by David Duffy
By the time I reached my door, I pushed those ruminations aside. I was a million dollars and a third of a Malevich up. The odds against that were astronomical, some kind of celebration was in order. I told Victoria to wait downstairs while I went to the garage.
I’d trade my apartment for the look on her face when I pulled up in the Potemkin.
“Wow! That’s the biggest car I’ve ever seen. A Cadillac, right?”
“Eldorado. ’Seventy-five.”
“’Seventy-five? We were fighting the Cold War in ’seventy-five. How the hell…? You’re a socialist. How many socialists drive Cadillacs?”
“Always wanted one,” I said. “Ever since I saw a picture in a magazine, the first time I was stationed here. I found this in Florida in ’ninety-three. It’s called the Potemkin, after the battleship and Eisenstein’s movie.”
“What movie? Who’s Eisenstein?”
“You have some holes in your education.”
“They didn’t teach Communist Party propaganda at Thibodeaux High. This thing got a heater that works?”
“It was built in Detroit. You want to put down the top?”
“I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid. I’m also a warm-blooded girl—as you’ve been rediscovering.”
I took the FDR to Fifty-ninth Street and continued uptown on First Avenue. If Victoria guessed our destination, she didn’t say anything. I found a parking place on East Eighty-first.
“Giancarlo and I are on a first-name basis,” I said.
She smiled broadly, and we walked two blocks to Trastevere.
I held the door and followed her in. Giancarlo knocked two customers and a waiter sideways in his haste to get across the room.
“Signora, I…”
He was uncharacteristically confused by proper restaurateur-patron protocol, unsure whether to hug her, kiss her, or just shake hands. She solved the problem by putting her arms around him and kissing both cheeks. He looked at me over her shoulder as if to say, What did I tell you?
“It’s good to see you Giancarlo,” she said. “It’s good to be home. Turbo tells me he’s become a devotee of your cooking.”
“Si, Signore Turbo, he comes all the time. But always alone, until tonight.” His voice dropped and he leaned forward, whispering, “And I don’t think he appreciates the wine.”
“He has a lot of holes in his education. We’re working on that.”
Giancarlo gave every indication of owning the world as he led us to a table. He fussed over getting Victoria seated and unfolding her napkin. She said she’d like a martini and I nodded in agreement. He came back with the drinks, recited the specials, and we chose the seafood salad and wild mushroom pasta we’d had the first time we were there together.
When the salads came, Giancarlo appeared with a bottle that he held out to Victoria, label up. “A ’ninety-seven Brunello, the Montosoli from Altesino. My gift. Welcome home.”
“Thank you, Giancarlo. That’s very kind. Turbo thanks you too. In fact, I think I can hear him sighing with relief.”
Giancarlo looked at her, beaming, then at me. “To tell you the truth, signora, so can I.”
* * *
“Just out of curiosity, how much was the wine, do you think?” I asked as we drove downtown.
“On his list? Probably five hundred, maybe six.”
It had been completely different from that first Barolo. Different grape, different region, different climate and soil, Victoria said. But it shared a complexity of flavor and structure that was surely intriguing—but not $500 intriguing.
“Another bottle I won’t be having again,” I said.
“Don’t be a cheapskate. I’m not a cheap date.”
“Five hundred dollars is more than most Soviet collective farms produced in a year.”
“And where is the Soviet economy now?”
We put the Potemkin in the garage and walked through the chilly streets to my apartment.
“That was a lovely evening, thank you,” she said, taking my hand in hers.
We made love slowly and luxuriously.
“Mmmmm. It doesn’t get any better than this,” she said before she fell asleep.
It does get worse. And it would, starting the next morning.
WEEK TWO: THE FLOP
CHAPTER 24
Victoria declined my invitation to run with a sleepy, “Are you fucking crazy?”
I did five miles and returned at seven to find her still in bed.
“You’re going to have trouble transitioning back to working hours.”
“Lawyers start late.”
“As I remember, you used to go around the clock.”
“That was before my virtuous American work ethic was undermined by the socialist Evil Empire.”
We ate eggs and toast and coffee and she said she had to visit the office before going uptown and reclaiming her apartment from the dust covers, the first step toward reentering her normal life. I felt a tug at that. She felt it too, and squeezed my hand. “It’s only uptown, you dope. Closer to Trastevere.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
That put an end to the squeeze, and she went to get dressed.
* * *
Victoria went to her office and I went to mine. Foos was elsewhere, Pig Pen was absorbed in the morning rush hour, and I spent an hour sipping coffee while I thought about the Leitzes, my newfound liberty and good fortune, and why I didn’t feel better about the state of the world than I did. Victoria was back—and gave every indication of intending to stay. The winter of discontent hanging over the House of Turbo had morphed unannounced into spring. I was a million dollars ahead, and didn’t have to pay estimated income tax until April. One price of my adopted county. I owned a Repin self-portrait and could look forward to the unrestricted enjoyment of a painting most museums would kill for. How many people hit that kind of trifecta? I still had Beria to deal with, and no good idea of how, but he was just a ghost at this point, despite his periodic appearances, or so I tried to tell myself, a long-dead madman whose madness had died when he did, with no ability to inflict pain or suffering or death any longer—or so I tried to tell myself. I couldn’t quite get myself to believe it.
