False Dawn

5

Usually, I don’t show off.

Some guys blast up to the shore, carve a hard jibe, and shower a rooster tail of spray over a bouquet of bikinis. Sort of a male boardsailor’s adolescent fertility rite. I’m too old for that.

Then there are the ones who rig their boards, slip into harnesses, and tune their sails until the wind dies, never getting their booties wet. Swilling brew all day and talking a good game but never playing it. I like the sport too much for that.

I just rig and go. On an April day, a steady northeasterly wind of twenty knots, the temperature a perfect eighty-one degrees, I was chop-hopping the green squirrelly waters off South Beach. Puffy white clouds scudded across the sky, darkening the water with their fleeting shadows. The windows of the high-rise condos winked at me in the morning sun. Okay, so it’s not like windsurfing at Sprecklesville Beach in the shadow of Haleakala, the great Maui volcano. No ten-thousand-foot peak hidden in the mist. But it’s the best we can do in these parts. Four feet of chop for jumping, a steady wind for speed, and if you are so inclined, a beach full of tourist gals from every corner of these here United States, not to mention a wide collection of Central and South American chicas plus some Germans and Danes thrown in on a package tour.

I was so inclined.

My board was a nine-and-a-half-foot custom-made sliver of fiberglass with a five-point-four-meter square of orange Mylar for a sail. I was bouncing over the chop, leaning back into the harness, guiding the boom with a light touch, and generally luxuriating in the beauty of the day.

And showing off. Near the shoreline, beginners climbed onto clunky floaters in the frothy surf, unsteady as rookie riders at a dude ranch. Just why do they call this horse Dynamite? Windsurfing is a sport with a steep learning curve, and the first few tries can be frustrating. Watching an experienced boardsailor tear through a series of bottom turns and slashbacks on the offshore waves can be inspiring to the newcomer, or so I rationalized my blatant showboating. On occasion, I could even be persuaded to teach a grateful beach bunny how to tie a bowline or a Prusik hitch knot, all in the spirit of sportsmanship, of course.

Approaching the shoreline at warp speed, I leaned a heavy foot on the rail, and the board carved into the wind. I let go of the boom and dragged my aft hand in the water, a flare jibe. In theory, the hand acts as a daggerboard and pulls the board through the turn. In reality, it’s a grandstanding technique equivalent to a hot-rodder fishtailing on the asphalt. Hey, look at me! I finished the jibe, flipped the boom, then shot back out over the chop, the wind snapping my sail and whistling a tune like a flute through the holes in the mast extension. I squinted into the sun, jibed again, and rode heavy rollers into the shallow water near the Fifth Street beach. I shot past startled swimmers, a couple of teenage sailors in a Sunfish, and some novice boardsailors. Nearing the shore, I pulled the foot of the sail over my head as the leech swung through the eye of the wind-a flashy duck jibe-and just as the board should have started on a new tack, the tail sunk and the bow shot up like a leaping marlin. I toppled backward into five feet of surf. Served me right.

Shaking water out of my eyes and sand out of my trunks, I recognized the sound of sail crackling in the wind, somewhere behind me, moving closer. It is equivalent to hearing a trucker’s horn when you are on a bicycle. I turned just in time to have a mast topple onto me, whacking my right shoulder, and I went under again. This time, I had company.

She was a tall, sunburned blonde, who hadn’t seen thirty. She wore a white one-piece Lycra suit, and when she crawled back onto the board, I could see telltale scraped shins. Her hair was plastered to her skull, and she breathed heavily through pouting lips. If anyone had ever taught her to boardsail, they hadn’t taught her right.

“Oh, sorry,” she said, clinging to the board, which teetered in the surf. “This is so much harder than it looks.”

“First time,” I guessed.

“No. Yes. I mean, in the ocean. I’ve sailed on Lake Minnewaska. But this…” She gestured at the rollers.

“Lake Minnie…”

“In Minnesota.”

She had a faint singsong accent. Swedish maybe. “It’s a different sport in the waves,” I agreed. “Try again. I’ll give you some pointers.”

Jacob Lassiter, Esq., to the rescue. Accused murderers and sopping wet damsels, walk right in. She looked at me the way they do when sizing you up. Deciding whether you’re Tom Cruise or Charles Manson. I crinkled my best beach smile at her and must not have looked too lethal, because she allowed as how my assistance would be peachy, got to her feet, grabbed the uphaul, and pulled, straining to get the sail out of the water. She had some fine ripples in her triceps, but the mast stayed put, weighted down by what must have seemed like a ton of water burying the sail. Beneath the white Lycra, her nipples were perking up.

“Heavy son of a bitch,” she muttered.

