Disturbed Earth

by Reggie Nadelson

  I was six one, but I was a shrimp next to Tolya. He was six six, three hundred pounds, give or take. His size and his passion for food were a certainty in a world that had pretty much gone to hell. Terrorism, murder, the break-up of empires, a lousy economy, Tolya loved to eat.

  Food was his religion; he believed that good food and booze were essential to a happy life; he believed it like an ethical system, a moral code. Without decent food, he explained to me once in Paris, you couldn't function, your brain was half dead.

  "Thank God you're here," he said.

  "Why?"

  "My mother."

  "She's OK?"

  "She's here. I mean in America, in Brooklyn. Suddenly she doesn't want to stay in Manhattan, she won't stay at the Four Seasons either anymore, she wants to stay with her people. What fucking people? The Russians, she says. In Brighton Beach. I have to run around and find somewhere she can stay and I have to eat with her tonight, so you'll come, right?"

  "Yeah, sure."

  "Thank God. So you're hungry?" Tolya asked, eyes full of child-like anticipation.

  "I could eat."

  "I brought late lunch."

  He spread the bags on the kitchen counter. He tossed the ice packs into my freezer and sniffed the crab.

  "Still fresh," he said triumphantly.

  "They let you carry all this stuff on the plane?"

  "Please, Artyom, what's the matter with you, you think I fly commercial?"

  We settled at the kitchen counter. We sipped a little whiskey while the wine chilled and Tolya cracked the crab with a hammer and made some mayonnaise fresh and fixed a salad out of the mesclun he also had in his bag. I sliced up a loaf of sourdough and opened the bottle of white Burgundy, then poured it into my best glasses; we ate.

  "Nice, huh, Artemy?" he said holding his wine glass up to the light and admiring the lemony color. "Corton-Charlemagne is like drinking paradise."

  Anatoly Sverdloff was a civilized guy who could discuss semiotics in French and rock and roll in Chinese, Pushkin in Russian and Conrad in English. His languages, his brains, his charm would have made him a great spy except he had a big mouth, in every sense, and a lot of appetite, and he loved money. Lots of it. Anyhow, as he always said, who would you spy for these days?

  In the bad old days he was a DJ in Moscow who broadcast rock records to the fucking miserable Chinese when the poor bastards didn't have anything, no Internet, no music, no fashion. It was after I'd left Russia that he became famous for his sedition; brave and silly, for a while in the last days of the old Soviet Union, he became a cult hero.

  Even now he carried around the tattered paper copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four that he'd had as a boy, a book he bought, as if it was a drug, from another kid at his school. When the old world fell apart, while I was busy turning myself into an American, he translated himself into a capitalist and made tons of money. His father, Anatoly, Sr., was a famous actor at the Moscow Arts Theater, his mother Lara Sverdlova was an actress; the intellectual's cupcake, they used to called her.

  Tolya knew his way around high culture, but he played the part of an international hood: he flaunted it, he wore the silk shirts, the cashmere coats, smoked the Cohibas. "I am not corporate guy," he always said.

  "You mean you don't drink the Kool-Aid to get the deal."

  "What is this Kool-Aid?" he'd asked and I explained about Jonestown and how Jim Jones, the leader of a sinister cult, made his disciples commit suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid; they did it all together, in unison, they took his orders. Jones just said: drink. They drank. Like good corporate underlings.

  Tolya loved it.

  When he met other guys in his trade, whatever it was, he hugged them and made as if he was some kind of godfather. I never knew for sure how deep he was involved with these people. When he drank, and he drank plenty, he sometimes spoke English with a low class Russian accent, dropping the articles, making himself sound like a gangster. It suited him, it was an escape from the old life where his parents were part of the intelligentsia and he was the smartest boy in town. He had become his own invention; it was his cover, his escape, the way being a New York cop was for me.

  Tolya pulled a CD out of his pocket and gave it to me.

  "You heard of these kids?" he said. "I am thinking of putting in money for American tour, you know? Cute," he said. "Dirty."

  I looked at the cover. A trio of Russian schoolgirls making out. I put it on, it wasn't bad, and we finished the crab and talked about stuff, his family, Lily, people we knew. All the time I was aware of the cell phone on the counter, "You expecting a call, Artyom?" he said. "A woman? Someone new?"

