Read Online All the Old Knives by Olen Steinhauer - Free Book Online

heading. Family? Sure, eventually. The States? Someday, after I’ve had my fill here.
    Once it began in earnest, his flirtation was a marvel of clumsy seduction. I mentioned once, casually, that in Dublin I’d fallen in with the rave crowd and, despite Neanderthal doormen and tripped-out Irish youth, I’d been surprised by how much I enjoyed dancing to the blip-beeps of European house music. That was all it took for him to drag me to slick clubs all over Vienna, where I had to witness his awkward moves and try not to be embarrassed for him. Yet he wore me down, not so much by seduction as by persistence. When a man truly wants you, and is willing to hang on for months, waiting in the wings as you try out other men, you can’t help but be intrigued. I even grew to appreciate his ridiculous dance moves.
    The sex—beyond some groping in Austrian alleys—didn’t come until I moved into the embassy and my free time came at a premium. Only with that abrupt loss of time were we able to put our few hours to better use. Or maybe it was just that, after I’d realized what a good agent-manager he was, I wanted to establish my bureaucratic superiority before letting him climb on top of me. I don’t know. I just know that now, a year and three months later, I wake sometimes in his cluttered apartment on busy Florianigasse, open his refrigerator, and see it stocked with things I’ve added to his collection: soy milk, organic (“bio” they call it here) cheese and eggs. I have a drawer, too—top right—with spare panties and an emergency stash of feminine hygiene products, as well as a toothbrush. Some would call this progress, but it’s not. I’ve stored these things in his apartment for nearly a year, just as he lodges a toothbrush, a comb, underwear, and socks in my place. We’ve been joined in Purgatory for a long time.
    Words come with coffee, me sitting on the edge of the bed, him supported by a pile of pillows. He says, “Time?”
    â€œThere’s a little more. No need to hurry.”
    He sips, then frowns. “This isn’t that soy milk, is it?”
    I shake my head.
    â€œTastes funny.”
    â€œArsenic,” I say with a wink. “You busy today?”
    He frowns at the window—he, I know, interprets the blazing sun differently than I do, because he’ll be spending much of his day in its glare. It’s a burden. “Vick’s got me looking into some bank-related stuff.”
    â€œBankers.”
    â€œYeah. Right?”
    A smile, finally. It’s a rare thing, but when it comes it changes the whole shape of his face, sparking little flashbacks:
    Laughing at the expense of politicians in the Café Prückel.
    Sharing bites of beautifully sculpted catfish and cherries swimming in vanilla custard at the Steirereck.
    Necking, uncaring, in a cobblestoned alley near Fleischmarkt Stra ß e, when the snow breaks.
    In bed, his sweat-slick hand gripping my ankle as he moves his hips deeper, smiling.
    The images fade as he takes his phone off the bedside table and scrolls through messages.
    â€œYou want breakfast?”
    He reads the messages, eyes narrowing, and shakes his head. “Looks like I’m gonna have to go.”
    Which is another way of saying that I have to leave, too.

 
    2
    Though it’s nearly nine when I arrive, Bill isn’t in the office. He’s usually in by eight thirty, which over the past year I’ve interpreted as his need to escape Sally’s reach as soon as possible after waking. I know him, and I know her, and I carry within myself a fear of ending up in a relationship like theirs. Sally is a bully of the worst sort, for she never lays a hand on Bill, never gives her bullying a properly physical manifestation. She beats him with words and body language and selectively brutal silences. Bill, with all his Agency experience, should know better, but apparently he doesn’t, and I