Cold Blood by James Fleming Read Free Book Online Page B

pieces. “Arno Sepp of Tallinn, my shithole.”
    â€œIt’s the truth,” I said, placing my hands flat on the table at which he sat and leaning over him. What was extraordinary was that in that short space of time I’d actually come to feel that I was Sepp. It felt a truly seaworthy lie. “My mother’s family name was Saar, and that also is a common name in Tallinn. What else should a man called Sepp do but marry a girl called Saar?”
    He glared at me, his eyes festering with disbelief.
    Suddenly there was a terrific racket below. A lorry had broken down and was preventing another of the usual black saloons from getting in. It was sorted out with a lot of shouting. Then the driver of the car, even though there were only fifty yards to go, put on maximum revs in order to draw attention to himself and to make people leap aside.
    The car door flew open, kicked from inside. A soldier put up his rifle in alarm. “Password! Now!”
    It was a thin, youngish man who came sliding out, galoshes first. He stood up—tall, six foot four, let’s say—planted a black fedora on his black hair and said in an American style ofRussian, “Christ, Ivan, I haven’t a clue. At midday, when I went out, it was
chyerf—
worm in English, which I thought a good choice for a revolution. But midday”—he looked at his watch— “that was a lifetime ago. Between then and now we’ve changed the world... Jee-sus... Can you believe it, Ivan, that we’ve changed every number in the equation? It’s a goddam miracle, that’s what it is.”
    â€œPassword, papers,” said the soldier stolidly.
    The man flapped a reporter’s notebook at him. “That’s all I’ve got for papers, the rest are in the hotel. Reed’s my name, representing the finest socialist newspaper in the United States. That should be enough for you.”
    He put the notebook back and with one hand braced against the car roof, leaned down and said to the person inside, “Here we are then, comrade. Go easy on it, one step at a time and we’ll get there.”
    Crash! Rifle butts were being slammed against the flagstones behind me—for Lenin, back onstage, as calm and commanding as before. He paid me no attention this time. With him was Trotsky, unmistakable on account of his athletic hair and pointed beard. Behind his steel-rimmed spectacles, his eyes glowed. Victory was to the Bolsheviks and he knew it.
    Their four hands were in their coat pockets. My Kriegsmarine was a semi-automatic. I’d have had time to shoot them both. That’s another dream I often have.
    They strolled in front of me, blocking my view of Reed. I heard him shout up, “Comrade Ulyanov-Lenin, wonderful news—the Telephone Exchange, the Telegraph, the Military Hotel...”
    Lenin murmured to Trotsky, their heads converging, “Our tame American. A useful man. He should be humoured.”
    Trotsky, hands now clasped behind his back, swaying on the balls of his feet, said, “He could be paired with your sister Maria. That would be an international dimension we could exploit.”
    â€œI would tell her it was historically inevitable. She would obey me. Is he a homosexual? It would be easier for him if he were.”
    â€œI’ll have one of our female followers discover... Ah, herecomes Prodt at last. Which of those two is our greater friend, would you say, Vladimir Ilyich, Comrade Prodt or the American?”
    â€œFriend? I don’t think we need speak in those terms,” and they moved to one side as Reed trotted up the steps towards them.
    Halfway up he paused and looked back: “Comrade, you doing all right back there?”
    The man they were calling Prodt was limping, head bent so that only broken views of his face were visible, never the whole thing. But I didn’t need to see it all. There were at least ten things about him that told me instantly who