Restitution

by Lee Vance

  “If Andrei’s foundation had gotten hold of Zeitz’s drug, could Zeitz have found out?”

  “Clinical trials have to be approved,” she says. “And, depending on where you apply, the process might or might not be transparent. Assuming Zeitz has a TB drug, they’d be particularly interested in monitoring any trial application targeted at TB. Even if Andrei’s application wasn’t supposed to be publicly available, they might have found out about it. It’s hard to keep things secret when there’s so much money involved. The application certainly would have contained my name, and it might have contained Andrei’s.”

  If Zeitz found out Andrei was running a trial on their drug, they would have done anything to stop him. Once the drug’s efficacy against MDR-TB was proved and made public, they’d have to release it, regardless of the fact that there wasn’t a paying market. Zeitz stood to lose billions.

  “Assume Zeitz were the people looking for Andrei,” I say, circling back to the beginning of our conversation. “What would they have been hoping to achieve?”

  She shrugs. “Maybe they wanted to persuade him that it was in his own best interest to cancel the trial and reveal how much of their data he had, and how he got it. One way to achieve that would be to intimidate him, to rough him up physically and threaten him with worse.”

  “Did Zeitz ever come after you or the clinic?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but someone tipped off the Ministry of Health that Chechen terrorists were using my clinic to test a virulent strain of MDR-TB stolen from a Swiss lab.” She shakes her head in disgust. “I went directly to the minister and offered to open my records to any competent review board. That’s the last I heard of that story. Then someone hacked into our computer system. Whoever broke in got by our primary firewall but wasn’t able to penetrate the secondary security that protects our confidential data.”

  I get to my feet and begin pacing, too wound up to sit. Zeitz tried to pressure Emily with the same bullshit story about terrorism that Lyman peddled to Davis and De Nunzio. All the pieces tie together. I go to the window and stare out at the waves. Zeitz is responsible for Jenna’s murder. I wonder how I can avenge myself on a conglomerate. Emily croons something softly behind me.

  “What?” I say, turning to look at her.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, Andrei’s hand pressed to her face. “The tune Mrs. Zhilina was singing got stuck in my head. It’s a Russian children’s song.”

  “ ‘Hush You Mice,’ ” I say, guessing the name of the song Katya mentioned to me earlier without quite understanding why.

  “That’s right,” Emily says, looking at me quizzically. “Do you know it?”

  Pennies begin dropping in my brain. Seeing Andrei sick threw me for so much of a loop that I didn’t think through the ramifications of his incapacity. He couldn’t have been messaging Katya this morning. It must have been Mrs. Zhilina who repurchased the counterfeit securities, pretending to be Andrei.

  “Andrei’s sister said something about it. Tell me, when we spoke on the phone in Moscow, you said you’d made a call for me, and that you might be able to let me know more about the people who were after me later. Who did you call?”

  “Mrs. Zhilina,” Emily says. “She’s on the board of Andrei’s charitable foundation as well.”

  The bedroom door opens. Vladimir stands framed in the doorway, wearing the same green scrubs the nurse downstairs had on. He crooks a finger at me.

  “Come,” he says. “Mrs. Zhilina is wanting to talk to you.”

  I look toward Andrei and notice the transmitting half of the baby monitor plugged in under his bed. Mrs. Zhilina must have been listening; she doesn’t miss a trick.

  “Can I lift the edge of the oxygen tent?” I ask Emily.

  “Yes,” she says.

  The noise of the ocean fades to a faint whisper as I duck my head beneath the plastic, all the doubts I’ve had about Andrei these past few days dispelled. Leaning forward, I kiss him gently on the cheek.

  “I love you,” I say. “Good-bye.”

  45

  A DOOR OFF THE LIVING ROOM opens onto a darkened sunporch with a glass wall facing the ocean. Mrs. Zhilina sits in a rocking chair, her cane leaning against the wall behind her. Gray-blue shadows chase across her face as she rocks slowly, a steamer blanket draped over her legs. A red light glows from the baby monitor in her lap.

