Re: Bar: Cat/Matt
Matt didn't like crowds, or close contact with them, but he liked crowded places, places busy enough to be forgotten in. He liked being a member of a crowd, blending in, being a face that the eye slid over. He didn't know how to be anything else, but even if he had, it still felt important to be ignored. This, here, talking to this woman, it violated that principle.
He wasn't sure about her until she looked back at him like she'd seen through a lie, and he knew then, but not enough. He'd forgotten so many things. She could be anyone. Ally? Enemy? He could have forgotten that too. Who she worked for. He had a feeling he knew, but nothing was sure.
He couldn't get drunk as easily as he'd have liked to, and this far in he was still barely warm around the edges. That was good. He needed to be on his feet now.
She was so natural, easy on the eyes, graceful and smooth as breathing, the studied quirk of a lip and the uncontrolled interest in her eye that gave away any pretended cool. He didn't think anyone trained that into her. If anything it was why they wanted her in the first place. You couldn't mock up that confidence - you could fake it, but it would always have a false edge, always wet, fresh paint.
She leaned in close. He didn't pull back. He read her face for what he wanted to know.
When she straightened and spoke Russian to him, he didn't vault over the bar or take her by the collar and haul her out, but it was a near thing, the impulse to act disguised by reaching for the glass again. The muttering voice in the back of his head said broads get you in trouble, especially pretty broads who might still be live.
Russia was a long time ago (two - six - no, twenty years, almost twenty) and she was fresh and beautiful, and he knew that that meant.
"Вы приманки." He could stare long too, blinking slowly. He smiled a little back at her - anyone walking by might think they were flirting in hushed tones, unless they listened a little closer. "Красивая женщина, кто владеет бар, и выглядит для тех, кто задают слишком много вопросов." His Russian was more complete than his English. It was native, Moscow, without a shred of accent. There was no sense in pretending he didn't know what she was talking about, not with someone who had recognized him so completely. It would accomplish nothing except leave him at a disadvantage, knowing less about her than she knew about him, and not sure what she did know. If she was going to leave this room and call the FBI, the CIA, the Russians, or the Mossad, he wanted to know. That was pretty fucking important.
She was bait, or she was off the leash. It was one or the other, and nothing else. "Россия является shithole." The devolution into English retained a sharply soviet accent, and he seemed, against all odds (maybe the drinking?) amused.