The Banker Who Died

by Matthew A Carter

  The early summer Italian sun had already heated up the motorway, and the scorching air shimmered in a haze above the tarmac. Far off to the right, the mountains were already in sight past the Ticino Valley.

  Stanley took the A50 around Milan onto the A1 Milan-Naples, the A35 off of there, and then he could relax. Until the turn toward La Spezia, it was a straight road along the valley. The square vineyards were interrupted by small hills covered in olive groves, and from time to time, old farmhouses would appear, surrounded by small islands of trees. They were mostly abandoned, but retained a certain cozy charm, nevertheless. Stanley picked out the presence of towns by the bell towers of churches, and the occasional castle flashed past like a ghost in the mountains. They looked like chess figurines forgotten by some careless player. What was going on in them now?

  He thought that if he could pick anywhere to live, he would buy an old farmhouse, like the ones he was passing. He couldn’t afford a castle in the mountains, and despite property taxes being cheaper in Italy than Switzerland, they were still quite high. He could fix up one of these houses; his father and uncle had taught him a fair number of practical skills, after all. What he couldn’t handle himself, he’d hire someone to do. He’d buy a little vineyard. Olive trees. Take classes on agriculture. Who would live with him in this house? Christine? Not likely. Mila? He’d have to buy an entire arsenal, practice shooting every day, and spend all his time waiting for Gagarin’s people to attack.

  Suddenly, he saw an image of Barbara Zika—she was walking down the side of the road in a red swimsuit and sticking out her thumb for a ride. Stanley decided to stop for her—and woke up, just before hitting the metal guardrail. He yanked the wheel sharply in the opposite direction and blew out a breath, as a car flew by, honking wildly. A Maserati!

  He parked on the side of the road, just where dream Barbara had been walking. He got out, poured some water from a plastic bottle onto his head, sighed deeply, and got back into the car.

  Stanley drove, thinking how much he was enjoying this place, its peace and tranquility. It seemed to pass from the ancient natural surroundings to the Italians themselves. Even the rivers were sleepy here; you couldn’t tell what direction they were flowing in. That is, if you could even pick the river out through the coastal thickets of willow trees and reeds.

  So Stanley didn’t get a look at the famous River Po. It was only when he passed the outskirts of Piacenza that he realized he’s missed it.

  The road began to wind into the mountains, and he had to pay more attention to his driving, and less to the scenery.

  The closer McKnight got to the sea, the lusher the groves around him were. The wind blew through verdant meadows, and even the houses grew prettier. Suddenly, he saw stone gates, standing right in the middle of a field, with a cross above the arch. About a hundred meters behind them, under a hill, the wheel of a water mill stood still. There was no sign of any water that could have powered it.

  After La Spezia, Stanley turned onto a seaside highway. He switched the air conditioner off, opened the roof, and continued along at a leisurely pace. The breeze from the sea dispersed the heat and brought the occasional delicious smell from one of the coastal hotels. It was nearing siesta time, and McKnight was thinking about stopping somewhere for a bite to eat. According to the internet, there were more restaurants around here than fish in the sea. One for every palate. Stanley finally chose a trattoria that promised the best steaks. The meal was simple, but made with love and skill, and it was fabulous.

  He checked into the hotel where Barbara had reserved him a room, and crashed immediately, sleeping deeply until five in the afternoon.

  He had dinner plans with Gagarin at eight.

  McKnight spent a couple of hours swimming in the sea, walking around the local shops, where he bought guillotine cigar cutter for Lagrange, and drank a tall glass of slightly sour rosé with some olives. At seven, he returned to the hotel, dressed in a light-gray suit, and drove over to Riccardo, the restaurant. He had the folder with the documents for Gagarin in a safe metal attaché case inscribed with the bank’s emblem and logo.

  Chapter 14

  Shamil met McKnight at the restaurant. The security chief stood at the top step by the entrance, rocking on his feet from heel to toe, looking off to the side somewhere. There was no easy way around him; Stanley had to either ask him to move aside or risk falling off the side of the stairs into the barberry thickets by trying to inch around him along the edge of the entryway. Stanley chose the second option, but when he had made it almost all the way around Shamil, purely by accident, he hit the head of Gagarin’s security squarely in the kneecap with the corner of the metal attaché case.

