Babayaga: A Novel (35 page)

“What area is that?”

“Pharmaceuticals.”

“What makes you think that’s what this is all about?”

“Boris had that odd opiate in his pocket, remember? Got it from somewhere, and this drugstore certainly seems like the right place to start. Worth a look, anyway. So I thought we might go sniff about the place, no need for any subterfuge, though mustache disguises would be fun.”

Will ignored Oliver’s theatrics. “It’s probably only a regular old pharmacy.”

Oliver shook his head. “No, it’s definitely a suspicious outfit. The shop isn’t listed in any directory I could find, and when I dialed that number the phone was picked up but whoever was on the other end of the line did not say a single word. I’m telling you, that silence gave me chills.”

Will shrugged. “Maybe their telephone’s busted.”

“Doubtful.”

“It’s probably perfectly innocent, Oliver. Maybe it is where Boris and Ned both bought their toothpaste. Think about it, criminals don’t generally hand out business cards.”

“Yes, but turn that argument around—when you buy toothpaste, do you generally pick up a business card?” Oliver downed the last of his coffee while Will prepared to accept the inevitable. “Shall we head out then?” asked Oliver.

“Give me a minute to get dressed,” said Will, shaking his head with disbelief at his willingness to go along.

“Yes, of course, me too,” said Oliver. “I’ll leave a note for the girls and tell them that, in penance for abandoning them, we’ll take them out tonight for a nice dinner, someplace fun like Le Procope.”

A few minutes later, the two headed out. As they reached the street, Will put his hand up for a passing cab but Oliver pulled it back. “We can’t very well do a stakeout perched in the back of a cab, the fare would be astronomical. I borrowed that from a friend.” He pointed across the street to a parked Bel Air. “Don’t worry, I’m happy to drive.”

It was early and traffic was light so they crossed town quickly and, after turning down a few backstreets, found the desired block. Cruising slowly by the building, they saw no signage, either on the windows or hanging above the door. The shutters were drawn and there was no sign of life. Oliver pulled the car up to the far corner of the block and parked.

“Now what?” asked Will.

“Now we wait and see.”

Will looked around the abandoned street. “Why’d we have to come so early?”

“Well, if one wants to see who opens up the shop, best to be there before the shop opens.”

Will couldn’t dispute the logic, but he was tired and it was chilly. For the next hour he wrapped himself in his wool coat and tried to get some rest while Oliver watched the pharmacy in the side mirror. Eventually Will dozed off.

He wasn’t sure how long he slept, but when he came to, the neighborhood was busy amid its routine morning bustle. The small markets had opened their doors, cafés had placed their chalkboard signs out on the sidewalk, and cars, pedestrians, and bicycles all rushed and rattled by. A group of children in their Catholic school uniforms headed off to school. The smell of country bacon cooking somewhere made Will hungry. He looked over at Oliver, who was still intently focused on the pharmacy. Will dug out a pack of Gitanes, hoping to kill his appetite. “So, what is the story with you and Gwen?” he asked.

“Please, let’s keep the office gossip to a minimum.”

“Sorry, just trying to make small talk.”

“You’ll find I take my work very seriously when I’m on the job, doubly so when I’m being paid overtime.”

“Wait, you’re getting paid for this?” said Will. “What am I getting?”

Oliver took a cigarette and lit it. “You’re getting answers.”

They sat in silence. After all the running around of the past few days, Will was enjoying this slow, peaceful morning. Instead of murder and intrigue, they were merely sitting in a car, watching a door. The quiet was comforting. Will leaned back in the seat and replayed highlights of old Tigers games in his head.

He finished his cigarette and fell back into a light sleep, only coming to when Oliver nudged him. “I’ve got to find a
pissoir
. Keep your eye on the shop.” Oliver hopped out of the car and disappeared down the street. When he was gone, Will slid over to the driver’s side to watch the pharmacy. He recalled his grandfather telling him that the only success that mattered was having a job where no one had to cover for you when you went to take a leak.

