City of Spies (10 page)

“Terrible dancer?” Pagan couldn't help a smirk. “He won't mind me coming over tomorrow, will he?”

“Oh, he won't care,” Emma said, and hesitated. “You're not bringing your friend, though, right? Sorry.”

“Her? No.” Pagan sucked down the last of her
submarino
with a noisy burble. “I don't want any trouble.”

“Sorry,” Emma said again. Pagan had the feeling she was often apologizing for her brother. “Dieter's not into making friends outside his usual circle.”

“But his sister is already an expert diplomat,” Pagan said, taking the address on the cocktail napkin from her with a smile. “Don't worry about it, and thanks. I'm really looking forward to hanging out tomorrow.”

“Me, too.” Emma was blushing again. Pagan fought another twinge of sympathy for her.

The band had launched into an insistent, fleet, old-fashioned tango, and some of the patrons were pushing the tables back from the bandstand to clear a dance floor. Two couples already had their cheeks pressed together, shoulders close, hips angled slightly away from each other so that their feet could stalk and kick and intertwine. They looked so much more comfortable together than Pagan had been with Tony Perry. The man was leading, but they looked like they were moving as one.

A slim male form sliced through the press of bodies, heading toward the back of the café. Devin paused and glanced over his shoulder, and their eyes met. He tilted his head toward the door to the kitchen and kept going.

“I need the little girls' room,” Pagan said to Emma. “But see you tomorrow!”

“Goody!” said Emma, sounding like an eager kid. It was sweet.

Too bad that she, Pagan, was evil.

She wound past the dancers and around the bandstand. She was on her way to see Devin, and with every step toward him, her senses heightened. She became acutely aware of how the heavy beaded silk of her dress brushed against her thighs. Cigarette smoke burned the back of her chocolate-milk-coated throat. The concertinas groaned like lovers entwined as the dancers' bodies coiled and twisted on the dance floor.

She placed one hand on the dark wood of the swinging door to the kitchen and pushed it open slowly, casting a glance back. Had anyone seen?

The violins slashed through a haze of pizzicato notes as she crossed the threshold. They merged with the crash of plates being thrown in a sink. A sweating man in an apron behind a screen of hanging pots yelled at another in Spanish to hurry, hurry!

A hand slipped into hers, and snaked her sideways, like the opening steps of a tango. She knew his touch, and followed without hesitation into a tiny alcove, spinning so that her back was to the towering wall of wooden barrels, facing Devin, her fingers still tangled with his.

“How'd it go?” he said, voice low.

His scent enveloped her: clean cotton and leather. She looked up into those restless blue eyes, now only two feet away, and had to lean against the casks behind her to stay steady.

“Victory,” she whispered, so that he leaned in closer. “Six o'clock tomorrow night at the Von Albrecht house.”

His gaze lowered to her lips as she spoke, then traveled down her neck. She rested her free hand on his chest for a bare second before lifting it to adjust his collar. Her fingertips brushed his collarbone.

The collar wasn't crooked. But he didn't know that.

“Well done.” He pulled his stare back up to her face, one corner of his mouth turning down. She lifted her right hand up and slid her free hand smoothly onto his shoulder. The warmth of his body was tantalizingly close. The violins were reaching a furious crescendo outside.

“Do Scots tango?” she asked.

“Tangle?” he said back.

She gasped as he twisted his torso slightly and thrust his knee behind her, brushing his leg against the backs of her thighs. He lifted her off the floor for a heady second, seated on top of his thigh.

He set her down lightly and withdrew to a self-contained space three feet away.

“Sentada,”
she said breathlessly. That was the name of the tango lift. “And
soltada
.” That was the break away. She wished he'd take her in that closed embrace again, but the violins and concertinas outside had come to the end of the song. “Maybe I don't dislike the tango as much as I thought.”

“A good leader follows his partner,” he said. “The great paradox of the tango. I'm sorry about Dieter harassing Mercedes. He's quite the scaffbag.”

