by David Duffy
Information on Beria the man was hard to come by, beyond the essential facts of his career. Head of the Georgian secret police, secretary of the Communist Party in Georgia, then for the Transcaucasian region, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, deputy head of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), member of the Politburo, commissar general of state security, overseer of purges, murders, and crimes too numerous to count. Stalin is supposed to have introduced him to Roosevelt at Yalta as “our Himmler.”
Beria hasn’t received the attention most mass murderers get, and what was out there wasn’t necessarily reliable. A couple of biographies (one overly florid, the other too dry), some academic papers, but not much that told me about the man. I could have gone back to Russia, but I’d find less information there. The current powers are schizophrenic in their treatment of history, particularly the Stalin era. On the one hand, they want it remembered as a great patriotic age—the time when the Soviet Union became a major twentieth-century power and, at enormous sacrifice, turned the tide of the Great Patriotic War. This is true, so far as it goes. But buying into Stalin as icon requires turning a blind eye to the greatest crimes against humanity this side of Nazi Germany, crimes that Russia as a nation—Russians as a people—have never come to terms with. So we try, with the active participation of our leaders, to sweep them under the rug, hoping in time, I suppose, that the world will forget. One reason there’s little information available about the perpetrators, including Comrade Beria, and much of what there is has been locked away.
I badgered Sasha periodically by phone and e-mail, but the answer was the same—no clearance, no access. I was stuck in genealogical limbo, hoping for the opposite of a smoking gun. No way to move things forward with Aleksei until I found it—or didn’t. Unable even to look, I got more and more gloomy.
Seeking diversion, I pestered Foos about the Basilisk and Victoria. He just shook his curly mane and ignored me. He’s good at that. But I got on his nerves and that’s one reason he took me to see Leitz.
* * *
“I’m not a computer expert,” I said to Leitz.
“I got that end covered,” Foos said.
“A bunch of firms do this kind of thing for a living,” I argued. “Network protection, cyber-security, hackers for hire. This is right up their line.”
“I don’t know them and I don’t trust them. There’s also the issue of publicity. I don’t want any. Foos says I can trust you.”
“‘Trust’ and ‘qualifications’ have different definitions in the dictionary.”
Leitz shook his head. “Foos knows everything anyone needs to know about computers. He tells me you’ve been in jail and you used to be a spy. You have a shot at knowing how someone like this thinks. That’s the most important qualification I can think of.”
I looked at Foos. “How much did you tell him?”
“The basics.”
Leitz said, “He told me you have what we call a checkered past—in and out of jail in the Soviet Union until you caught the attention of the KGB. You speak half a dozen languages, a valuable skill. You served twenty years in the most elite department of one of the world’s most successful espionage organizations, including several tours here in the States. He says you have an unconventional mind and you’re choosy about your clients. He hinted he might have some leverage in that regard.”
I was still looking at Foos. “That mean what I think it means?”
“Maybe.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
Leitz’s summary was accurate as far as it went. The jail he referred to was the Gulag, the network of prison, forced labor, and death camps established by the Bolsheviks, expanded beyond comprehension under Stalin and maintained by his successors up until the end. I was born in the Dalstroi camps, in Siberia, my mother having been sent away twice, the first time for doing nothing, the second time for being arrested the first time. I’d worked hard to overcome my past, including having the official record of my birth and subsequent arrest and imprisonment erased, but I still know I’m a zek—the most shameful thing a Russian can be. Unless he’s also the son of Lavrenty Beria.
Keep things in the present. “Foos tell you what I charge?”
“He was vague about that.”
“Normally, I get hired to find things—people, valuables, money. I take a third of their value as my fee.”
Leitz laughed. It filled the room, pushing at the walls. “I can’t argue with that. I more or less charge the same thing. But if we assume this is about the TV deal, we’re talking about a sixty-five-billion-dollar transaction. A third of that…”
“Could be real money.”
Leitz laughed some more. Maybe it was his brains, maybe it was his success, but I could tell I was dealing with someone totally comfortable in his own skin. You don’t meet many people like that.
“You said you appreciate cash,” he said. “Tell me how much you want—within reason.”
I shook my head. If this was meant as a way to take my mind off my troubles, I might as well have some fun with it.
“I don’t get paid unless I’m successful. But if I am—that is to say, if I find a way in and access your data—I’ll take a painting as my fee.”
He looked skeptical. “You know the value of some of these works…”
“Is more than twenty billion?”
He laughed again, quietly this time. “Point taken. Which painting?”
His eyes went to the Malevich, mine followed, but I knew that was a nonstarter. I thought about the Rothkos outside, but it would be a shame to break up that quartet. I like both Kline and Motherwell, but while I don’t work cheap, I’m not a gouger.
“I’ll take the Repin.”
He didn’t hide his surprise. “There are many more valuable works…”
“It’s an arbitrage opportunity. I figure the market will catch up.”
He grinned at that. “That was my assumption when I bought it—six years ago. So far, it hasn’t worked out.”
“You made a bad trade. Here’s your chance to get out.”
