That was good. Petrov was a better actor than he had given himself credit for. He'd made it clear that the woman knew who she was talking with.
"One will suffice," Mattie said. "Doctor Petrov recommends Anita for what we need."
"I see." Petrov-as-madam repeated it with the practiced disinterest of someone who had heard the name often. "For which evening?"
"Tonight, if she's available."
"At what hour?"
"Nine."
"Where shall I send her?"
Mattie gave a fake hotel room and then listened to Petrov-as-madam pretend to write it down and confirm the booking.
She smiled at Number One. "Easy, right?"
"Only if she doesn't ask more questions than Doctor Petrov."
"She won't," Petrov said. "She's too busy."
"One thing before you give it a try." Mattie lifted a finger of her good hand. "Don't sound like a robot if you can help it."
"What should I sound like?"
"A soldier who is a little embarrassed and trying not to show it. Polite but firm."
She sucked as a director. The only way she could show him was to demonstrate, and she had.
"I don't know how to sound like what you are describing," Number One said.
"I'll show you." She cleared her throat once in the middle, stumbled on Anita's name, caught herself, didn't apologize for it, but let the rhythm wobble. She let a pause hang after the reference to Petrov, as if she was waiting to see whether the madam would react to it.
When she was done, Number One nodded. "We can do this."
"Give it a try," she said. "Not the real call yet. We are still practicing."
Number One delivered the lines, and it was just as bad as she'd expected.
He'd said every word she'd told him to say. He'd placed his throat-clearing where she'd placed hers, had stumbled on Anita's name at exactly the same beat, and the whole thing had come out of his mouth like a machine recording with none of the hesitation she'd demonstrated.
"Okay," she said. "Not bad for a first try."
"It wasn't good."
"It was your first try, but a guest who's a little embarrassed doesn't say the embarrassed words. He says the regular words and lets something hitch inside them. Like this." She said Anita's name again, and this time the hitch was inside the firstsyllable, not across the whole word. "One extra beat in the wrong place. The madam hears it and classifies you as a slightly uncomfortable caller and moves on. That's the goal. Be boring enough not to arouse suspicion."
"We are boring."
That was true.
"The Eight do not show emotion," Petrov said. "Everyone knows this. If you pour too much nervousness into the call, the madam will wonder why one of the Eight sounds like a schoolboy. A little uncertainty is plausible. More than that, and it's not believable."
Once again, Mattie had to concede that Petrov was a better director than she was.
"He's right," she admitted. "Subtle. You're still you. One crack in the flatness, no more."
"One crack," Number One repeated.