  I didn't say anything. He finished the wine and poured some of the whiskey into fresh glasses and extracted two big Havanas from a heavy gold case he always carried in his jacket pocket. On it was engraved the outline of a cigar with a big ruby set at one end for the burning tip.

  "No, thanks," I said.

  "Just for once," he said. "I got them from Fidel. I go see him to talk business, he opens his own humidor and gives them to me. You believe me?"

  "Why wouldn't I believe you?"

  "Because you have that look, but is true," he said.

  "I believe you. So how is Fidel these days? Cracking down on dissidents? Tossing people in the slammer?"

  "Old," he said. "He's a crazy old man."

  "I used to have a soft spot for him, you know, Tol? My father, when he was in the KGB went to Cuba in the early days of the Revolution, he was a fan, he loved Fidel, Cienfuegos. He idolized Che, he kept pictures of them in his office, him and Che joking around. Che gave him a beret. One of his own. I should have kept it. I could have made a fortune on eBay, right?"

  "Commie kitsch is very big, sure, I go to Berlin, the kids are pining for East, they buy old Trabant cars. Shit is what this is," he said then smiled. "I made a killing when I went to auction, my Soviet train set, tablecloth from Kremlin with hammer and sickle embroidered, everything gets big bucks." He started to laugh.

  "My mother would take them down, the photographs of Che, and tear them up, but my father kept copies. Long time." I puffed at the cigar. "What a bunch of assholes," I added. "Fucking communism, fucking nothing."

  Tolya said, "We'll go on vacation, you and me, I'll show you Cuba. You'll love it, the Malecon at sunset, the music, the women. Oh, Artyom, the women are so beautiful, so sweet, like a dream."

  "I' ll pass.

  "Why, you're worried they'll think we're a couple of queers and lock us up? You worry too much, but it's why I love you, Artyom," he said switching easily from English to the beautiful purring Russian he speaks that makes me feel my soul is being fingered.

  I said, "So, any deals? You're still doing business with those creeps in Moscow?"

  "Moscow, Kiev, Shanghai, Baku, Havana, Hanoi, Alaska, I don't give a shit where they come from if they have the money, I feel it's my destiny to do the deals, you know?"

  "So you said."

  I didn't ask about his deals or how he made his money; he was my friend; we had shared the salt, as the Russians say; it was enough.

  "I'm not like you, Artyom. You got rid of the accent, the memories, the past, you came to New York to be an American, and you unloaded it all. I don't want to be an American," he said.

  I taunted him. "How come? They won't let you?"

  "You want to know?'

  Go on.

  "New York, I love, yeah, maybe New Orleans for food and music, Los Angeles for art, OK, fishing in Montana. I love East Hampton for the parties, OK? But the rest? I don't get it," he said and puffed on his cigar. "I don't like the way they make a fetish out of the flag, I don't like the religious bullshit. I look at the TV news, and I think this is the kind of shit I watched at home. This is news by old Pravda. Also, they're not subtle. Americans. They're not subtle, they don't read, they don't go anywhere."

  "My father thought like that about America," I said. "The KGB loved him for it."

  Tolya laughed. "How
's your mother?"

  "Lousy," I said. "The same. Nothing ever changes for her."

  I was sixteen when we left Moscow for Israel. Two years later, my father was dead. A bomb blew up the bus he was on. My mother stayed, she had a job, friends. Now she was in the last stages of Alzheimer's at the nursing home in Haifa; she didn't know who the hell I was. I'd had a letter from my friend Hamid the day before. He was a doctor who looked in on her once in a while. There was nothing they could do.

  "How come you're not bitter?" I'd polished off a couple of shots of the whiskey and I'd always meant to ask him. "How come?

  "You mean because of those fartofskis in Moscow who locked me once up for a few days when I played rock and roll in public, and humped the bass? Who gives a shit?" he said. "It's old history. So what's going on, you need me to save your ass again, Artyom, what's happening?" He peered over the cigar smoke, then noticed the book about fish on the kitchen counter. He picked it up.

  "You're into pictures offish now?"

  "It's for Billy."

