Len Deighton - Twinkle Twinkle Little Spy

She picked up her dice, and threw them carelessly, but from this moment the game changed drastically. The man’s home board was completely open, so she had no trouble in bringing in her two men. With her next throw she began to build up her home board, which had been littered with blots. A four and a three. It was all she needed to cover all six points. That locked her opponent. Now he could only use a high throw, and for this his prayers were unanswered. She had the game to herself for throw after throw. The man lit a cigar with studied care as he watched the game going against him, and could do nothing about it. Only after she began bearing-off did he get moving again.

Now the bidding cube was in her hands – and that too was a part of the strategy – she raised it. The man looked at the cube, and then up to the faces of his friends. There had been side wagers on his success. He smiled, and nodded his agreement to the new stakes, although he must have known that only a couple of high doubles could save him now. He picked up the dice and shook them as if they might explode. When they rolled to a standstill there was a five and a one on the upper side. He still hadn’t got all his men into the home board. The girl threw a double five – with five men already beared-off, it ended the game.

He conceded. The redhead smiled as she tucked a thousand dollars in C notes into a crocodile-skin wallet with gold edges. The bystanders drifted away. The redhead looked up at Bessie and smiled, and then she smiled at Major Mann too.

But for that Irish colouring she might have been Oriental. Her cheekbones were high and flat and her mouth a little too wide. Her eyes were a little too far apart, and narrow – narrower still when she smiled. It was the smile that I was to remember long after everything else about her had faded in my memory. It was a strange, uncertain smile that sometimes mocked and sometimes chided but was nonetheless beguiling for that, as I was to find to my cost.

She wore an expensive knitted dress of striped autumnal colours and in her ears there were small jade earrings that exactly matched her eyes. Bessie brought her over to where I was standing, near the champagne, and the food.

When Bessie moved away, the girl said, ‘Pizza is very fattening.’

‘So is everything I like,’ I said.

‘Everything?’ said the girl.

‘Well … damn nearly everything,’ I said. ‘Congratulations on your win.’

She got out a packet of mentholated cigarettes and put one in her mouth. I lit it for her.

‘Thank you kindly, sir. There was a moment when he had me worried though, I’ll tell you that.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘When you yawned.’

‘It’s nerves – I try everything not to yawn.’

‘Think yourself lucky,’ I said. ‘Some people laugh when they are nervous.’

‘Do you mean you laugh when you are nervous?’

‘I’m advised to reserve my defence,’ I told her.

‘Ah, how British of you! You want to know my weaknesses but you’ll not confide any of your own.’

‘Does that make me a male chauvinist pig?’

‘It shortens the odds,’ she said. Then she found herself stifling a yawn again. I laughed.

‘How long have you known the Manns?’ I asked.

‘I met Bessie at a Yoga class, about four years back. She was trying to lose weight, I was trying to lose those yawns.’

‘Now you’re kidding.’

‘Yes. I went to Yoga after …’ She stopped. It was a painful memory. ‘… I got home early one night and found a couple of kids burglarizing my apartment. They gave me a bad beating and left me unconscious. When I left hospital I went to a Yoga farm to convalesce. That’s how I met Bessie.’

‘And the backgammon?’

‘My father was a fire chief – Illinois semi-finalist in the backgammon championships one year. He was great. I almost paid my way through college on what I earned playing backgammon. Three years ago I went professional – you can travel the world from tournament to tournament, there’s no season. Lots of money – it’s a rich man’s game.’ She sighed. ‘But that was three years ago. I’ve had a lousy year since then. And a lousy year in Seattle is a really lousy year, believe me! And what about you?’

‘Nothing to tell.’

‘Ah, Bessie told me a lot already,’ she said.

‘And I thought she was a friend.’

‘Just the good bits – you’re English …’

‘How long has that been a “good bit” among the backgammon players of Illinois?’

‘You work with Bessie’s husband, in the analysis department of a downtown bank that I’ve never heard of. You –’

I put my fingers to her lips to stop her. ‘That’s enough,’ I said. ‘I can’t stand it.’

‘Are your family here in the city with you?’ She was flirting. I’d almost forgotten how much I liked it.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Are you going to join them for Christmas?’

‘No.’

‘But that’s terrible.’ Spontaneously she reached out to touch my arm.

‘I have no immediate family,’ I confessed.

She smiled. ‘I didn’t like to ask Bessie. She’s always matchmaking.’

‘Don’t knock it,’ I said.

‘I’m not lucky in love,’ she said. ‘Just in backgammon.’

‘And where is your home?’

‘My home is a Samsonite two-suiter.’

‘It’s a well-known address,’ I said. ‘Why New York City?’

She smiled. Her very white teeth were just a fraction uneven. She sipped her drink. ‘I’d had enough of Seattle,’ she said. ‘New York was the first place that came to mind.’ She put the half-smoked cigarette into an ashtray and stubbed it out as if it was Seattle.

From the next room the piano player drifted into a sleepy version of ‘How Long Has This Been Going On?’ Red moved a little closer to me and continued to stare into her drink like a crystal-gazer seeking a fortune there.

The intruder alarm manufacturer passed us and smiled. Red took my arm and rested her head on my shoulder. When he was out of earshot she looked up at me. ‘I hope you didn’t mind,’ she said. ‘I told him my boy-friend was here; I wanted to reinforce that idea.’

‘Any time.’ I put my arm round her waist; she was soft and warm and her shiny red hair smelt fresh as I pressed close.

‘Some of these people who lose money at the table think they might get recompense some other way,’ she murmured.

‘Now you’ve started my mind working,’ I said.

She laughed.

‘You’re not supposed to laugh,’ I said.

‘I like you,’ she said and laughed again. But now it was a nice throaty chuckle rather than the nervous teeth-baring grimace that I’d seen at the backgammon table.

‘Yes, you guessed right,’ she said. ‘I ran from a lousy love-affair.’ She moved away but not too far away.

‘And now you’re wondering if you did the right thing,’ I said.

‘He was a bastard,’ she said. ‘Other women … debts that I had to pay … drinking bouts … no, I’m not wondering if I did the right thing. I’m wondering why it took me so long.’

‘And now he phones you every day asking you to come back.’

‘How did you know.’ She mumbled the words into my shoulder.

‘That’s the way it goes,’ I said.

She gripped my arm. For a long time we stood in silence. I felt I’d known her all my life. The intruder alarm man passed again. He smiled at us. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said.

There was nothing I would have liked better but Mann had disappeared from the room, and if he was engaged in the sort of parley he’d anticipated, he’d be counting on my standing right here with both eyes wide open.

‘I’d better stay with the Manns,’ I told her. She pursed her lips. And yet a moment later she smiled and there was no sign of the scarred ego.