  Shamil swore. For a moment, his face twisted up in irritation, but then he regained control of himself.

  They went up to the second floor, which had a panoramic view of the sea. Besides Gagarin, his guests and their companions, there were no other diners on the large veranda, surrounded by a living fence of juniper as tall as a man. Stanley found out later that Gagarin had rented this place as his own personal banquet hall for the week, and no outsiders were permitted.

  In addition to Viktor and Biryuza, who lifted their glasses to him in greeting, there were some new faces.

  “You just got here, and you’re already tanned!” said Gagarin, and turned to a tall brunette who was carefully brushing her Pekinese. The dog was agitated and trying to escape. “Polina, meet Stanley. I already told your husband about him. He’s a private banker from Switzerland.”

  The brunette glanced at McKnight without any particular interest and nodded.

  “You shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss him, my dear! This clever guy can rewrite your taxes in half an hour so the government will be paying you. He’s some kind of wizard.”

  Stanley bowed politely.

  “Polina is my wife’s best friend. You didn’t meet at our party on Independence Day? No?”

  McKnight shrugged. He, of course, remembered what Mila had said about her best friend.

  “You’ll meet the other guests later. They are busy at the moment, as you can see,” said Gagarin.

  The others, several older men, were grouped around a monitor at the other end of the long table and talking animatedly into their mobile phones. Three young women stood nearby, chatting. It was too far away to hear what they were saying.

  “Christie’s is auctioning off some more antique junk of Petrov-Vodkin’s,” Gagarin explained. “I try to avoid the art world as much as possible. Too many conmen. I know a guy who bought up a whole bunch of works by old masters from a dishonest art dealer and overpaid by about a billion dollars. He’s suing him now. Have a seat, McKnight.”

  Stanley sat down and put the case in front of him, as if to signal he was here for work.

  “No, no! Anything but that. I’ll lose my appetite from those damned papers. Anton!” Viktor waved his hand at Biryuza. “Take all this away, and bring it to the villa later.”

  Stanley had hoped up until the last possible moment that this trip would be all business. That he would bring the documents, Gagarin would sign them, they would discuss the prospects of the oligarch’s other financial deals, identify opportunities—and there were some—to minimize taxes when registering the yacht (after all, if the yacht sailed under the flag of Belize, Liberia, or Myanmar, it would be subject to the laws of those wonderful countries), and that would be the end of his mission. But now it turned out that Polina was here, and he knew what that meant.

  Another meeting with Mila was not in his plans.

  In fact, he had planned to never see that woman again. He realized that any relationship, even the most innocent flirtation, with the wife of a monster like Gagarin could end very badly for him. Remembering her three wishes, how she sang a line from a Russian song, Stanley wondered what she would come up with next time.

  McKnight lifted a glass of champagn
e and drank it down without realizing what he was doing.

  Viktor laughed and applauded.

  “That’s the Russian way. They all think that if a bottle of champagne in this place costs a thousand euros you have to spend an hour savoring each sip. Bravo, Stan! Hey, waiter! Stand by this American guy over here. And fill up his glass as soon as it’s empty. And, Stan, don’t be shy—the way we do it here is everybody orders whatever they want, whenever they want. Polina and her dog over here, for example, are waiting for some kind of fancy desert, something sweet with caramel, yuck, while I’d like…I’d like…Anton! Biryuza! Shit! What did I want? Come on! Remember! If you don’t remember, I’m going to send you back to Moscow and the rain, traffic, the fight against corruption…”

  It took McKnight that long to realize how drunk Gagarin was.