  "Your cousin's kid? How is he?"

  "He's good."

  "You like that boy, don't you?"

  "Yeah," I said, distracted. I was thinking about the Far ones. The first time Tolya had bailed me out was on the case in Brighton Beach when I met Johnny Farone.

  I wanted to ask Tolya about Lily because I knew they were in touch, but I felt shy about it. He took care of her when she was attacked and almost died and I loved him for it. They had something between them that I wasn't part of; he took care of her in a way I couldn't because he had access to the best doctors and private planes and because he loved her like a friend, no complications.

  "What do you think?" he held out the jacket he wore and stroked the fabric with one hand. "Loro Piano," he said. "I get them made up custom."

  "Nice."

  "Nice? This is beyond nice. You want me to get you one?"

  "OK, beyond nice," I said and touched the fabric. "It's perfection, it's fabulous, it's as if woven by the tiny hands of a thousand virgins. It's terrific."

  "I'll get you one."

  "Thank you."

  "What color?"

  "You decide."

  "I'll get you two," he said. "I'll get you black and they have a very nice blue. Match your eyes. Women like that. You want gold buttons? Sterling? How come you didn't call me for three weeks, Artie?"

  "I've been busy. But I got you something." I went to my desk and picked up the book I'd bought in Brighton Beach.

  Tolya's face lit up. "For me?"

  "Yeah, I owe you one."

  He unwrapped the book, a first edition of a Turgenev novel I knew he loved. He kissed me Russian style, three times on the cheek.

  "OK, I accept this apology, for not being in touch," he said. "How come you're so jumpy? What's with the phone? You keep looking at it. This is a woman you're waiting for? Finally you have someone new?"

  "No."

  He put his hand on my arm.

  "Lily's not coming back," he said softly.

  "Yeah. You saw her?" I pretended not to care.

  "You want me to lie to you?"

  I shook my head.

  "She's happy," Tolya said. "The husband has no sense of humor. What can I say? He makes a lot of money, he takes care of her like she's a piece of precious glass, he supports her causes."

  "Beth?"

  "He's very nice with Beth. He has a daughter from his other marriage, a little older, but the girls are friends. I think this is working for all of them."

  "And he's not a cop." I poured some more whiskey into my glass and took a puff on the cigar. "Right? So what does he drive?"

  "You want me to say he drives a little pussy design car, right?"

  "You read my mind."

  "Yeah, he does. Don't be sad," he said in Russian. "I have some good news."

  "Fine," I said.

  "Come on."

  "Where?"

  "Surprise."

  I glanced at the phone.

  "Take your cell with you. We're not going far."

  I picked up the phone, put on my jacket, waited until Tolya put his on, and both of us smoking the cigars he swore Castro had given him, we left my place, and walked north on Broadway.

  On the way, Tolya, like a kid who couldn't wait to open his presents, told me the news. He was leaving Miami. He would keep an apartment in South Beach, but he was moving to the city. He'd bought a place in Soho. He cut west on Spring Street to West Broadway and stopped halfway up the block.

  I was glad. Glad he was in New York, glad he'd be close by. I tossed the cigar into the gutter and turned to follow him into the building, clutching my cell phone.

  "You get a decent signal in here?"

  Tolya looked at me. "Sure. But what's with the obsession, you're hanging onto that phone like it was a lifeline."

  "It's just a case I'm working."

  *

  The huge vaulted loft was on two floors, his office downstairs, the living space up. A terrace surrounded the top floor; you could see the city in every direction from it, the Soho rooftops and the Chrysler Building. Acres of some rare pale wood covered the floors. The kitchen, all stainless steel and glass, was in and Tolya, like a proud housewife, showed me the Sub-Zero fridge that was stocked with vintage champagne and hummed with power. In the middle of the main space, two architects, a contractor, a designer stood around a makeshift table fingering a sheaf of blueprints and arguing.

  In the face of all of it Tolya seemed pretty fucking meek, if you asked me. He listened. He paid attention. He was caught up in the details of the work. He took the half pounder gold lighter out of his pocket and lit a cigarette and when one of the architects—a woman with a sour mouth—waved the smoke away, he put it out. With the toe of one of his green suede Gucci loafers—he got them made up in different colors, a dozen at a time, all with 18 karat gold buckles—he kicked at the newly laid wooden floor. His eyes, set deep in the head that was big as an Easter Island statue, followed the architects. I didn't get it, the way he paid so much heed to these people.