“I wouldn’t say bad. I happen to enjoy the picture. But if that’s what you want…”
“Done.”
* * *
Foos was chuckling, shaking his head as we walked down the block.
“What’s funny?” I asked.
“You, man. What else? You mope around for months—no focus, no energy. You say you’re depressed. Can’t get it up for anything. You go home to the old country, come back in worse shape than ever. You’re a total pain in the ass, not to put too fine a point on it. So I set you up with the smartest guy on Wall Street, and it takes you maybe ten minutes to size him up and play him for a sucker. They teach this in spy school?”
“Your friend Leitz is looking at the issue from the wrong perspective. A common problem, as he pointed out.”
“I wouldn’t remind him about the common part, if I were you. He’s already gonna be plenty pissed and he’s got a big-ass temper.”
“I always follow your advice. When are you going to let me at the Basilisk?”
“Soon, like I said. How long you going to take to do this job?”
I shrugged. “You got me into this. How long you want me to take?”
Foos grinned. “He’s let this TV deal go to his head. Thinks he’s a big shot. Go for maximum impact.”
“In that case, we should be in sometime tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 4
The Sam Ash musical instrument empire anchors the Times Square end of West Forty-eighth Street between Seventh and Sixth and evokes, in a cramped quarter block, New York of a different era. Low-rise brick and stone buildings, coated with decades of grit and grime, windows jammed with guitars, amps, drums and horns—all carrying SALE! signs screaming about deals beyond belief. I could imagine A. J. Liebling and his telephone-booth Indians hanging out in the neighborhood, as they had a half century earlier, hustling tourists, eating at cheap luncheo
nettes, drinking in seedy bars, hitting the occasional nightclub when they wanted to strut their stuff. If I worked the imagination harder, Miles and Bird and Diz played the “52nd Street Theme” in the background. I could even hear Symphony Sid’s midnight radio broadcasts from the original Birdland—the Metropolitan Bopera House, as he called it—just four blocks up Broadway. The streets would have been full of men in wide-striped suits and fedoras, their women wearing tight dresses with flared skirts and heels. At least that’s how I saw it, from the records of the bop era, the writings of Liebling and others, and movies of the period. By the first time I arrived in New York, 1977, that era was long over, and a sea of sex shops drowned the area in sleaze.
It took a few decades, but the city drove the sex emporia away (or at least to other neighborhoods) and the developers moved in, toting tax incentives and architectural plans for new skyscrapers, each bigger and uglier than the last. Once built, they pulled off the dubious accomplishment of evoking nostalgia for the strip joints and peep shows. My destination was one of those office towers, but it was only 6:30 P.M., and I had time to kill before one New York work day came to an end and another began. I could have spent a wistful hour in a bar, but one vodka led too easily to another these days, and I told myself I was working, which required a clear mind. So I strolled the streets, thinking about the past—near and far—and reminding myself jobs are not all that easy to come by, and I should be grateful I had one. I’m good at rationalizing, less so at listening to myself when I do. I tried to focus on the Repin portrait and where I was going to hang it. That made me feel a little bit better.
I walked around a crowded Times Square, half the people on the street heading home after work, the other beginning their evening out. I heard at least a dozen languages, tourists enjoying the bright lights of the Great White Way—one of New York’s enduring sights. Except the lights left me cold these days, partly because of my frame of mind, but mostly because the heart of the place had been gutted. The old Times Square neon had character and seedy charm. These lights were as soulless and airbrushed as the buildings they were mounted on.
An enormous baritone saxophone, five vertical feet of tangled brass, a shiny relic of Liebling’s bygone era, caught my eye in the Sam Ash window. It carried a SALE! tag of $4799! I stopped to contemplate the economics of the musical instrument business. Not much call for baritone sax players these days, or any days, yet to get in the game required an upfront investment of nearly five grand, not to mention the cost of learning to play the thing. This was one of those instances when capitalism didn’t add up, at least not to an ex-socialist. In the Soviet Union, the instrument would have been owned by the state and used by an individual of appropriate interest and skill. There would have been a perceived benefit to society, justifying the expense, of having well-trained and -equipped baritone saxophone players—if only because the West had them too, and we had to keep up. Here the cost was borne entirely by the misguided person who fell in love with the baritone sax—as opposed to, say, the piano, violin or, better yet, electric guitar—with little hope of recouping his investment, at least through use of the instrument. But maybe, as Leitz said, I was looking at the issue from the wrong perspective. I’d have to ask him.
I continued along the block to the east. The height of the buildings rose as I approached Sixth Avenue, from five stories to fifty. The materials changed too, from dirty brick to steel and glass and shiny marble. I stopped across from number 140, half a billion dollars worth of concrete, steel, stone, and glass—and no aesthetic merit whatsoever. The lobby was gray and white and blue marble. The directory told me Leitz Ahead Investments—my client appeared to share my view that any pun was better than none—occupied the forty-second and forty-third floors. The lobby guard was checking IDs and issuing passes. I might have bluffed my way past, but I didn’t need to. I returned to the opposite side of Forty-eighth Street, found a wall to lean against, put my cell phone to my ear and pretended to be deep in conversation while I watched the door.
