The Charm School

pocket, and—”
    “You collect
barf
bags? Disgusting.”
    They were both laughing now. She said, “Only
unused
ones. So, anyway, I—”
    Alevy came up behind them. “Okay. Everything’s set. Let’s go.”
    Hollis and Lisa picked up their flight bags and followed Alevy, accompanied by the six security men. They entered a long, narrow corridor off the concourse that took them to the diplomatic wing, where Alevy’s man, Bert Mills, was waiting.
    The DPL wing consisted of a front desk and a comfortable modern lounge with small conference rooms to the sides. It was not much different from a private airline club or any VIP lounge in any airport except for the presence of a smartly uniformed KGB Border Guard near the front desk and another Border Guard with a submachine gun at the rear exit door that led to the tarmac.
    Their luggage, which had diplomatic seals, had already been passed through X-ray and was now piled in a coatroom near the front desk. A passport control officer arrived and stamped their passports with exit visas, then left.
    Hollis, Lisa, and Alevy sat in the small lounge. An embassy security man stood near the front desk, a few feet from the KGB Border Guard. Two more security men stood near the rear entrance, keeping the Border Guard there company. Bert Mills sat on the other side of the lounge. Hollis remarked to Alevy, “Why all the firepower? One or two would have done.”
    “Show of force.”
    It occurred to Hollis, not for the first time, that Seth Alevy relished the fact that his lifelong game against Moscow was being played
in
Moscow. Hollis wondered what would become of Seth Alevy when he had to leave here.
    Three Hispanic-looking men walked into the lounge, wearing red Lenin pins on the lapels of their suit jackets. They gave Hollis, Lisa, and Alevy an unfriendly look, and one of them said something in Spanish that made the other two laugh. They sat down in the adjoining club chairs.
    Alevy commented, “There’s a direct Aeroflot to Havana in half an hour.”
    Lisa said, “I think they said something insulting. I heard the word
gringo.
”
    “Let it pass,” Alevy advised.
    There were drink lists printed in several languages on the coffee table, and Alevy said, “They sometimes have orange juice here. How about a little vodka with it?”
    “Fine.”
    He looked around for the waitress he’d seen before, then stood and went to the woman at the front desk. After a minute he came back and said, “No orange juice. So I got Bloody Marys. Okay?”
    “Fine.”
    A waitress came with four glasses of green fluid. Alevy said in English, “Everything in this fucking country is red, but the tomato juice is green. Would you call this a Bloody Grasshopper?”
    The waitress set the four glasses down, then placed a plate of salmon and black bread on the table. “For hungry. Good-bye. Good trip.”
    “Thank you.” Alevy remarked to Hollis and Lisa, “Every once in a while, somebody here is nice to you, and it makes you think.” Alevy raised his glass. “Safe trip.” He finished the entire drink and sighed. “Vodka. The one thing they do right, by God.”
    Lisa said to Alevy, “You’re in a good mood today. Glad to see us go?”
    “No, no. Just happy for you. Both of you.”
    There were a few seconds of awkward silence, then Lisa said to Alevy, “Is that extra drink for you?”
    “Oh, I forgot. It’s for Bert Mills.” Alevy picked up the drink and stood, seemed to lose his balance, and spilled the green tomato juice on the head of one of the Cubans. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry. Mucho fucking clumsy—”
    The three Cubans sprang to their feet.
    Hollis stood, and Bert Mills was suddenly there too. The Cubans sized up the situation quickly. They gathered their attaché cases amid a flourish of handkerchiefs and retreated to one of the side rooms. Alevy said, “I feel just awful.”
    Mills laughed and walked back to his chair. Hollis noticed the two KGB Border Guards grinning.
    Hollis always marveled at Alevy’s little army of well-mannered thugs. In addition to the twenty or so CIA intelligence officers, there were about a dozen embassy security men whom Alevy had use of. Alevy had once told Hollis that if he could get the thirty-man Marine contingent under his control, he could take the Kremlin.
    Alevy wiped his hand with a cocktail napkin. “I always meet interesting people in the diplomatic lounge.”
    Lisa smiled at Alevy but said nothing.
    Hollis realized that Alevy was