academic world …’
‘And are we?’
‘I’m sure going to sift through Bekuv’s friends and acquaintances … and not Greenwood and all his pinko committeemen will stop me.’
‘They didn’t set up this meeting just to tell you not to start a witch-hunt,’ I said.
‘They can do our job better than we can,’ said Mann bitterly. ‘They say they can get Bekuv’s wife out of the USSR by playing footsie with the Kremlin.’
‘You mean they will get her a legal exit permit, providing we don’t dig out anything that will embarrass the committee.’
‘Right,’ said Mann. ‘Have some more buttermilk.’ He poured some without waiting to ask if I wanted it.
‘After all,’ I said in an attempt to mollify his rage. ‘It’s what we want … I mean … Mrs B. It would make our task easier.’
‘Just the break we’ve been waiting for,’ said Mann sarcastically. ‘Do you know, they really expected us to bring Bekuv here tonight. They are threatening to demand his appearance before the committee.’
‘Why?’
‘To make sure he came to the West of his own free will. How do you like that?’
‘I don’t like it very much,’ I said. ‘His photo in the Daily News, reporters pushing microphones into his mouth. The Russians would feel bound to respond to that. It could get very rough.’
Mann pulled a face and reached for the wall telephone extension. He capped the phone and listened for a moment to be sure the line was not in use. To me he said, ‘I’m going back in there, to tug my forelock for ten minutes.’ He dialled the number of the CIA garage on 82nd Street. ‘Mann here. Send my number two car for back-up. I’m still at the same place.’ He hung up. ‘You get downstairs,’ he told me. ‘You go down and wait for the back-up car. Tell Charlie to tail the two Russian goons and give him the descriptions.’
‘It won’t be easy,’ I warned. ‘They are sure to be prepared for that.’
‘Either way it will be interesting to see how they react.’ Mann slammed the refrigerator door. The conversation was ended. I gave him a solemn salute, and went along the hall to get my coat.
Red Bancroft was there too: climbing into a fine military-styled suede coat, with leather facings and brass buttons and buckles. She winked as she tucked her long auburn hair into a crazy little knitted hat. ‘And here he is,’ she said to the intruder alarm manufacturer, who was watching himself in a mirror while a servant pulled at the collar of his camel-hair coat. He touched his moustache and nodded approval.
He was a tall wiry man, with hair that was greying the way it only does for tycoons and film stars.
‘The little lady was looking everywhere for you,’ said the intruder alarm man. ‘I was trying to persuade her to ride up to Sixtieth Street with me.’
‘I’ll look after her,’ I said.
‘And I’ll say good night,’ he said. ‘It was a real pleasure playing against you, Miss Bancroft. I just hope you’ll give me a chance to get even sometime.’
Red Bancroft smiled and nodded, and then she smiled at me.
‘Now let’s get out of here,’ I whispered.
She gripped my arm, and just as the man looked back at us, kissed my cheek. Whether it was nice timing, or just impulse, was too early to say but I took the opportunity to hold her tight and kiss her back. Tony Nowak’s domestic servants found something needing their attention in the lounge.
‘Have you been drinking buttermilk?’ said Red.
It was a long time before we got out to the landing. The intruder alarm man was still there, fuming about the non-arrival of the elevator. It arrived almost at the same moment that we did.
‘Everything goes right for those in love,’ said the alarm man. I warmed to him.
‘You have a car?’ he asked. He bowed us into the elevator ahead of him.
‘We do,’ I said. He pressed the button for ground level and the numbers began to flicker.
‘This is no city for moonlight walks,’ he told me. ‘Not even here in Park Avenue.’
We stopped and the elevator doors opened.
Like so many scenes of mortal danger, each constituent part of this one was very still. I saw everything, and yet my brain took some time to relate the elements in any meaningful way.
The entrance hall of the apartment block was brightly lit by indirect strip-lighting set into the ceiling. A huge vaseful of plastic flowers trembled from the vibration of some subterranean furnace, and a draught of cold wind from the glass entrance door carried with it a few errant flakes of snow. The dark brown floor carpet, chosen perhaps to hide dirty footmarks from the street, now revealed caked snow that had fallen from visitors’ shoes.
The entrance hall was not empty. There were three men there, all wearing the sort of dark raincoats and peaked hats that are worn by uniformed drivers. One of them had his foot jammed into the plate-glass door at the entrance. He had his back to us and was looking towards the street. The nearest man was opposite the doors of the elevator. He had a big S & W Heavy-Duty .38 in his fist, and it was pointing at us.
‘Freeze,’ he said. ‘Freeze, and nobody gets hurt. Slow now! Bring out your bill-fold.’
We froze. We froze so still that the elevator doors began to close on us. The man with the gun stamped a large boot into the door slot, and motioned us to step out. I stepped forward carefully keeping my hands raised and in sight.
‘If it’s money you want,’ said the alarm manufacturer, ‘take my wallet, and welcome to it.’ He was frantically reaching into the breast pocket of his camel-hair overcoat.
The alarm manufacturer’s voice was such a plaintive whine of terror that the man with the gun smiled. He turned his head so that the third gunman could see him smiling. And then his friend smiled too.
There were two shots: deafening thumps that echoed in the narrow lobby and left behind a whiff of burned powder. The man with the gun screeched. His eyes popped wide open, he gasped and coughed blood. There was a brief moment before the pistol hit the carpet with a thump, and its owner slid slowly down the wall, leaving a long smudge of blood. Red Bancroft gripped my arm so hard that it hurt. The second shot hit the man watching the stairs. It went in at the shoulder, and smashed his clavicle. He threw his gun down and grabbed his elbow. They say that’s the only way you can ease the pain of a fractured collar-bone. He couldn’t run very fast with that sort of wound. That’s why the alarm manufacturer had time enough to put his gun up to eye level. He got him in the spine with the third shot. It was enough to tumble him full length on to scattered particles of impacted snow and the plastic sheet that had been put down in the outer lobby to protect the carpet. He died with his head resting on the word ‘Welcome’. There wasn’t much blood.
It was the body of that second man that obstructed me as I opened the glass door. It had an electric solenoid lock. I had to push the override.
The intruder alarm man collided with me in the doorway but we both scrambled out into the street in time to see the third man running. He was hatless now and halfway across the avenue. I heard a car being started. The alarm man raised his gun for a shot at him but slid on the ice and lost his balance. He tumbled. There was a clatter and a curse as he fell against a parked car. I ran out into the empty roadway. On the far side of the avenue the door of a black Mercedes opened to receive the gunman. The Mercedes leapt forward while the door was still open. I saw a flurry of arms, and one leg trailed, and cut a pattern in the snow, before the man was inside and the door closed. As the Mercedes reached the cross-street intersection, the driver switched his lights on.
‘Fulton County plate,’ said the voice of the intruder alarm man. ‘Did you see that? It