She smiled. “I do love the Scottish sweet talk. Fortunately, Mercedes can handle herself, and, lucky us, Emma's got a crush on me instead.”

“Someone was bound to fall for you.” He said it casually, but then his eyes stopped, as if snared, on her lips. A small, knowing smile played around his mouth.

She slung him a look from under her eyelids. “Someone?”

The affection in his expression froze, replaced with a more distant, professional smile. “That's why we recruited a movie star.”

Stung, she glared at him. “What's Scottish for jackass?”

He squinted with amusement, which only irritated her more. “We've so many words for that,
mo gràdh
, it could take all night to name them. So we'd best be getting you home instead.”

She frowned.
“Mo gràdh?”
She couldn't quite pronounce it with the same lilt.

“It doesn't mean jackass,” he said, and swept his hand toward the swinging door back out to the café.

She passed him, but stopped with one hand on the door. “Mercedes didn't see anyone following us here,” she said. “But we can't be sure. We're going to walk over a block and catch a cab, which should give us a chance to find out.”

“Don't worry about that,” he said. “I'm dealing with it. Go home and get a good night's sleep.”

Which sounded suspiciously like,
Don't you worry your pretty head about it
, to Pagan. “It's me they're following, not you.”

He held up a hand, as if to acknowledge the truth of her statement. “It's that you're still jet-lagged and you've a big scene to shoot in the morning,” he said. “If we ask too much of you your cover could be blown.”

Which was a little less patronizing but didn't assuage her. No point in discussing it with him further, apparently. She'd have to take things into her own hands, as usual. “How do I reach you after I visit Von Albrecht's house tomorrow?”

“I'll be in touch,” he said, and smiled.

“Can't wait.” She stalked out.

A sighing violin scraped out a screech, and the music died. Over a general hubbub, the loudest voices were shouting at the far end of the bar. No one was dancing anymore. Pagan craned her neck, burrowing through the jostling press of bodies, to finally see Dieter Von Albrecht, his gang backing him up like a phalanx of troops, shouting right into the face of a young man holding a bandoneón. Behind him, a different group of young men was gathering. They tended to have darker skin and hair in a variety of tones.

All around Pagan, the throng was dividing up into those who looked more like Dieter and those who more closely resembled the members of the
orquestra tipica
.

“Apologize!” Dieter shouted in Spanish, thrusting an empty glass into the musician's face. The front of Dieter's striped shirt was damp, and the other man's concertina was dripping. Pagan could smell the spilled beer from twenty feet away.

“You bumped into me—it's your own fault,” the musician said, thrusting a finger into Dieter's chest. “You looking to start something?”

Dieter threw the empty tumbler to the floor. It shattered, littering the floor with glass. “What if I am?”

Dieter's gang surged forward a few inches, like a school of angry fish. They outnumbered the group behind the musician at more than two to one.

“Hey, now!” the bartender said from behind the bar. “Everyone remain calm.”

“This is our place,” Dieter was saying to the musician. “Take your degenerate trash somewhere else.”

“You don't own this café!” the concertina player shouted at him. The crowd behind him muttered approval as the crowd behind Dieter roared in protest.

Mercedes had been right about Dieter being dangerous. His encounter with her had left him full of anger. He was a time bomb. They should have left when M said so.

Pagan headed for their table. Best to get the hell out of here now. Where had Emma gone? Pagan saw no sign of Dieter's sister, but Mercedes was ready with Pagan's coat and purse.

Pagan grabbed them, throwing the coat over her shimmering dress. “Let's get out of here!” More than a few people were already exiting, fast. By the bar, most of the crowd had gathered around Dieter, while a small but determined group around the musicians faced them down.

The bartender had the phone receiver to his ear, probably calling the cops. Any second now someone would punch someone else and the whole place would erupt. Pagan headed for the door, but Mercedes didn't. She was staring as the groups jostled and shoved at each other.

“What?” Pagan halted in her tracks.

“Someone's got to stop him,” she said. “A lot of people could get hurt.”