Around 7:30, small groups of Hispanic men and women started to form on the sidewalk. They arrived in twos and threes, from the subway stations east and west, some still carrying their unfinished evening meal. They talked quietly among themselves. By 7:50, there were more than twenty, and if there was a single green card among them, I was ready to buy the whole bunch dinner. These were the cleaning crews for the building, workers for a contract company that paid minimum wage with no benefits, but asked no questions about place of birth, legal residence, or Social Security. That made them easy prey.
I wasn’t looking to exploit vulnerability. When I was in the spy business, I always found incentives bought better cooperation than threats—one of many reasons I’m an ex-socialist. I crossed the street and moved quickly from group to group, speaking Spanish, repeating the same speech. “Good evening. I apologize for disturbing you. I am not from the police or government. I have a five-hundred-dollar offer for the person who cleans floors forty-two and forty-three and a hundred dollars for the man or woman who introduces me. I will return here tomorrow night at this time. That is the last time any of you will need to see me. Thank you for your assistance. Good night.”
It took less than five minutes, by which time they were starting to drift inside. Work started at 8:00 P.M. I walked off to the east without looking back. They would be suspicious, a few even frightened. But six hundred dollars was a lot of money. I was all but certain to have the man or woman I needed tomorrow night.
* * *
I arrived back at 140 West 48th Street at 7:15 P.M., Wednesday. The cleaners started to gather around 7:30, just like the night before. I waited in the same spot, not bothering with the fake phone call. At 7:40, one of them broke away from his group and went to talk to a man in another. The body language of the second man said he wanted nothing to do with his coworker and, I assumed, by extension with me. The first man was whispering fiercely, gesturing with his arms, getting more and more animated. He was an excitable type. He wanted his hundred-dollar bounty. The other guy just shook his head. The rest of the cleaners moved away. I gave brief thought to crossing the street and intervening, but I had no idea why the second man was hesitant, and I’d more than likely queer the deal, assuming there was a deal to queer.
After a few more minutes the first man broke away and, looking up and down the block, walked across to me.
“I am sorry, señor,” he said in Spanish as he approached. “My friend is the man you want but… he is a timid soul, he is frightened. I have tried to persuade him you are an honorable man who means no harm, but he says it is too big a risk. The money…” He looked me straight in the eye and shrugged.
I stifled a chuckle. The supposed argument across the street was an act—a charade for my benefit—with the sole purpose of setting up a negotiation. These twenty-first-century telephone-booth Indians were true to the spirit of their predecessors.
“I understand perfectly,” I said, holding the man’s eye. “But my patience is not infinite. Seven hundred for your friend. Two hundred for you. I’m leaving in two minutes.”
The man nodded quickly and trotted back across the street.
This time there was no argument, just thirty seconds of quiet conversation before the two men came to me. The first man was smiling. The second still looked fearful. His eyes darted up and down the block. I shook hands with both of them but didn’t ask their names. They didn’t inquire after mine. I dubbed them Bold and Timid.
I asked Timid how many floors Leitz Ahead Investments occupied. He looked up and down the block again before answering, “Two.” I asked him to describe them. He depicted a double-height, glassed-in trading room with workstations and computer screens around the perimeter of an enormous table and surrounded by offices and conference rooms on both levels. I asked about the computers. That stumped him. The best I could get was lots of screens connected to boxes under the big table. Good enough for me. Leitz would have the trading floor outfitted with high-powered
workstations, networked to servers and data storage that could be on another floor or in another location altogether. I took a small device from my pocket. It looked like a black electronic tollbooth tag, about two inches square, two-sided tape on the back.
“I want you to pick one of the computer boxes in the middle of the big table,” I said. “Not close to the edge, further underneath, you understand?” We were speaking Spanish, and he nodded, hanging on my every word. “Peel off these strips and stick this to the back of the box, out of sight, okay?” He nodded again.
“That’s it,” I said, reaching for my wallet. A new look came into Timid’s eyes, not fear this time, but uncertainty.
“Something wrong?” I asked as gently as I could. “Do you want to go over it again?”
He shook his head and looked up and down the block once more.
“What then?” I said.
“It’s just…” He paused, unsure. The bold one, impatient, told him to spit it out. I smiled to show I was in no hurry.
Timid gathered up his courage. “I am sorry, señor, but I am confused. Do you want me to put this on the same machine as the other one?”
CHAPTER 5
I got to Grand Central and thought about turning left or right. Right meant downtown and either back to the office or home alone and another night of vodka and takeout food and fruitless research into my past. I turned left, took the subway up to Eighty-sixth Street and walked over to Trastevere. Giancarlo greeted me as he always does, putting his hand to his cheek and smiling, a reminder of the first night I had dinner there with Victoria, and she walloped me when I let her know how deeply the Basilisk had dug into her private life. Like Leitz, Victoria has an explosive temper. After the second wallop—that same night—I’d learned to see hers coming and get out of the way.