  He hustled me into the bedroom, showed me the dressing room he'd had built. Everywhere boxes were piled, tissue paper spilling out, contents scattered around the room like a Christmas morning at Ali Baba's palace.

  "I went shopping," he said. "I got carried away."

  I glanced at the shoeboxes piled in shaky towers in one corner, and a makeshift coat rack where custom-made suits from Brioni hung in rows.

  "I don't fit regular sizes," he said, a little sheepishly. "Come on." He led me back into the main room.

  "Fuck off!"

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, standing in the middle of the cavernous loft, the architects and designers arguing, bickering, whining like a gang of cats while they considered ways to spend his money, Tolya boiled over.

  "Fuck off!" He leaned over the four of them and for a minute I thought he was going to crack their heads together like a quartet of walnuts, but instead he swore at them and ordered them out and there was a sudden hush. In a very chilly voice, in perfect English, Tolya told them, one more time: fuck off. The four picked up their coats and portfolios and scrambled for the door.

  I leaned against a trestle table and lit up a cigarette.

  "How come you put up with it?" I said.

  "I liked the woman," he said. "I wanted her so I gave her the job."

  Tolya looked sly. Women were his weakness. Normally he liked them young and gorgeous, strippers, hookers, models, so I didn't get it. The dour architect, dressed in black with a wedge of black hair over her eyes, was a departure for Tolya.

  "You're surprised? You thought she was a dog, didn't you, Art?"

  I laughed. "For sure not a hot chicken."

  "I thought she had class," he said. "She went to Yale. And Oxford. The Sorbonne."

  "You're impressed?"

  "You think I should stick to hookers, Artyom?" He peered at me as if for the first time. "What's eating you?"

  We sat on a
pair of chairs in his loft and he poured vodka and we smoked and I told him about the blood-drenched clothes by the beach. Sonny Lippert had told me to keep my mouth shut on the subject but I didn't count Tolya. He kept quiet when it mattered. He had his own secrets and, more important, he was my friend.

  I told him about the blood-soaked clothes, told him Lippert said the girl was dead and I wasn't convinced. I unloaded on him and while I talked, he listened, his huge body folding down onto itself as he lit one cigarette after another and knocked back half a bottle of Stoli. I'd never seen so much anguish in him and I didn't understand.

  "Tolya?"

  He waved me away and turned his back to me and walked across the floor. He faced the wall and leaned against it and I saw him sob; his back heaved with crying. When he turned around, he walked slowly back, sat down, picked up the bottle and drank steadily from it until it was empty.

  Watching him I remembered Lippert's warning. Keep it zipped, he'd said. Now I wondered if I should have told Tolya.

  I leaned my elbows on my knees and put a hand on his arm.

  "What is it, Tol? You know something? You think she's dead?"

  "They did this to my daughter once," he said. "I don't mean they killed her, but they kidnapped her, just took her, they stole her from me, and they marked her. I never told you. I never told anyone. I couldn't talk about it. I promised her I would never talk because she was ashamed.

  "They took her and held her for one week, Artyom. A whole week they kept her in a closet, she was ten. I sent the money. I offered myself in exchange, but they kept her and when they sent her back, they had cut marks in her face and cut off her finger. They told her they ate little girls and this was why they took the finger, and she believes them and for two years she doesn't eat.

  "They marked her. They took my daughter. They took her away in the middle of the night and I was there. You understand? I wake up and I know something is wrong." Tolya's voice cracked. "We have a big apartment, high ceilings, large furniture, something left over from a high apparatchik who had lived in it and lost favor or some shit, you see this, Artyom? Imagine, I'm asleep. I have come in late, so I should be guilty because I have been out with some rock and roll asshole from the West, we still think of it as West, and it's late, and I've been drinking plenty, and my wife is asleep and I think, she'll smell it on me, that I have been places I should not be, vodka, cigars, women, you know the smell of women you cannot wash off?" He got up and sat down again.