It was somebody’s chest, in a uniform. Malone shifted his gaze half an inch and saw a row of gold buttons. He looked upward.
There, towering above him, was a face. It stared down, looking heavy and cruel and stupid. Malone, his legs still carrying him forward, bounced off the chest and staggered back a step or two. He heard a hissed curse behind him, and realized without thinking about it that he had managed to collide with the same pair of dancers again. He didn’t look around to see them. Instead, he looked ahead, at the giant who blocked his path.
The man was about six feet six inches tall, a great Mongol who weighed about a sixth of a ton. But he didn’t look fat; he looked strong instead, and enormously massive. Malone sidestepped, and the Mongol moved slightly to block him. To one side, Malone saw Her Majesty scurrying by. The Mongol was apparently more interested in Malone than in trying to stop sweet little old ladies. Malone saw Her Majesty heading for the bar, and forgot about her for the second.
The Mongol shifted again to block Malone’s forward progress.
“What seems to be such great hurry, Tovarishch?” he said in a voice that sounded like an earthquake warning. “Have you no culture? Why you run across floor in such impolite manner?”
The man might have been blocking his way because of Lou, or might simply want to teach an uncultured Amerikanski a lesson. Malone couldn’t tell which, and it didn’t seem to matter. He whirled and reached for a glass of vodka standing momentarily unattended on a nearby table.
He tossed the vodka at the giant’s eyes, and scooted around the mountain of flesh before it erupted with a volcanic succession of Russian curses that shook the room with their volume and sincerity.
But Lou and Her Majesty were nowhere in sight. Major Petkoff was staring, and Malone followed his line of sight.
A door in the rear of the restaurant was just closing. Behind it Malone saw Her Majesty and Lou, disappearing from sight.
Malone knocked over a waiter and headed for Petkoff. “What’s going on here?” he bellowed over the crash of dishes and the rising wave of Russian profanity.