"Smells like my grandmother's attic," Gray said softly as if in the presence of the dead. He wrinkled his nose against the odors of mildew, mothballs, old dust, and, strangely, fish. Gray had showered and changed his clothes at the Westside Athletic Club, where after discovering Sam Owl's gym he had retained his membership only for shower and lunch privileges.
Amid the jumble of precious furniture was an English brass half-tester bed from the mid-nineteenth century, manufactured just after it was discovered that brass beds housed fewer bedbugs than wood. The blankets were made up in a taut four-square military manner.
"The Soviets filled their consulates and embassies with ornate furniture to impress visitors," Adrian Wade said. "It's their Potemkin complex. Notice that they are all French and English pieces with almost nothing Russian."
"I don't see anybody in here," Coates said.
Gray caught his own reflection in a wall mirror framed with gilded pinewood bellflowers. His gaze moved to a pile of yellowed rags on top of the only comfortable item in the room, a La-Z-Boy recliner. "There he is."
Rather than rags, the heap of motley ocher cloth was a man in a dowdy bathrobe and one matching slipper. His other leg ended at the edge of the chair. He was caught in a stark ray of sunlight from a window. His bald head shared the bathrobe's saffron color. His few remaining hairs hovered above him like insects. Blue veins showed under the stippled skin of his crown. His face seemed made of transparent parchment, and Gray imagined he could see through his skin to the skull. Spatulate cheekbones rose from the sunken skin of the old man's cheeks. His masterful nose was hooked and narrow, a blade that in old age had drooped almost to his lower lip. His lips were thin and bloodless and fluttered with each exhale. His eyes were closed. He was asleep.
"Did he know we were coming?" Coates asked.
The old man started and cried out, a tenor chirp. His eyes rolled open. He blinked, then chuckled, a wheeze that sounded like paper being crumpled into a wad. "Koshmar."
Adrian Wade translated. "A nightmare."
The old man said, "Nu, byvaet."
"He says, 'Well, it happens,' meaning his nightmares. Maybe he has a lot of them, given his history."
She stepped into the bath of sunlight at the foot of the recliner and introduced herself in speedy Russian. The old man's jaw sagged and the lips lifted, presenting an unsettling hollow of bad teeth. He replied in Russian and held out a bony hand that resembled a vulture's talons.
He spoke for a moment in Russian, grinning and lifting his eyebrows invitingly. She laughed and replied, also in Russian. He cackled appreciatively and rubbed his hands together.
"What'd he say?" Coates asked.
"He asked me for a date."
"And?"
"I told him a night with me would turn him into a burned-out cinder, a mere husk of his former self, and that he would spend the rest of his days drooling and weeping."
Coates looked at Gray. "Women tell me that all the time when I ask them for dates. I never tire of it."
"I was exaggerating." She smiled. "But only a little. And now Mr. Trusov and I are the best of friends."
She made introductions, switching back and forth between Russian and English. Victor Trusov's grin spread. He seemed delighted with the visit. He nodded to Gray and Coates. His eyes were milk-glass blue and quick. Gray suspected they missed nothing.
"Zakuski?" He pointed to a television table.
She translated, "Hors d'oeuvres. Someone has provided Mr. Trusov with a nice spread. This is yobla, a dried and salted fish, and this is osyotr caviar. It's not as rare as beluga, but it tastes as good. Do you like caviar, Pete?"
"Is a frog's butt watertight?" Coates dug into the tin with a blini. He sculpted the eggs onto the pancake with a finger, then jammed the entire thing into his mouth.
She lifted a blini from a plate and scooped a small portion of the black beads onto it. Gray noticed that she touched the caviar with her tongue, exploring the eggs before she bit into them as if she wanted tactile pleasure as well as the taste from the caviar. She was wearing a suit with stern lines but of a softening bachelor-button blue. On her lapel was a finely wrought silver brooch representing a bunch of grapes and curled grape leaves. A plain band of silver hung around her left wrist.
The old man spoke quickly, making small gestures with his right hand. Tiny prisms of his spit flashed in the sun on their way down to the rug.
Adrian Wade said, "He says the consulate is treating him like a nachestvo, one of the privileged. He's calling me kotik, a pussycat, a term of endearment."
Owen Gray stepped forward. "Tell Mr. Trusov that I've long known about his exploits and heroism, and that I'm honored to meet him."
After the translation, the old man dipped his head at Gray. His eyes moved back to Adrian. Gray suspected that as a Hero of the Soviet Union Trusov was accustomed to praise for accomplishments the flatterers knew nothing about.
Gray added, "Erwin König, Hans Diebnitz, Otto Franz."
The names needed no translations. The old man's eyebrows came up. He eyed Gray closely, hair to shoes, a professional casing. Then he said something directly to Gray.
Adrian interpreted, "Mr. Trusov says, 'We study each other, don't we?' "
Gray nodded.
"He asks, 'What did you learn from me?' "
"The hat trick."
For three glorious seconds on the rubble mound at Stalingrad, Wehrmacht Major Erwin König had thought his bullet had soared through Trusov's head. Then König was dead.
The old man waved his hand dismissively. Adrian translated, " 'A stupid trick. It has galled me ever since that someone of Major König's stature fell for it. It cheapens my accomplishment.' "
"And the over-tree shot," Gray said. "I learned that from you."
An appreciative expression settled on Trusov's face. He spoke with enthusiasm, staring intently into Gray's gray eyes.
Again Adrian rendered his words into English. ' "You probably read the German interrogation report.' "
"Yes."
" 'I was held by the SS for five days. I thought I was tough, but they broke me. I told them all I knew, everything under the sun about my history and sniping.' "
"But you got away," Gray prompted.
" 'Can you imagine being careless with a firearm around me?' " Adrian translated.
Trusov laughed, which turned into a gasping cough. After a moment he could continue, with Adrian translating, " 'One of the bucket-heads forgot himself. I took care of him and my two interrogators, goddamn them, then it took me three weeks to cross the lines.' "
"The notes of that interrogation were captured by Patton's Third Army. They are still in a Pentagon library. I memorized them."
"What's an over-tree shot?" Coates asked.
"The sniper fires over an intervening tree or building. The target invariably thinks the shooter's hide is in the tree or building, so they concentrate their return fire on it. Mr. Trusov invented that ruse."
Adrian translated Gray's answer into Russian for the old man's benefit. The old man bowed his head modestly.
Gray said, "But my favorite—"
"Favorite what?" she cut in. "Favorite way of killing someone? Like your favorite pizza topping?"