He glanced at his watch, it was almost eleven. Looking up again at the rearview mirror, he noticed a figure approaching the pharmacy. The man seemed familiar to Will, though he could not remember from where. The man gave a quick glance around before ducking in the pharmacy’s front door. Will tried to place him, but he had no luck. He wasn’t very good with faces, a fact, he realized, that did not make him particularly well suited for intelligence work. He was relieved when Oliver finally came back to the car. Sliding over to the passenger seat, Will told Oliver about the man.

“You say he looked familiar?”

“Very.”

“But you don’t know from where.” Oliver drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “You think he is from the agency?”

Will was confused. “When you say ‘agency,’ do you mean my advertising agency or the Central Intelligence Agency?”

“Either will do. Now think, who is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay, it’s fine. When he exits, you’ll have a chance to try again.”

So they sat there, watching and waiting. No one emerged from the pharmacy. “Well, I’m fairly certain of one thing,” Oliver finally said. “That man is not here for his toothpaste.” Will nodded, a little disappointed. He had actually hoped this errand would be a dead end; sitting doing nothing in the car had been a nice idyll. Now, though, he could feel the wheels coming to life, all the complexity churning into motion again. It made him feel slightly sick and queasy, reminding him of the feeling he had as a young boy in his West Detroit Little League uniform, standing alone in the peaceful serenity of right field amid the heavenly quiet, which would inevitably be horribly punctuated by the crack of some slugger’s bat hitting a ball out toward him. He remembered watching the ball fly up high in its arcing, parabolic pop-up before coming maliciously back down, bringing so much chaos and mischief hurtling right into the heart of his awkward, uncoordinated life. Ever since he met Oliver, he felt like that, clumsily stumbling around, trying to chase down one fly ball after another.

His nausea was only made worse by the car’s stale air, a thin haze of cigarette smoke having permeated everything. Also, it didn’t help that Oliver was starting to smell. Will closed his eyes and tried to think of other things, imagining Zoya’s scent, her skin and neck and hair, and the taste down between her legs, which, for some reason, at that moment brought to mind a savory Moroccan tagine. He smiled at the thought, which also made his cock stir, and then suddenly he felt self-conscious, hoping his friend would not notice. An erection in a moment of close camaraderie like this could be tricky to explain. Will opened his eyes and sat up, suddenly impatient to get out of the car and stretch his legs, but also not wanting to move. He was concentrating on trying to relax when Oliver shot up straight with excitement.

“My gosh, you’re right, we do know him,” said Oliver. They both looked out the rear window as the man emerged from the pharmacy. “It’s Jake.”

“Jake?” Will said.

“You know him, Will. You met him the other night.” Then Will remembered, Jake had been the fourth member of the meeting at the nightclub, the sleepy one. “Question is, what in the good Lord’s name is he doing here?” Oliver said, watching Jake disappear down the street.

“Why don’t we go and ask him?” Will offered.

“No, considering Boris’s and Ned’s recent experiences, I don’t think the direct approach would be the wisest course,” said Oliver. “However, I am curious if his superiors know what he’s up to.”

“His superiors?”

“He works for your friend Brandon.”

Will scratched his head, a little befuddled. “Really? Him too?”

“It’s a small town for ex-pats and the agency is thinly staffed these days, so Brandon’s working as the case officer for both the cultural and industrial sides of intelligence here, which includes Jake and you, and me too, technically. So, let’s see if we can’t get someone to help put two and two together for us. There’s a phone booth on the corner, I’ll be right back.” He popped out of the car and disappeared down the street. Will sat trying to think through what he had just been told, but Oliver was back before he could come to any conclusions.

“That was fast,” said Will.

Oliver started up the car. “Yes, I was lucky to catch Brandon at his desk, though he was a bit tight-lipped. Didn’t want to talk on the telephone, he said. Suspect he’s nervous about agency wiretaps, or maybe it’s that mole they always fear is listening in, who knows? We made a date to meet up at our old handoff spot tonight, out in the Bois. He also said I should bring you along.”

“He knows I’m with you?”

“Well, I didn’t offer it up, but he asked and I didn’t see any point in lying, especially since the last time we saw him I was dragging you out of your office. In any case, sounds like it’s for the best, he said he’s got some good news for you.”

“Really?” Will was curious. “Wonder what that could be.”

Oliver lit another cigarette. “Dunno.”