  “Would you like some tea, Peter?” she asks, looking toward me and Vladimir.

  “No,” I say, filled with a sense of anticipation. If anyone knows the answers to my remaining questions, it’s got to be her.

  “Are you sure? This is the only room in this loathsome house I don’t find oppressive, and it’s impossible to heat. The tea’s warming.”

  “I’m fine,” I say. The room’s a sauna compared to Tigger’s car.

  “Just the one cup, then, Vladimir,” she says to him. “And please close the door behind you.”

  He obeys wordlessly, her tone suggesting a relationship I wouldn’t have suspected.

  “You met Vladimir through Andrei?” I ask.

  “No. Vladimir’s father and I used to work together. I introduced him to Andrei. Sit.”

  There’s a second blanket draped over the rocker next to hers, and I wrap it around my shoulders as best I can, still clumsy with my injured arm. I hear the sound of pages rustling, and then Emily’s voice, speaking a low, mellifluous Russian.

  “She’s reading Tolstoy to him,” Mrs. Zhilina says, turning the baby monitor off. “I’m sick to death of Tolstoy.”

  “I’ve never read him.”

  “An idealist,” she says dismissively. “I find religion and philosophy as tedious as modern art and architecture. Andrei and I disagree.”

  “You found some common ground.”

  “We did,” she says. “And our actions had consequences we never intended. I’m deeply sorry about your wife.”

  “I need to know what happened,” I say grimly. “Tell me about Zeitz.”

  “I will,” she says. “Zeitz is the end of the story, though. Emily’s told you the middle. Perhaps we should start at the beginning.”

  “I already know the beginning.”

  “Really?” she asks, lifting an eyebrow. “Then you tell me.”

  “Andrei got sick and it changed his perspective,” I say impatiently, fitting together the pieces I’ve learned. “He wanted to do more, to help people who didn’t have the same access to medical care that he had. He found Emily and started up the clinic, funding it out of his own pocket and with contributions he solicited locally. Sometime last year, Emily told him about the drug Zeitz was rumored to have. Suddenly, he needed a lot more cash—first, to pay off whoever sold him the drug and the data and, second, to fund the clinical trial he had to run. He began stealing money from Turndale.”

  “You think Andrei a thief?” she asks frostily.

  “Misappropriated, then,” I say, uninterested in splitting hairs. “He used the cash to play the market, thinking he would put his profits toward the clinic and return the principal before anyone figured out what he’d done. He made some bad bets, so he doubled up. By the time he stopped, he was down a billion dollars. He panicked. His reputation, Katya’s job, and William’s company were all at risk.”

  I pause, wondering if she’ll react to William’s name. I’m curious as to what really happened between them.

  “Continue,” Mrs. Zhilina says, her voice expressionless.

  “I’d guess that’s when he came to you. He confessed what he’d done, and together you figured out how to tidy everything up. The key was the Linz paintings. You must have learned where they were hidden when you were studying with von Stern. You negotiated with William to trade the collection for his stock, and then either sold the stock or borrowed against it to buy back the bogus securities. Problem solved, or so you imagined.”

  “What do you mean, or so I imagined?”

  “William had control stock. Turndale’s minority shareholders are almost certain
ly going to launch a monster lawsuit demanding to know exactly what William got for his shares, and insisting on their right to equivalent compensation. The whole deal could unravel. Andrei should have known better. He should have talked to a securities lawyer.”

  “And if William simply donated his shares to a charitable foundation?”

  Her question derails my train of thought.

  “You gave William the paintings,” I say hesitantly. “And then you had the Swiss escrow agent assign his shares to this outfit that Andrei was on the board of, Fondation l’Etoile?”

  She nods.

  “And then L’Etoile bought back the counterfeit Russian shares,” I continue, walking myself through the steps. “So, depending on how you think about it, William either received the paintings as compensation or he implicitly received the billion dollars and used it to buy the paintings.”

  “Or neither,” she says. “Perhaps William was just generous. In which case, as the extremely expensive securities lawyer that Andrei hired explained it, there’s no equivalent compensation for any minority shareholder to demand.”