Pagan looked at Dieter, jabbing his meaty index finger into the bandoneón player's chest. Spit flecked from his mouth as he shouted. He really wanted a fight, and so did his gang.

And Mercedes—Pagan had never seen her look so torn.

“I'll help,” Pagan said. “If I can.”

The anger in Mercedes's face eased. She shot Pagan a look and they were united. Pagan put her purse down.

“After I distract Dieter,” Mercedes said. “You get the other guys out of here.”

Pagan had no idea how she was going to do that, but she nodded. “Be careful.”

Mercedes strode right toward Dieter and the concertina player, inserting herself between them in one fluid move.

Pagan took two steps forward and made herself stop, hand to her throat. From farther down the bar, Devin was watching. She caught his worried gaze, and he tilted his head toward the kitchen door. It was only a few feet behind the bandoneón player and his crew. A possible route out.

Dieter was blinking down at Mercedes as she stood not two feet from him, her arms crossed. As Dieter hesitated, the press of people behind him suspended their forward push. Behind Mercedes, the band players were exchanging puzzled glances. The momentum of their anger was being diverted.

“Get out of the way,” Dieter said. His tone was dismissive, but confused.

Mercedes said nothing, only lifted both her eyebrows deliberately and tilted her head. The whole effect was one of mild amusement and adamantine resolve. In the jostling, testosterone-fueled crowd, she was a short, still point, the center around which they all revolved.

“What...?” the bandoneón player behind Mercedes started to say.

“What do you want?” Dieter asked Mercedes, at the same time and in the same vein.

Good. Mercedes had both sides off balance.

There were only eight band members, pressed in on all sides except the very back by Dieter's larger crowd. Pagan edged up to the man nearest the back, an older man with a bristling mustache holding his double bass beside him like a dance partner, and took his other hand.

He whipped his hand away and turned, surprised and defensive. She gave him a flirtatious smile and said in Spanish, “My friend over there thinks you should go with him.”

Mustache Man frowned at her, following her subtle point to the kitchen door. Devin stood there, holding it slightly open, and gave him a half bow.

The frown deepened. “I can't leave my...”

“Your friends will follow,” Pagan said, keeping her voice low, and nodded toward the man beside him, who had his viola in his arms like a baby. “Take him now. I'll get the rest. Save your instruments.”

The bass player nudged the viola player and showed him the kitchen door. The viola player gave him an “are you crazy?” look.

Meanwhile, Mercedes had the full attention of Dieter and his crowd. As Pagan watched, the German gang members pressing on either side of the musicians pulled back to get a better look at their leader angrily questioning this strangely confident young woman.

As the press of angry men around them withdrew, the musicians glanced around, reassessing. Pagan tugged on the piano player's arm and flashed him a conspiratorial grin. “The kitchen is open.”

The piano player gave several of his fellow band members a questioning look, and in reply the bass player lifted his instrument off the ground and quietly backed up toward the kitchen door. The viola player followed suit as the piano man tapped one of the other men on the shoulder.

Up at the center of things, Mercedes had taken two steps to her right, pulling the attention of Dieter and his boys that way. Dieter was leaning down, right in her face, his eyes devouring her smooth neck, her bare arms, as he spoke. “Your kind always sticks together. You don't know these men, but here you are, risking your life for them?”

Mercedes's lips twitched in amusement. She still hadn't spoken. “Are you laughing at me?” Dieter roared.

In reply, Mercedes turned her shoulder to Dieter and took two more steps away from him and to the right, leading him away from the musicians, who, one by one, were vanishing into the kitchen. She walked casually but solidly, as if the mass of dumbfounded young men was bound to give way before her.

And they did.

Dieter didn't know what to do with her.
“Say something!”

Mercedes paused, and, taking her time, gave him the once-over, her eyes cold, clinical. “This grows dull,” she said in English. “I've got bigger cats to chase.”

She slipped between two of Dieter's guys, and was swallowed in the crowd.

“Come on!” Devin said to Pagan. The last of the musicians had vanished into the kitchen. “She'll be fine.”