Ian parked at the nearest restaurant, an establishment named Bill’s, which made the diner where they spent so much time watching Kolb’s apartment look like a palace of haute cuisine. “Let’s not linger,” Ian murmured, eyeing the crowd of diners. There were a good many men with beers in front of them, shooting not terribly friendly looks at the newcomers.
The waitress gave a flat stare as she took the order, eyebrows rising at Nina’s accent. “Where you from, ma’am?”
“Boston,” Ian said at the same time Nina said, “Poland.” The waitress stared some more. Ian stared back coolly. “Two hamburgers, extra ketchup,” he repeated, and she took it down with another sidelong glance. Nina seemed more amused than anything, leaning past Ian to direct a long look at a beefy fellow giving her the eye.
“I wash up,” she announced and rose to stroll unhurriedly between the grimy booths. Two men in steel-mill boots said something to her Ian couldn’t hear, though he could well imagine. Nina laughed and said something long and staccato, accompanied by a hand gesture. The two men bristled, and she sauntered on into the washroom. One of them rose and lumbered over toward the seat Nina had vacated. Ian sat back, unfolding his arms across the back of the booth.
“Your wife talks funny,” the man said without preamble.
“She’s Polish,” Ian said.
“I met plenty of Polacks during the war,” he persisted. “They don’t talk like that.”
“You’ve traveled all over Poland, have you? Personally experienced the rich variety of regional dialects from Poznań to Warsaw?” Ian employed his most contemptuous drawl. “Do piss off.”
The man’s brows lowered. “Don’t tell me to piss off.”
Ian stared at him through half-lidded eyes. “Bugger off, then.”
Nina’s voice came behind him. “Is problem, luchik?”
“No,” Ian said without shifting his gaze. “No problem at all, darling.”
She slid past the beefy fellow into her seat, looking utterly relaxed. Ian supposed that when one had looked Joseph Stalin in the eye, belligerent drunks from western Massachusetts failed to impress. “We make Boston by midnight?” she asked as though their visitor were invisible. “Is very slow, driving these trips. I still say we borrow a plane.”
“She don’t sound like no Polack,” the beefy man muttered, returning to his table with a dark look. Ian released his breath as their hamburgers arrived, staying on guard even as Mr. Beefy and his two friends rose and left. Nina was still getting odd looks—even in a prim blouse and skirt, she didn’t quite look like the average tourist. Maybe it was the unblinking stare with which she returned those furtive looks, or maybe it was the way she ate hamburgers, which put Ian in mind of film reels about the eating habits of cannibal tribes in Fiji.
The waitress stiffed them on the bill when she made change, but Ian didn’t quibble, grabbing his fedora and taking Nina’s arm. They stepped outside into the street, now fully dark, and Ian wasn’t surprised to see three figures step out of the shadows.
He tensed, shifting onto the balls of his feet. At his side he could feel his wife relax completely, body flowing into stillness. Ian saw she was smiling.
“Can I help you?” he asked the three men coldly.
“I met Russkies in the war too,” the beefy man said, exhaling beer fumes. “She talks like them, not like a goddamn Polack. Is your wife there a Commie?”
“Da, tovarische,” Nina said, and everything happened at once. The beefy man moved toward her; Ian stepped into his path and threw a right hook against his jaw. The man yelled, his friend behind him yelled too, and lunged at Ian, taking him around the ribs in a bull’s rush. Ian heard the unmistakable snick of Nina’s straight razor unfolding.
“Don’t kill anyone—” he managed to shout, before a fist smashed against his side and took his breath in a huff, and the beefy man threw a wild punch that glanced off his ear. Ian could see flashes of Nina struggling with the third man, who had got her in a bear hug and lifted her off her feet. Ice-cold fear and white-hot fury swamped Ian, even as he saw Nina’s blond head snap forward and catch her attacker in the nose. An answering bellow split the night. Ian drove a boot into the beefy man’s shin before he could wind up another punch, then slammed an elbow into the kidney of the man who had Ian around the ribs. Finally wrenching free, he saw Nina’s razor hand