  “You’re out of my depth,” I admit. “I’m not a lawyer. But I do know that you’re playing awfully fast and loose with the rules. If the SEC figures out even half of what’s gone on here, everyone involved is going to be in big trouble.”

  “L’Etoile is a private foundation. Andrei and I are the sole directors, and the only ones who know exactly what transpired. The SEC won’t learn anything that I don’t tell them. But this isn’t really what you want to talk about, is it?”

  “No,” I reply, setting my curiosity aside. “Tell me about Zeitz.”

  The door to the porch opens and Vladimir appears, carrying a teacup on a saucer. He and Mrs. Zhilina converse in Russian while I fret, anxious to learn what she knows.

  “So,” she says as Vladimir exits. “We come to Zeitz. Emily’s surmise was correct: They had obtained a copy of Andrei’s trial application. Realizing Andrei had their drug, they sent Lyman to threaten him. Andrei was scheduled to enter the hospital, so he checked in under another name and effectively disappeared. Zeitz knew that Andrei’s foundation was funding the trial, and they were able to learn that I was on the board as well. Lyman caught up with me one morning in the rain, as I was walking to work. He said things would be difficult for us if we proceeded with the trial. I tried to brush past him. He’d closed his umbrella as he spoke and, as I walked away, he tripped me with it.”

  “When did this happen?” I ask urgently.

  “September twelfth.”

  Four days before Jenna was murdered.

  “What did you do?”

  “Andrei was hospitalized, and I was focused on working through the details of the trade with William. It wasn’t the right time to confront Zeitz. I withdrew the trial application.”

  “Did you tell the police about Lyman?”

  “No. He was insignificant.”

  “ ‘Insignificant’?” I say, barely able to control myself. “Lyman and a man named Franco murdered my wife the next week.”

  She lays a hand gently on my bad arm.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “You can’t know how grieved I am.”

  “Zeitz has to pay,” I say, my voice shaking.

  “I’ve given it some thought,” she says. “I know how to hurt them.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, taken aback.

  “We’ll produce their drug,” she says, her hand closing on my arm. “We’ll make them grant us a license for unrestricted global distribution and not let them earn a cent from it.”

  “We don’t have any leverage,” I say, trying to free myself. She squeezes tighter, hurting me.

  “You’re wrong,” she replies, a fierce smile twisting her lips. “We have Lyman.”

  I spring to my feet as she releases me. “How?”

  “He flew into New York the morning after you arrived back from Moscow. Emily told me that Zeitz might be after you, so I set Vladimir to watch the hotel where Lyman had stayed before.”

  “How did you know where he’d stayed?” I ask breathlessly.

  “The umbrella,” she exults. “The one he tripped me with. It had the hotel’s name on it.”

  She’s got Lyman. Black joy swells my chest until a sudden thought catches me up short.

  “Does Zeitz know you have him?”

  “They do,” she says. “We’ve already opened negotiations with them. Lyman admitted your wife’s murder, and confirmed Zeitz’s reasons for warehousing the drug. We have his confession on tape. Zeitz is being very cooperative.”

  “One thing,” I say, pointing at her. “We’re not giving Lyman back.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I said. Lyman has to pay.”

  “Vladimir’s men questioned him,” she says. “The way the Soviets taught them to question people. Lyman’s paid considerably already.”

  “Not enough. You said it yourself, yesterday. An eye for an eye, that’s justice.”

  “And if Zeitz demands Lyman returned alive as the price of their TB drug?”

  “You’re not listening to me,” I say, standing over her.

  “You insist on Lyman’s death,” she says quietly. “Even if it means millions of innocents die needlessly?”

  “It’s not negotiable,” I say, hate filling my heart. “Tell me where he is.”

  “An eye for an eye,” she says, looking away from me. “Vladimir should be in the kitchen. He’ll take you to Lyman.”

