Tanner’s Twelve Swingers

Chapter 13

We were about as cozy as a group of five can reasonably expect to be in an apartment designed to accommodate two. I explained that I had no need of a bed, that I could more easily sleep during the day, when the others were up and about, and that most of my planning for the exodus would have to be done at night anyway. Sofija and Zenta, who shared a large bed in the one small bedroom, decided that there was certainly room in that big bed for Minna as well. Milan declared that he would sleep most comfortably on the couch. So the sleeping arrangements were not particularly inconvenient. It was when we were all present and all awake that the apartment was overly crowded. We would sit balancing plates of food on our laps, or stumble about bumping into one another, or merely demonstrate through general discomfort and malaise that the apartment did not fulfill our territorial imperative.

I coped with this situation by carefully being absent at times when everyone else was present. The girls were away most of the day, and it was easy enough for me to invent mysterious missions that would take me out of the apartment during the evenings.

It was easy, in fact, to invent almost anything but an escape route out of Latvia. There were too many of us, and we were too heavily loaded down for us to get out as easily as Milan and I had gotten in. If I had come alone, and if Sofija herself had been alone, a routine of border-hopping and disguises might have worked. Now, with our party of two transformed into a party of five, that was out of the question.

And Minna, delight though she was, constituted another problem. She couldn’t be expected to walk long distances or endure much in the way of hardship. She was only six years old.

All of which meant that our departure would have to be swift, bold, abrupt.

And therefore dangerous.

We would need a car for a start. That wouldn’t be too difficult, I decided; one of the girls could simply borrow one from a friend (girls who look like that invariably have friends who are anxious to lend them cars), and we could abandon the car when the time came. That, after all, is what friends are for.

With a halfway decent car we could drive from Riga to Tallinn in four hours at the outside. The Estonian capital is on the Gulf of Finland just fifty miles south of Helsinki. The Russians patrol those waters carefully, but no marine patrol can be that perfect, and it seemed reasonable to assume that a fast ship in the hands of an alert and cooperative (and greedy) boatman could get us through.

I was unsure how wide-armed a reception we could expect in Helsinki. The Finns have the good sense to remain on good terms with the Russians. Still, a plea for political asylum had to carry some weight. Of course a plea for political asylum generally entails publicity, and Finland is honeycombed with Russian operatives, so Finland might not be the safest place on earth. But if we could reach an American embassy in Finland, then perhaps…

I spent four fairly rotten days and nights playing with this dilemma. I don’t think I would have gotten much sleep during those days even if I had been capable of it. What it came down to, finally, was that Finland was better than any other possibility, but that any serious thought about what to do in Finland had to wait until it was established whether or not we could expect to get there.

None of which could be properly assessed in Riga. So one night, after dinner, I shook hands with Milan, embraced the Lazdinja sisters warmly, kissed Minna, and went to Tallinn.

The waterfront bars in Tallinn are much like waterfront bars at any seaport. Talk of women and ships, heavy drinking, conversations in a dozen languages at once, and underneath it all a healthy disrespect for law and order. Every seaman is, at heart, a smuggler and an anarchist. When a man spends so much of his time sailing on open waters with sailors from all over the world, he learns not to care much about the prevailing governments on that one-fourth of the globe that God, for some mysterious reason, saw fit to spoil by covering it with land.

Waterfront bars are good places. Men drink, men get drunk, men fight, men occasionally kill one another, but a waterfront bar remains a generally good place to be.

I was in just about every damned one in Tallinn. I lived in them until I found my man, and then I spent a long time scouting him and another long time conversing with him. It took a couple of days and nights until I was virtually certain he was right. He had a fast ship, he had no love for any government and liked the Soviet government least of all, and, most important of all, he hungered for money.

I had $1,000 U.S. in a money belt around my waist. The farther one gets from America, the more desirable the U.S. dollar becomes. I felt it ought to be enough to carry the deal. A man with a fast ship of his own in a port like Tallinn is almost certain to be a full-time smuggler, working contraband back and forth between Helsinki and Tallinn. A smuggler is accustomed to heavy profits, but a thousand U.S. dollars for one night’s work still added up to a substantial sum. So I waited until we were alone in the night, halfway between one saloon and the next on down the line, and then I made my pitch.

“Ander,” I said, “you are an intelligent man. You know this port and these waters. I have a question for you.”

He waited.

“Let us suppose, Ander, that there was a family of five, a man and two women and a child and a grandfather, and all of them without papers. Let us suppose that they wanted to go from Estonia to Finland, and to leave Estonia without anyone knowing of it, and then to enter Finland without anyone knowing it. Let us suppose-”

“They would have to go by boat,” he said.

“That would no doubt be the best way.”

“It would be dangerous. Very few men would have the courage to transport them. And very few families would have the resources to afford such a trip.”

Ah, good. We were getting closer to brass tacks.

“Do you think a man with the necessary amount of courage could be found? And with the skill and daring to make the trip in safety?”

“It is possible.”

“And what resources would the family require?”

“A great deal.”

