Scene III: A secluded spot in the Hotel. This scene is played without properties before the main curtain. Three spies come out before main curtain as lights go on.

Andre: (Entering) …and if everything goes alright, we’ll be off the hook.

Ivan: That’s a great idea. Now we can go somewhere else. You’d like to go someplace else, wouldn’t you, Budgie, Budgie, Budgie?

Vlad: Oh cut it out, Ivan.

Ivan: He doesn’t like you, Budgie. (In a soothing tone to bird)

Vlad: How’d we ever get messed up with this nut? (Disgustedly) Yo-yos, portable hula-hoops…

Ivan: You have been through my suitcase again!

Vlad: You go through my desk every evening. I was only returning the compliment.

Ivan: And what do I find? Decadent American magazines! Stories of drug addiction in Dallas. The adventures of Perry Mason, Private Eye – and risque postcards depicting the ruins of Pompeii in a most unscholarly light. You explain yourself, comrade.

Vlad: (Self importantly) I collected this material to furnish the party with proof of Western decadence.

Ivan: The Decadence of the West is well enough known by the party not to need proof. Can you say that these items are not part of a huge and well documented private collection?

Vlad: I have sent a report —

Ivan: Oh you and your reports, ha!

Andre: Cut it out — Look, we’ve gotta use our heads. We might not have another chance. The Party’s sly when it comes to making people disappear and this Petronov’s even slyer. Look what happened to La Schensky six months ago. When the party wants something— they usually get it.

“Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets”

The Three Spies

[lyrics omitted]

CURTAIN