  The group that had been busy with the auction approached their side of the table. Biryuza, unable to remember what his boss had wanted, and apparently not too concerned about the threat to send him to Moscow, stood and introduced them to Stanley. When they heard he was just a private banker, here from Zurich on financial business, they immediately lost interest. The women started to tell Polina about what they bought in the auction. The men turned their attention to the champagne and wine. It soon became clear from their conversation that one of them, Polina’s husband, Anton Krapiva, was a very influential official in the administration of the Russian president. Stanley realized that he had seen the man’s face before on CNN. Something to do with rigging an election. Either the Russian presidential or parliamentary election.

  “Stanley! Stanley, my friend!” said Gagarin loudly. “We have to eat, you and me. ASAP! Let’s have something to eat, and have a drink together. Not this champagne, not this crap wine. Waiter! Bring us vodka and—Stanley, what will you have?”

  “Pasta…yes, pasta, please,” Stanley said.

  “I said don’t be shy!” Gagarin banged his fist on the table, and Polina’s dog howled. “They’ve got oysters, every kind of crustacean thing and fish you can think of. Bistecca alla fiorentina,” Gagarin read slowly from the menu. “What is that, anyway? Waiter! Hey, bring me a menu in Russian. Waiter! Two dozen oysters, speciale de claire, they’re good with vodka! And risotto, the risotto here is excellent, I’m telling you, Stanley…”

  “Viktor, I’m sorry, but you already had risotto today,” laughed Krapiva. “Order the steak Florentine instead. What is this American doing here?”

  “He’s my friend. You can tell people what’s best for them back at the Kremlin,” interrupted Gagarin. “Here, thank God, there’s freedom. I’ll eat risotto twenty times a day if I want to.”

  “Of course, of course, sorry.” Krapiva acted afraid, but his gaze behind the smoky lenses of his thin-framed glasses was hard and mocking.

  “There—the littlest thing, and—sorry! Children were taken hostage at school—sorry, the submarine sank—sorry,” Gagarin took the frost-covered bottle of vodka from the waiter, and filled his glass almost halfway. “You’re always apologizing. But our people don’t like apologies.”

  “I’m apologizing to you, not the people.” Krapiva looked around and winked at another man over his glasses, a burly guy whose face looked familiar to Stanley.

  “I’m the best representative of the people!” announced Gagarin, pouring vodka into Stanley’s champagne glass. “And the people won’t make it without me…McKnight! Come here! Come here, I said!”

  Stanley got up, walked around the table, and came over to Gagarin.

  “This is how we do it, you damned Yankee. Brüderschaft!” Gagarin said, putting his hand with the glass under McKnight’s arm, and, lifting Stanley’s arm with his elbow, drank his whole glass in one go and made Stanley do the same. After that, he let out a heavy breath, tossed his glass onto the floor where it shattered, grabbed Stanley by the forehead, and kissed him on the mouth. “That’s how it’s done! Brüderschaft! Now we’re friends, Stanley, and you can use the informal pronoun with me and call me ti, okay?”

  Stanley nodded, afraid that if he moved that vodka would come right back out, and slowly swallowed an oyster. His mouth was on fire with vodka and Tabasco sauce.

  “You have to answer!”

  “Okay, Viktor! We’re friends, and I’ll be informal.”

  “That’s why I love Americans,” he said to Krapiva, releasing Stanley. “They learn fast. You show them something once, and they can do it themselves the next time. But Russians, Russians are thick idiots.”

  “For the best representative of your people, you don’t have a very high opinion of them,” said the burly man.

  “Not a good opinion?” Gagarin asked in horror, picking up an oyster from the plate. “I despise them!” He sucked the oyster down. “Anyone who’s spent some time alive and thinking has to despise people in his heart!”

  “Our people are decent. They just don’t understand much.” said Krapiva.

  “The people are stupid and uneducated, and they need to be governed harshly, and you’re acting like you’re all so soft. McKnight! Let’s have something, some tartare, it’s delicious.”

  “And you propose…” Krapiva paused significantly.

  “There are always simple answers to complicated questions,” said Gagarin, thoughtfully chewing away on a chunk of lobster. “And vice versa. The answer to all problems is a strong hand at the reins, even more centralization of power…all for the most important objective of all…safety.”

