Indeed, this whole function had a curious quasi-historical air. The tunes being played, for example, dated back fifteen, even twenty-five years, and in the identical style of their originals. The clothes, too, struck him as subtly behind the times-what you might have seen at a Kremlin reception a decade ago. Growing more and more depressed, he drifted from one group to another, and heard lectures on the spics (“A billion bucks we spent on aid, and the Cubans put ’em in their pocket!”), on the gooks (“All those American boys who died trying to save them from the Reds!”), and the black Africans (“Can’t trust anyone over there except the Boers, and I don’t think we do enough for them!”) . . .
1 didn’t believe it, he thought. But it’s true!
He wondered whether someone like Ambow, working with material from the past, recognized the analogies you could draw, one-for-one, with other places and other times. And concluded that if anyone did, he must prefer to ignore them. It made him desperately sad.
Eventually, passing the half-open door that led into the living-room of the Turnips’ apartment, he heard a familiar sound.
“Well, well!” he murmured under his teeth. “Prokofievl”
He debated for a moment whether it was in character for Holtzer to like “The Love of Three Oranges,” and decided that that was irrelevant. Shrugging, he pushed open the door. Beyond, the lights were down to a dim glow, but
he had been in here earlier today and thought he knew the layout well enough not to turn them up. He headed for a chair facing the player. It was not until he almost fell over an outstretched leg that he realized the room’s long lounge, end-on to the door, was occupied by Lora and her dark-skinned friend. She was crawling all over him, but although his hands were inside her dress, fondling her back, he didn’t seem to be acting very passionately.
“Sorry” he murmured, and made to withdraw.
And backed straight into a tall, good-looking man with a shock of sleek gray hair, who in the same moment snapped the lights to full.
“Oh, Loral” he exclaimed. “Do you know what’s become of your brother”
“Shit, piss, and damnation,” Lora said in a weary tone, and rolled off Danty, flinging her legs angrily to the floor. “No, I don’t I’m not my brother’s keeper, thank God”
The handsome man reddened, and Sheklov placed him; he’d been pointed out as a minister of religion. Powers? No, Powell, that was it: Maurice Powell.
“Hey, Don” Lora added, seeing that Shekldv was on the point of leaving the room. “Don’t run off I”
Sheklov halted on the threshold. There was a pause. Eventually Powell gave an insincere grin and went out.
“Oh, that slug!” Lora said, falling back on the couch. Danty had twisted around into a sitting position and reached for a glass on a nearby table. “Put the lights down again, Don, and have a chair.”
“I don’t want to interrupt ” Sheklov began.
“Zip it!” she interrupted with a harsh laugh. “That’s one of his lines Know what he did to me, last party he came to here? Walked right into my bedroom where I was making out with somebody, sat down, and started playing with himself while he watched Christ, he makes my skin crawl”
She seized and lit a cigarette from the table.
“Still, as long as he knows you’re in here, he won’t come back. Or with luck he’ll find Peter. Made for each other, those two. . . , Shit, I forgot. Danty, this is Don Holtzer.”
“We almost met,” Danty said with a crooked grin. “In the pic with Prexy.”
“Yes, of course,” Lora muttered. “Jesus, Danty, how does that hit you?”
“Like dry ice.” Danty set his glass aside again. “You’re from Canada, aren’t you, Don?”
On edge for some indefinable reason-maybe because of the searching quality of the stare Danty had given him before-Sheklov nodded. “Yes, I’m in timber up there. Manitoba.”
That much was absolutely safe to say. There were scores of Canadian firms ready to give Russian agents cover, and he had a genuine deal to conclude.
“I’d like to go north some time,” Lora said. She realized that her left nipple was showing through one of the gaps in her dress, and tugged a lozenge of cloth back into place. “There’s something rather cultural about Canada, I think.”