  46

  VLADIMIR OPENS A SIDE DOOR onto a courtyard, a snowcapped hedge obscuring the street to my right, and a trellis tangled with leafless vines overhead. Ten yards away, a shadowed figure leans against a gray garage, smoking a cigarette. Vladimir calls out sharply in Russian and the man retreats inside.

  “There?” I ask, scarcely believing Lyman is so near at hand.

  “Yes,” he says.

  He touches my shoulder as I move forward. Glancing sideways, I see a gun in his hand, the grip extended toward me. I take the gun from him and heft it. It’s an automatic, smaller than my father’s gun, and lighter. I rack the slide and flip the safety up with my thumb. I start toward the garage and he touches my shoulder again.

  “What?”

  “Listen,” he says gruffly, breath condensing cloudlike in the chill air. “English is a difficult making for me.”

  I nod impatiently.

  “Mrs. Zhilina is saying things. Some,” he says, smoothing the surface of one hand with the other, “is truth. And some …” He turns one hand sideways and chops down into his flattened palm as if striking it with an ax, pretending to brush the severed portion away.

  “Less than truth?” I guess, trying to understand him. “Half-truths?”

  He nods and then grabs me by the upper arm, leaning forward to kiss both sides of my face. His eyes glisten. I can’t even begin to imagine what this is all about.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “You understand? She is saying and I am doing, but not knowing. I’m sorry. This is my only saying.”

  “Lyman killed my wife, right?” I ask, wanting to make sure there’s no confusion.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to kill him.”

  “Yes.”

  “So there’s no problem, is there?”

  “No,” he says. “No problem. But I am saying my sorry. For not knowing.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say, turning back toward the garage. I haven’t got time to figure out what’s bothering him. “You’re forgiven.”

  The interior of the garage smells of smoke, shit, and propane, a portable heater on full blast in one corner. Plastic sheets cover the floor, the ceiling, and three of the four walls; all the windows are masked. Two wooden chairs face each other in the middle of the room, a tall lamp without a shade standing between them. The Russian who was smoking outside is seated in the nearer chair, a pornographic magazine open in his lap and a cigarette dangling from his lips. There’s a metal bat le
aning against the wall behind him, and a video camera on a tripod, pointed toward the second chair.

  Lyman’s duct-taped to the second chair, cigarette butts littering the floor around him. He’s naked and gagged, sitting in a pool of blood and urine with his eyes closed and his head slumped. Heavy blue bruises cover most of his body; his face and chest are dotted with small round blisters. Vladimir says something to the seated Russian, who stands and catches Lyman by the hair, holding his head up and slapping him repeatedly across the face. Lyman doesn’t react. The man takes the lit cigarette from his mouth and threads it into one of Lyman’s nostrils. Lyman jerks awake with a shriek, his limbs flexing spasmodically.

  “Now,” Vladimir says as the Russian turns Lyman’s face to me. “Shoot.”

  I step forward and press the gun to Lyman’s forehead, just the way I’ve imagined it a thousand times before. His eyes cross beneath slitted lids and he moans loudly, a fresh stream of urine trickling down the chair leg.

  “For Jenna,” I say.

  This isn’t right. I hear Jenna’s voice in my ear and suddenly see the room as if from her perspective—me with the gun extended, Lyman lowing fearfully into his gag, and the Russians waiting expectantly. Pushing her words away, I draw a deep breath and command myself to shoot. My finger tightens on the trigger as a bloody tear leaks from Lyman’s eye and tracks slowly down his cheek. This isn’t what Jenna would want. It isn’t right. I step backward and point the gun to the ceiling, realizing I’m covered in sweat.

  “I’m not going to do this,” I say to Vladimir, my voice choked. “I’m not going to kill him in cold blood. You take your people and get out of here. I’ll wait a couple of hours and then call the police.”

  “Is better,” Vladimir says, taking the gun from me. He raises his arm in a fluid motion, touches the gun to Lyman’s head, and fires. The noise is no louder than a hand clap. Lyman’s body spasms, smoke rising from a hole behind his ear as the air fills with the smell of burnt hair. I double over, vomiting, and hear the other Russian laugh.