He was a Dutchman or a Lascar or a German or a Spaniard, depending upon his audience and his mood. He was somewhere between thirty and fifty. He was not going to name a price, nor was he going to settle for a sum until he knew it was as much as he could possibly get.

So I said, “Ander, this family would give its entire resources. Everything. Its entire resources amount to exactly one thousand dollars, American. In American bills. Twenty fifty-dollar bills.”

“That is not enough.”

The inevitable response. “Then, there is no point in our discussing this family further,” I said, “because this family never tries to make bargains. This family has precisely the sum of money mentioned, no more and no less, and there is no point in our wasting our time.”

And I shook hands warmly with him and went back to the bar from whence I had come.

I outwaited him. It took some doing, because he was fairly certain that I needed him more than he needed me and he was dead right. But I had no more chips left, and the sooner he realized as much, the easier things would be all around. I waited an hour, nursing beers and talking with some Norwegians, and then Ander came in, passed me, brushed my arm with his, and nodded shortly at the door.

I met him outside. In an alleyway he said, “The price is acceptable. The trip is dangerous but may be made safely. We can speak plainly, you and I. How soon can you be ready to leave?”

“A few days.”

“The crossing must be made on a Sunday night. It is much simpler and safer then. Tonight is Thursday. Can you be ready Sunday night?”

“Yes.”

“And the money?”

“You will be paid when you land us on the Finnish coast.”

“And if it turns out that you do not have the money?”

“Then you can shoot us and throw us overboard.”

“And if I take the money without delivering you to Finland?”

“Then we can shoot you,” I said, “and throw you overboard.”

“We understand each other, my friend.”

“I think we do.”

“For men of intelligence nothing is impossible.”

“Nothing.”

“I will explain where you must be and at what time. There must be no delays, you understand that. Of course you understand it, I don’t have to waste our time.” And he explained, in careful detail, just where his boat would be moored in the gulf to the east of the harbor proper. It would be essential that we be there a half hour before midnight Sunday night. No sooner and definitely no later.

We shook hands on the price, the time, the place, and the brotherhood of intelligent men. We had a final drink together. I left him then and spent a few hours trying to decide whether he would feel it was more to his advantage to ferry us across the gulf or sell us down the river. I decided that he would be all right. Not for moral reasons, certainly, but because we had to be more profitable to him on my terms than in any other way. And I was fairly sure he would realize as much; the one thing I trusted about him was his judgment.

I took my time getting back to Riga. I wanted a look at the embarkation point before dragging everyone north and I wanted sight of it in the daylight. It wasn’t a bad spot, a few miles down the gulf coast. There was a massive industrial complex a few hundred yards away, with a high wire fence around it, but of course it would be sound asleep by Sunday night and no bar to our plans.

I was back in Riga by late afternoon. I’d caught a few decent rides and had been careful not to do too much walking in between. My shoes, I noticed, were getting a little down at the heels, and that was bad; if they wore much more, the cans of microfilm would fall out.

I knew something was wrong the minute I walked in the door. I looked at Zenta and at Sofija and knew something was very wrong, but their faces wouldn’t tell me what it was. I looked at Minna, and she made her eyes very wide and nodded toward the sisters. These people are foolish, her eyes told me.

“Where’s Milan?” I asked.

“He went outside. He was nervous, he went next door for a cup of tea.”

This was odd. Milan, however nervous, had the good sense to stay put.

“Evan.” Zenta took a step toward me. “I fear I have been stupid. I have done something wrong.”

I glanced at Minna, who raised her eyebrows and nodded.

“The other members of our gymnastic troupe,” Sofija said. “This one told them of our plans.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes. This one, who is a year younger and an eternity stupider, this one with the large mouth-”

“They are sisters to me,” Zenta said. “Years we have performed together, always without secrets, always as sisters-”

“There is a time for secrets,” I said.

“I know, Evan.”

“This was the time, too. How many are there in your troupe?”

“Twelve all told. Sofija and myself and ten others. Twelve good, decent Lettish girls.”

“Then, we might as well hang ourselves,” I said, “because if ten of them know, five of them will talk.”

“Oh, no, Evan.”

“It stands to reason, does it not? Of two good, decent Lettish girls, one talked. So of the ten remaining…”

I looked at Minna. She was closing her eyes in a burlesque of pain. It gets worse, she seemed to be saying. But how?

“They will not talk, Evan.” This from Sofija.

“When did they learn?”

“Just a few hours ago, at our daily training period.”

“Then at least one of them must have talked already.”

“No. None has talked. And none will.” Zenta stepped forward, smiling bravely through incipient tears. “Because they are here now, Evan. They all want to come with us, you see, to come with us to America, all of them, and so Sofija said we had to bring them here right away, you see, so that none of them could have the opportunity to be stupid as I am and to tell anyone, and so they are here now and they will come to America with us, Evan.”

“They are here?”

“Yes, Evan.”

“Here?” I looked around foolishly. “I don’t see them.”

“They are in the bedroom.”

“Ten of them? Ten good, decent Lettish girls in the bedroom?”

“Yes, Evan.”

I walked slowly, hesitantly, reluctantly, to the bedroom door. I took hold of the knob and turned the knob and opened the door.

And they were there, all right.