At the moment, however, present tugged harder than past. I was finished with the Leitzes, but I didn’t feel done. Too many open questions. What did Thomas Leitz have on his brother-in-law? Why did everyone in the family, except maybe Jenny, get nervous when Coryell’s name came up? How did he get tied up with Nosferatu and the BEC? Where was he spending his time, leaving no trail for the Basilisk? And where did seventeen-year-old Andras get $11 million—$22 million, if I added in Irina’s take?
If I pushed it, what was really roiling me was what Thomas Leitz said about sweeping things under the rug. The Leitz family made a lifetime habit of it, but didn’t I as well? My Gulag past. My fear over Beria. Things had happened to them—I had no idea what—that they didn’t want to confront. Was I any different? I’d been running from my upbringing all my life. Now I was running from my prospective parentage. Maybe the fires of Leitz burned a little too close to Turbo’s home. Leaving theirs untended left me only my own to contemplate.
Confusion, one step ahead of dejection, was overtaking satisfaction when the phone rang.
“This is Pauline Turner,” a woman’s voice said. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. I’ve been away and just got your message.”
Half a beat before it clicked—Turner, Mrs. Leitz the first.
“Thank you for returning my call, but the matter I called about … It’s been taken care of.”
“Oh.” Pause. “Is everyone all right? Your message said Sebastian…”
“Everyone’s fine,” I said, although I wasn’t sure that was true. “It concerned your husband’s office, we figured out what the problem was.”
“Then Andras wasn’t involved?”
“No.” I wasn’t sure that was true either. “Why do you ask?”
Another pause. “Just
making sure. Mother’s protective instinct, I suppose.”
That sounded good, but I didn’t believe it. I should have said good-bye and hung up.
“Tell me one thing,” I said. “Your son—what’s his relationship with his uncle Walter?”
A long silence. When she spoke, her voice was quiet and scared.
“Why did you ask that question?”
“There appears to be some tension between them. I was curious about the cause.”
“When … They’re not supposed … When did you see them together?”
She pressed the question like an accusation. I backed off and tried to reassure her.
“I haven’t. I haven’t met either one, to be honest. It’s more what others have told me.”
“Who told you? What did they say?”
She fired those questions like shots, the voice just above a whisper. The protective instinct was in high gear.
“Nothing specific. I’m sorry if I upset you.”
“Tell me! What does any of this have to do with Sebastian’s office?”
The whisper was almost a shout. I moved the conversation to neutral territory.
“Have you been visited or called by two people, man and a woman, claiming to be lawyers looking into Sebastian’s TV bid? Probably back in December, before Christmas?”
“No. I don’t think so. I would’ve remembered that. Lawyers, you say?”
“That’s what they claimed. They questioned your former in-laws. I was curious how far they went.”
“Please! What’s this all about?”
“Somebody bugged your ex-husband’s office. They had help from Walter Coryell.”
“What’s that have to do with Andras?”
Hang up!! A chorus screamed in my head. This is no longer your case and it can’t go anywhere good. Stubbornness paired with curiosity is a tough combo to shut down.
Beria materialized by the door. You’re still a Chekist. You always will be.
I ignored him.
“Andras was trying to reach his uncle over the weekend. I think he set up a meeting with him, but Coryell didn’t show. The two have no history of contact. That made me wonder.”
“Andras called Walter? That’s impossible.”
“Not according to phone records.”
“But … Andras would never … and Walter … he knows … Is Sebastian aware of this?” The panic was back in her voice.
“No. We didn’t discuss it.”
Another long pause.
“You said your business with Sebastian is finished?”
“That’s right.”
“Then, please, I need to ask a favor.”
I waited.
“It’s very important—for all of us. Please don’t ever tell anyone what you just told me. About Andras and Walter. All right?”
“Why not? What’s wrong?”
“You can’t possibly understand. No one can understand. Just promise me, you won’t ever breathe a word.”
“I’m not sure I can do that, Ms. Turner. I’ll need more specific—”
She hung up.
I was still holding the receiver in my hand, wondering what else was being swept—swept back?—under the rug, when the “arrrr-oooo-gahhhh” of our door horn sounded. Probably Foos—he likes to hit it on the way in. Pig Pen yelled out “Boss man!” After a minute, no one emerged from the server farm and the horn blew again. I put down the receiver and went out to the lobby. Three men in suits stood in the elevator vestibule. One suit was expensive and elegantly tailored. The other two were cheap and cut large to accommodate the guns carried under their owners’ arms. All three looked impatient.
The expensive suit was Taras Batkin, BEC partner and stepfather of Irina Lishina. Leitz and his extended clan weren’t letting go that easily. That didn’t surprise me nearly so much as the relief I felt at being back in the game.