At first I thought she meant me.

I like a woman who curses. Makes me think she’ll be honest in personal relationships. It’s stupid, I know, like believing a guy who doesn’t look you in the eyes is shifty, when he may just be bashful.

“Damn right,” I said, adapting my lingo, chameleonlike, to my companion. “Try leaning back. Let your legs do the work. Don’t be afraid. You won’t fall, just keep hold of the uphaul.”

Beginners have this fear of toppling over backward, so they stand straight up and do all the pulling with their arms. Gradually, she leaned back and got the tip of the mast out of the water, and the rest followed. She grabbed the boom, raked it in, and headed the twelve-foot board out through the surf.

She yelled something that sounded like “whoopee,” and looked back at me over her shoulder through her flying blond hair, brave enough now to loosen up a little. “Sail with me.”

Willingly, I ducked under my boom and lay in the water on my back. I propped my feet on the board, and tilted the mast into the wind. When I felt a gust, I lifted the boom gently and let the sail pick me up as it filled with air. I slid my feet into the straps, tugged the boom toward me, and followed my Minnesota friend. I pumped the sail twice and whizzed alongside her.

“Thanks for showing me the ropes,” she called out. “I’m Jillian. Will you let me take you to my hotel for lunch?”

I couldn’t think why not. “Sure. I’m Jake. Let’s get past the surf line. I’ll show you some tricks they don’t know in Duluth. When we get in, I’ll give you some salve for those scrapes.”

Doctor Lassiter at your service; we make beach calls.

She smiled and kept sailing. I stayed upwind and behind her, watching her calf muscles undulate through the window on my sail. “Watch out for those jet skis,” I yelled, pointing in the general direction of Bimini. Three hundred yards away, two machines euphemistically called “personal watercraft” were chawing away, fouling the breeze with their noxious noise. Nearby, a sleek yacht was anchored, pitching gently in the offshore waves.

What loggers are to forests, what sheep are to grass, that’s what jet skis are to a fine patch of turquoise water. It’s not the machine, of course, loud and irksome as it is. The yahoos who ride them, water bullies, are the problem. They ignore the rules of right-of-way, cut off sailboats, terrorize swimmers, scare the fish, and toss beer bottles into the surf. Down in Islamorada recently, a fisherman plugged a jet skier with a. 22 rifle when the punk wouldn’t heed his warnings to keep a distance. Only a flesh wound in the leg. Most of the locals wish the fisherman was a better shot.

These two surf jockeys were headed right for us on their black-and-white monsters, churning up the water, jumping each other’s wake, and generally destroying the tranquility of a place where the only sound is the smooth slash of water and the tune of the wind. We stayed on our tack, a close reach to the northeast. The onshore wind swept the gaseous stink across the waves. The two intruders slowed about thirty yards away. Two Hispanic men, early twenties. Both wiry, both looking at me, instead of Jillian, which any red-blooded guy would do. One of them said something, but with the sound of the damned engines and the whistling wind, I couldn’t hear. A second time, louder. “Ay, you! Follow us.”

I shook my head, dumbfounded.

“C’mon, asshole. Somebody wants to see you.”

I luffed the sail and slowed, but at two hundred twenty-something pounds, I can’t stop. If I do, the board will sink. “No thanks, have a lunch date.”

Jillian sailed by and was looking back over her shoulder. Probably thinking about all the Miami horror stories she must have heard. It’s one thing to be caught in the crossfire of a Colombian cowboy drug war at a shopping mall. Or to wander into a Santeria ceremony sacrificing live goats to the god Yemaya. But to witness a boardsailor’s kidnapping might be a new one for the folks in mid-America.

Their engines were idling, and the incoming tide brought them closer. Both had tattoos on their upper arms. The talker had a neatly trimmed mustache. “C’mon, Hector. We’ll tow him.”

They revved up and followed me, Hector zooming close, reaching for the bowline that sweeps back into the water as you sail. I pumped the sail and caught a gust that took me out of his reach. Except for a couple of space-age trimarans, a fiberglass board with a sail is the fastest wind-driven craft in existence. The America’s Cup yachts? Spare me. The fastest boards can triple their speeds. But a sail is not an engine. I depend on nature: wind and water. Those damn motorcycles on water generate four hundred fifty pounds of thrust out a jet nozzle.

I heard the machines growling behind me, louder now. In a smooth patch of water, I carved a fine jibe, and headed the other way. They just leaned into the turn like bikers, and followed me. In a moment, they had me sandwiched. Hector reached for the bowline again, and I whipped the boom toward him with my aft hand. The outhaul tip caught him on the side of the head and nearly toppled him from his steed. His curses were drowned out by the engines.

