. She said that they made a lucrative sale to a busload of wealthy tourists.
The resultant feast was, according to Frankie, a celebration of capitalistic family values.
“I hear that phrase from jerk Tretiak when he gave big speech in Red Square,” she said with a wink.