City of Spies Read Online Free PDF Page A

teachers and librarians cooked up for her. The principal hadn’t wanted to let her into the physics class. He’d said girls didn’t belong in science except for cooking class. But Mercedes had promised him she’d get an A, and he’d finally given in.
    It made her the weird girl at school, but she didn’t care. Her affinity for formulas coupled with her access to comics thanks to her part-time job at a comic book store had made her one of the most popular kids in her physics class.
    â€œAll that time I wasted, fighting people.” Mercedes gave her head a small shake, as if she couldn’t quite believe it. “Violence is so stupid. I’m never going to fight again.”
    Pagan peeled off her gloves, easing her feet out of their punishing heels. The bottoms of her stockings were black from walking around the yard at Farralone. She leaned her head back and gazed up at the beautiful swirl of gem-like color that was the Renoir above them. The figure of a woman with a blue parasol was just visible through the press of lilacs and sun-dappled leaves. It was, literally, a masterpiece, and a grateful Dr. Someone had given it to Mama back when Pagan was eight years old.
    Pagan had always loved the painting, and had moved it from above her parents’ bed to the living room so she could see it every day. The move had marked the beginning of a new era. The house and the painting belonged to her now, not to her parents, and she’d gotten legally emancipated last month so that she no longer had to answer to a legal guardian.
    But if Dr. Someone was who Pagan thought he was, the painting might not have been his to give. It would always be glorious, but maybe it no longer belonged in her living room. Its home was a mystery, a secret probably lost forever in the midst of the looting, murder and deceit of the Second World War. Seeing it now only made her throat tighten. Was there any part of Mama’s life that wasn’t tainted by her lies and secrets?
    Never mind the dang painting. The night had been full of its own drama.
    Pagan slapped her gloves onto the side table. “You totally should have come with us to the party. You would’ve enjoyed it.”
    â€œAnd I told you I have to study.”
    â€œI know, I know. I’m still getting used to this whole ‘taking school seriously’ thing. And guess what? Devin Black came to see me at the party tonight,” Pagan said.
    â€œHe’s like the Shadow,” Mercedes said, referring to her favorite crime fighter with psychic powers who posed around town as a wealthy playboy. She had never met Devin, but Pagan had told her everything that had happened in Berlin back in August. “You think he came here afterward to loiter in your bushes?”
    Pagan snorted. “Can you imagine him in his thousand-dollar suit, crouched behind a cactus with binoculars? It wouldn’t be him personally, but it could’ve been someone from the CIA. They’ve been keeping tabs on me because they want me to do them a favor.”
    Mercedes smiled one of her rare smiles. “What if a government spook staking out your house ran into one of my old friends casing the joint?”
    â€œA convention of ne’er-do-wells that would put Frank Sinatra’s party to shame. All in our backyard.”
    She started to tell Mercedes everything that happened that night, so they broke out the Oreos and milk. “Tell me everything about the party,” Mercedes said, dunking her cookie. “What was Nancy Sinatra wearing?”
    Pagan gave her the details, dwelling on the things she knew Mercedes would like most—the tension between Frank and Dean Martin over Angie Dickinson, Tony Curtis trying hard not to stare at Juliet Prowse’s legs, Jack Lemmon’s gentlemanly manners.
    Mercedes watched Pagan’s face as she talked about Devin and sometimes frowned down at her own strong fingers, the nails clean, unpolished, short