The Charm School

luck.”
    Hollis hung up and went back down the dark corridor, knife in hand. He reached the lobby and slipped the knife under his jacket. “Well, if I don’t make it back, the ambassador can raise a little stink about it.” His estranged wife, Katherine, would get his pension and life insurance. He kept meaning to write to his lawyer in Washington to change his will. The complications inherent in international matrimonial problems were endless. “Endless.” There were times when he wished he were in his old F-4 Phantom with nothing more to worry about than MiGs and missiles converging on his radar screen.
    Hollis considered the evidence. Fisher’s phone call to the embassy had tipped the KGB, but they would have needed time to react. “Therefore Fisher made it to the lounge.”
    Hollis took the elevator back up to the top floor and went to the lounge. He ordered a Dewar’s and soda at the service bar and said to the bartender in Russian, “Have you seen my friend yet?”
    “No. I’m sorry. Three dollars.”
    Hollis paid him.
    A well-dressed man next to Hollis thrust his glass toward the bartender and said with a British accent, “Gin and tonic—Gordon’s and Schwepps. Slice of lemon this time,
spasibo.
”
    Hollis said to the man, “They’ve been out of lemons since the Revolution.”
    The Englishman laughed. “What a place this is, eh, Yank?”
    “Different.”
    “Bloody right. Here on holiday, then?”
    “Business.”
    “Me too.” The man’s drink came without the lemon, and the bartender asked for three pounds. Hollis moved away from the service bar, and the Englishman followed. The man said, “They haven’t had cocktail waitresses since the Revolution either. You fetch your own drinks here, and they make their own exchange rates as they go along. Three dollars, three pounds, all the same to them. But I think my gin cost me more than your whiskey.”
    “Try giving him three lire next time.”
    The man laughed. “They’re not that bloody stupid. Name’s Wilson.”
    “Richardson,” Hollis replied.
    They tipped their glasses toward each other. “Cheers.”
    Wilson said, “Did I hear you speaking Russian there?
Spasibo
and
pozhalusta.
Which is which?”
    “
Spasibo
is ‘thank you,’
pozhalusta
is ‘please.’”
    “Oh, I’ve been getting it backwards. How do you get the bartender’s attention?”
    “Call out
Komitet.
”
    “Komitet?”
    “Right. That should get his attention. Have you been in here awhile?”
    “About an hour, I suppose. Why?”
    “I’m looking for a friend of mine. American, in his twenties, blue jeans and windbreaker.”
    “‘Windcheater,’ you mean?”
    “Yes, windcheater.”
    “I think I did see him. No one dresses in this benighted country. Damned Reds ruined everything. No manners either, and no style here, if you know what I mean. Of course I don’t fault you for wearing a leather jacket if no one else dresses.”
    “Did you notice if he was speaking to anyone?”
    Wilson looked around the lounge. “Saw him sitting over there somewhere. Yes, speaking to someone.”
    “Who?”
    “Ah, now I remember. See those two? Nicely dressed. Frogs, I think. They dress well if nothing else. Had a young chap with them. Could be your fellow. The lad had a few too many, and two people from the hotel helped him out. The boy became a bit… belligerent, I suppose you’d say. They hurried him off. I don’t think they would make anything of it—half the damned country’s drunk at any given moment. Probably took him to his room.”
    “When was this?”
    “About fifteen—twenty minutes ago.”
    “Thanks.” Hollis moved through the cocktail tables and sat in an armchair across from the man and woman. “May I?”
    The man grunted in reply.
    Hollis asked, “Do you speak English?”
    The man shook his head.
    “And you,
madame
?”
    She looked at him. “A little.”
    Hollis leaned across the table and spoke softly and distinctly. “I am looking for a friend, an American, a young man. I understand he had a drink with you earlier.”
    The woman glanced at the man beside her before replying, “Yes.” She added in good English, “He was ill. He was aided to his room.”
    “This young man told you his name?”
    “Yes.”
    “Fisher?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did he seem… agitated? Worried?”
    The woman did not reply but nodded almost imperceptibly.
    “Did he tell you what was worrying him?”
    The man stood and said to the woman,
“Allons.”
    She