Will looked at his watch, happy with the feeling that things were beginning to sort themselves out. “Looks like we have a couple of hours, maybe we can meet up with the girls for a drink first?”

“I’m sure the girls are fine; if we’re lucky they spent the whole day shopping for lingerie at Victorine. We can catch up with them later. I say we get some oysters and wine over at Le Chat Noir, it’s on the way.”

XVI

Zoya woke after the sun had set. She pulled herself up in the bed and tried to piece together the last twenty-four hours. What had happened? Why had Elga attacked her? What was the meaning of the disassembled clock? How had she possibly escaped such a perfectly designed attack? She remembered the small girl who had been there, trying to trap her with a spell. The girl’s presence was easily explained: needing to make the killing stick, Elga had found a malleable little urchin and pulled her into the scheme. Zoya realized that this was why she had survived the attack. Elga worked fast, but she was an unreliable and brutal woman who would as easily cut a hungry soldier’s throat as hand him a cold potato—and she was the same with the girls she trained, pulling their hair one day, gently combing it out the next. Zoya knew such inconsistency made for poor training. If it was rushed, the girls would pay the price. Along the way, she had seen Elga try to train a few others, but the old woman’s uneven methods made for shoddy work. There might be some out there still on the road, thought Zoya, but she doubted it. She had seen most of these unlucky students fall before her eyes, either from forgetting precious words or from sticking out too far for suspicious eyes to find.

Zoya knew she had been on a razor’s edge of losing the skirmish, and if Will had not shown up she doubted she would have lived through it. She still could not believe the sight of his sweet face with its quizzical expression popping in the door at that fortuitous moment. That was too odd a twist of fate; she suspected those ghostly witches were pulling strings again. But to what end? What were they weaving? It did no good to guess. All Zoya did know was that being saved by a man was not an entirely comfortable feeling. Normally it was her task to pull them back from the abyss, confusing the auditors, poisoning the prosecutors, covering her lovers with shades of invisibility as they rode into battle. Men had occasionally tried to aid her as well but they were almost always the worst, appearing later with grim, avaricious smiles that said, “Debts are meant to be paid.” She could not recall ever having been rescued like this by a man before, ever. It annoyed her, for it implied a debt and she did not like owing anyone.

She had to admit, though, Will was different: he had fallen into the situation unaware, like the rabbit he was, once again hopping blindly into the middle of the hunting party. It was not even clear if he had any sense of where he had been, and thanks to her whispering spell, now he would never recall it. So, yes, she thought, I can owe him, for he was not one who would hold her to any obligation. She knew he was happy simply to have been there for her in a time of need. She smiled to herself, recalling how relieved she had felt as they made their getaway, wrapped up in his arms, safe in the taxi, driving off from the chaos of the fight, the world around her seeming to close down into warmth and darkness. She realized that the sense of comforting protection he had given her, held there in his reassuring embrace, was an almost exclusively feminine feeling, one that most men only experienced as babes in their mothers’ arms.

On the bedside table she found a note Will had left:
Out on a long errand, be here by dinner, rest, kiss, Will
. Putting on her clothes, she went out to the kitchen. She was startled to find Gwen sitting by the stove, wearing one of Oliver’s oversized shirts and reading a slender novel. “Oh, good day, lazybones. Oliver left a note saying you’d be here. He wants to take us all out for dinner in a bit.” She looked up with a pleasant smile. “There’s a pot of Earl Grey there if you want a cup.”

Zoya gave her a polite smile in return. “Thank you.” She poured herself some tea. She looked out the window and saw that it was dark. “What time is it?”

“Nearly eight, you two must have had quite the boozy night.”

“Mmmn.” Zoya nodded to herself. So much sleep and she still felt weak. She knew it would be a day or two before she was fully recovered. “So, you are with Oliver now?”

The British girl smiled. “I never like to say I’m
with
a man. It sounds too much like I’m sick
with
the sniffles or down
with
the plague.”

“Yes,” Zoya said. “I suppose I should have asked, ‘Are you having sex with Oliver?’”

Gwen gave a forced laugh. “Yes, but only occasionally, here and there. He asked me over last night to review some galleys, and then, well, you know, he’s such a chatty flibbertigibbet. It took nearly two bottles of wine until I could finally shut him up.”