I remembered what Aleksei said about Batkin and his title as I pushed the button that releases the electronic lock.
“Please come in, Mr. Ambassador. You can call me Turbo.”
CHAPTER 25
Pig Pen took one look at the queue that marched out of the servers and said, “May Day. Russky parade.”
I have no idea where he gets it, but he never misses.
“What the hell?” one of Batkin’s bodyguards said, hand under his jacket, turning toward his cage.
“Just a parrot, with a warped sense of humor,” I said.
The bodyguard walked toward Pig Pen’s office, hand in place. Pig Pen retreated to the back perch.
“Tell him to leave the parrot alone,” I said to Batkin. “He’s harmless.”
Batkin barked an order in Russian, and the bodyguard returned to the parade. Pig Pen stayed where he was.
Batkin was trimly built, about five seven. He wore a navy suit with an electric-blue windowpane check. His shirt was bluish-gray, with a white collar and French cuffs, blue and purple striped tie. His face was comprised of geometric forms—circular head, circular eyes, pyramid nose, square mouth. The eyes were the same color as his shirt. The black hair was applied with glue, unless I missed my guess, although the toupee was a good one. I wondered what he made of my shaved pate. He had a thick gold wedding band and, next door, a diamond encrusted pinkie ring. A short Russian crow, dressed like a peacock—with a hairpiece. He, no doubt, considered himself quite dashing. The Napoleonic complex was a foregone conclusion. I reminded myself not to judge the book before I’d read the first page.
“We can talk in here,” I said pointing to a glass-walled conference room.
The other bodyguard stepped toward me. “Arms up,” he said in Russian.
I shook my head.
“Up, asshole.”
I turned to Batkin. “You came to see me, unannounced. I presume you have business to discuss.”
Batkin said, “My men are protective. That should not surprise you.”
“I don’t appreciate being patted down in my own office. That shouldn’t surprise you.”
He looked me over calmly, deciding whether to concede a pawn this early. His concern was control, not safety. “You give me your word, you are not armed?”
“Wait here,” I said. Always good to establish ground rules with the Cheka.
I went to the kitchen, opened the old safe we keep there, and took out a .50AE Desert Eagle automatic with a six-inch barrel. It’s the size of a handheld bazooka with the firepower to match. I’d taken it away from its unhinged owner a year before and kept it around principally for intimidation purposes. I checked the empty chamber, left the clip in the safe and took the gun back to the open area. The second bodyguard was reaching under his arm when I tossed it to him.
While he fumbled, I said to Batkin, “When I am armed, this is what I carry. They use them for deer hunting here—and to stop the occasional pickup truck. Feel better now?”
He smiled and went into the conference room. I took the Desert Eagle from the bodyguard—he was looking it over with a professional’s interest, albeit a professional dimwit—put it on a side table, and followed.
“Let’s start over,” I said as I closed the door. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”
“You’ve been harassing my stepdaughter.”
So much for starting over.
“I talked to her yesterday on the phone. I asked her a question. I didn’t believe the answer and told her so. I’m more honest than she is. That’s the long and short of it.”
He nodded, as if that was the answer he expected. “This about the Leitz kid?”
He was up on her affairs, but it wasn’t my place to confirm them. “You can ask her that.”
“I can see why you annoyed her. Why didn’t you believe what she said?”
“She was lying. She’s good at it, I’m guessing she’s had plenty of experience, but she’s not as good as she thinks she is.”
He nodded again. “You were in the Cheka.” A statement, not a question.
“Twenty years
. First Chief Directorate. But you know that. She knew it too. She’s not a fan of the organization.”
He nodded once more. “Iakov Barsukov’s protégé. Until you got cross-wired with Lachko. The details there are a little murky.”
“They don’t matter.” Except maybe to Lachko and me. Iakov didn’t care anymore, although he had, intensely, at the time.
“He was a good man, Iakov. A Chekist’s Chekist. The organization came first. He never let outside considerations get in the way. Lachko … Lachko is a different story. So’s his fucking brother.”
A bitter edge to his voice. He didn’t have much use for the Barsukov brothers. That was to his credit. Although he was wrong about Iakov—I’d found out the hard way and almost died in the process—at his hand. But that was the story I could never tell.
“You’ve read my file,” I said.
“I was actually more interested in the earlier part of the file—what happened before the Cheka.”
I didn’t answer. Alarm bells were ringing too loudly in my head. The early part of my file was totally bland and uninformative—Iakov had made sure of that. It was called a clean passport, my Gulag past had been expunged from the record. A former zek was a zek no more and could hold his head high without fear of shame or spurning or repulsion. Or that was the intention. But somehow Nosferatu had learned the truth. Now Batkin was making a similar implication. Or was I just paranoid?
“I’m not sure I follow,” I said as flatly as I could.
“Of course you do. My file reads the same, almost exactly the same, word for word.”
He took off his jacket and hung it carefully over the back of a chair. He undid a cufflink and rolled up the blue-gray sleeve. The arm was covered in tattoos in Cyrillic script.
