Free Requiem For a Glass Heart by David Lindsey

she felt at that moment. It came unexpectedly and inexplicably, a disturbing and at first subtle anxiety.
    Krupatin looked at his china cup and pushed the handle back and forth a bit. This was his townhouse, furnished impeccablywith British antiques, a foreigner’s idea of what an English gentleman’s city home should be. There was a small garden in the rear with paths of bricks in a herringbone pattern and rosebushes, all carefully tended by an old couple whom Krupatin retained on salary. Like all men whose criminal enterprises have yielded them fortunes, he was preoccupied with putting a great deal of distance between himself and the negative images of his past, hoping to push them all the way into oblivion.
    “Just read the files,” he said. “We have some time.”
    “How much?”
    “A few days, a week. Something like that.” He looked at her dowdy summer dress. “And please, buy some damn clothes.”
    “What kind?”
    “Get some things for the next few days here, something nice. As for the trip … I’m not sure yet.”
    She sat with her legs crossed at the knee under the table, her thick, buttery hair pulled back and fastened with a clasp at the nape of her neck. These meetings, when she received the information about her targets, were never witnessed by anyone. From the beginning it had been that way, and she knew it would remain that way. There were often files, but never anything like this. Usually he briefed her himself.
    “Why don’t you tell me about these men yourself, like always?”
    “Because I spent a fortune to get these damn things,” he said, patting the binders. “Information like this on men like these is like platinum. We’ll talk, ‘like always,’ but first I want you to read every damn word of this. The fact is, Irina,” Krupatin said, softening his voice, a self-satisfied look settling over his handsome face, “this … situation has been in the planning for many months already. We are now entering the final stages. Many people have been carefully constructing this building for a long time, stopping to measure every individual brick to see that it is perfect, checking the consistency of the mortar to make sure it is strong and will not crumble”-—he held up a flattened hand, turned it edgewise to her, fingers pointed up, and canted it slightly this way and that— “checking the plumb line every few moments to make sure we do not make a mistake, not even by a millimeter.” He carefully lowered his hand and let it rest on the table again. “Withthese people, a miscalculation even by a few hairs would be fatal.”
    “‘Men like these,’” she said. “And we have to take special care.”
    He nodded.
    “Because they are important men.” He nodded.
    “And you believe this is necessary.”
    “It is imperative.”
    It sounded to her like Krupatin was getting ready to make big trouble for himself and maybe for many others as well. The vague anxiety she had experienced a few minutes earlier now became a distinct, well-defined fear. It suddenly seemed that all the risks she had escaped during the last four years were gathering together and turning on her, forming a phalanx of old debts wanting their due at last.
    “Listen, Sergei,” she said, slowly dropping her eyes, wrinkling her brow as she began to shake her head. “This doesn’t sound like something that I would be good for. If it is this delicate, I don’t think I am up to it, to the tension. The truth is, you’ve used me too much already. I should tell you … I don’t … the last few times … Sometimes I feel like I’m losing my mind.” She swallowed. She should tell him; she should let him see her state of mind. “Sergei … I don’t believe …”
    Krupatin shook his own head slowly, looking at her with a serious expression that said he would not listen to this.
    “Irina, the fact is you are
perfect
for this.
The
perfect one. You have the best English. You have your fancy university degrees—and