  “I learned in school,” McKnight broke in, unable to hold back, “that those who are willing to trade liberty for safety deserve neither.”

  Gagarin gave Stanley a contemptuous glance and snorted.

  “The Russian people don’t need liberty. They need an idea! If you manage to gain all their attention, nobody will bother asking for liberty. The government must keep the Russian people in a constant state of amazement! When you surprise Russians, it stuns them, and they’ll be submissive and obedient until the end of their lives.”

  “How much further do you want to go, Viktor? The people have already turned into putty—you can do what you want with them!” said Krapiva.

  “And why do we need even more centralization in Russia?” added the burly man.

  “To smother any protest before it takes off! To sweep dissent out of this country. To crush any who disagree!” Gagarin banged a fist on the table as he spoke.

  “Aren’t you afraid that, sooner or later, you’ll tighten the screws too far and the people will revolt?” asked McKnight, putting on an expression of faint concern.

  “Ooh, I’m so scared…oh, I’m frightened,” whispered Gagarin, and then burst out laughing. “Russians love to revolt. It happens once a century, but usually they just kneel in front of their master’s house.’”

  Gagarin stopped laughing, and he frowned slightly, gazing intently at Stanley.

  “In the future, we’ll need a monarchy. One that’s organic, not an absolute monarchy to start, but with a tendency toward that, that ends up absolute. Only one person making the decisions. Everyone else—out you go.”

  Stanley decided that it was time for him to silently study the tablecloth, but Gagarin looked around him and banged on the table.

  “All of you—out!”

  “Viktor, Viktor, calm down,” hissed one of his guests. “Don’t make a scene here.”

  “Not now, not now, we still have to eat and drink, but in the future—none of you will be necessary!”

  “And the monarch will be…” Now it was the burly man’s turn to pause significantly.

  “We all know his name,” answered Gagarin, and poured himself more vodka. “Tell me, Krapiva: Why do you all pretend so stubbornly to be a democracy? What’s the point? Nobody believes it any more. Okay, we don’t believe it. We’ve seen worse. I get cold sweats thinking about the nineties. It’s all plywood scenery on a stage. Reality is sim
pler. The country has a master. The master has servants. Everyone else are his subjects. Half of Europe lives that way.”

  “But European monarchies are restricted by constitutions,” Stanley objected. “And the countries with the oldest systems of monarchy are the most democratic countries. The UK, for example.”

  “Oh great, your opinion is just what we all needed!” barked Gagarin. “The UK! We’re going to buy the UK soon enough! My Russia won’t stand for another victory of democracy. The benefits of dictatorships over democracies are obvious to everyone. It’s better to deal with one swindler than with many. And anyway, why should we live under other people’s rules? We are who we are. We are Russians! It’s fabulous! The vodka is tasting good tonight.”

  “No need to get so worked up, Viktor,” Stanley said, hearing the words coming out of his own mouth in surprise. “You’re presenting your daydream as if it’s reality, but in actuality, you want Russia to be like…”

  Stanley realized that everyone was looking at him in astonishment. Biryuza’s face was particularly noticeable—his mouth hung open, and a thin line of saliva was coming out of his mouth onto his cleanly shaven chin.

  “…like Saudi Arabia!” finished Stanley, and thought that if Shamil didn’t come running in right now, limping on the leg that Stanley had bruised, and shoot him with a gold pistol (Stanley had heard that Russian gangsters loved gold pistols), if that didn’t happen, he would live a long and happy life.

  Shamil didn’t come. The silence was broken by an eruption of laugher. Gagarin started it, then Krapiva began to laugh, and finally everyone else joined in. Biryuza wiped off his chin and laughed along with them. Even Polina managed a crooked smile.

  “Stanley, my boy, you’re really something!” Gagarin said, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Saudi Arabia! No, thank you! See, Krapiva, it’s all the same to Americans—either you follow their way, or you’re Saudi Arabia! Who are their allies, by the way? Friends can do whatever they want. The rules apply to everybody else? Oh, Stanley, Stanley…”