The other one sped up and shot across open water ahead of me. Then he turned and idled, blocking my path. I could have jibed again and headed back toward Hector, who was bleeding just above the ear. Or I could imitate some of the wind fanatics from Maui and the Columbia River Gorge, gymnast-sized guys who fly over objects in their path. A decent-sized roller was coming, just between us. I had the board for it, but not the body. At my weight, you don’t jump waves so much as hippity-hop them. Still, I tried to unweight, lifting my feet against the footstraps just as the wave hoisted me, pumping the sail hard.

I got airborne, all right, but only about eighteen inches. I heard him scream, saw him duck, felt the pointy nose of the board strike metal, as I catapulted forward. I didn’t know my bow had hit the gas tank until a moment later. The explosion wasn’t much. You don’t get much of a pop from three gallons of lead-free. Besides, I was under water at the time, and it felt no worse than a tight end cuffing me across the ear holes of the helmet. Hector’s pal wasn’t so lucky. If his nose wasn’t broken from the mast smacking him, its appearance wasn’t improved any, either.

As I treaded water next to my splintered toy, Jillian sailed close, trying to figure out how to stop her big, lunky floater.

“Jeez, you were right,” she said, splashing by me. “I’ve never seen anything like this in Minnesota.”

W ould you care for lunch?” Matsuo Yagamata asked, gesturing toward a buffet table spread with cold seafood that somebody had forgotten to cook.

My social life was improving: two invitations in one day.

Yagamata didn’t wait for me. He lowered himself into an orange deck chair with a canvas back, while a lean Asian man in white served him raw octopus from an ice-filled platter. We were anchored a mile offshore, the bow pointing northeast, and we had a splendid view of the Art Deco hotels of South Beach. I still hadn’t said a word.

“Mr. Lassiter, you did call my office asking to see me.”

I took a seat at the table directly across from him. “Most clients simply call back, set up an appointment. They don’t send two goons to scoop me up.”

His look told me he was not like most clients. I glanced over the rail toward the beach. “Besides, I had other plans.”

“Don’t worry about your friend. My crew members saw to it that she made it safely to shore.”

“Your crew members are thugs,” I said. Beneath my feet, the deck of Yagamata’s yacht swayed with the surge of the windwhipped tide.

Yagamata nodded so gravely it was almost a bow. “You have my sincere apologies for the conduct of my men. They obviously did not convey my invitation in the proper manner. Had the occasion been strictly social, I could have asked your beautiful friend to join us, also.”

Yagamata was wearing khaki cotton slacks and a matching short-sleeve shirt with buttoned pockets and epaulets. He looked at me from behind wire-rimmed sunglasses and tapped the barrel of the yellow, waterproof binoculars that hung around his thick neck. For the second time in a week, I thought of Pearl Harbor.

“I watched you approach her on the beach.” Either he had something in his eye or he winked at me. “You can learn a lot about a man by the way he handles women. I have heard a saying in your country that all you need to know about a man is the car he drives, the shoes he wears, and the woman he marries. Would you agree?”

“My car’s twenty-five years old; I go barefoot whenever possible; and no woman has ever had the nerve.”

Yagamata allowed himself a brief smile. From somewhere below deck, a pump began whooshing. The clipped chatter of Japanese-two men, voices competing with the rush of the wind-came from the galley. I had changed into a dry pair of trunks that were too small for me, and I wore a terry-cloth robe with the monogram “ Yugen,” which was the name of the fifty-one-foot Bluewater cruiser whose deck was now pitching beneath my feet. My board and rig had been hauled aboard and were lashed to the starboard rail.

A handsome beige helicopter was tied down near the stern. An Italian model, the Agusta. The Yugen was a fine boat, Yagamata told me, with a modified V-hull and a flared bow, and though it displaced twenty-six thousand pounds, its draft was only twenty-three inches. So it was suited for cruising the shallows of Biscayne Bay, but here on the ocean side, in twenty knots of wind, it was top-heavy and rocked me right out of my appetite. I can windsurf in the choppiest water for hours and never feel a thing. But anchor me on a bouncing tug, I’d lose my lunch, if I had any, which I hadn’t.

Whether he sensed the problem or not, Yagamata barked orders at his captain-a sunbaked man in his forties-in what I first thought was Japanese but then realized was Russian. Somewhere among the guttural sounds, I picked up the word “Intracoastal.” Then, Yagamata asked again if I wanted some sushi. I had to be polite. This guy was an important client, who also went to some effort to demonstrate that a luncheon date was more a command than an invitation. I knew I could get the raw tuna down with no problem. It looked like beef tenderloin, and I’d had it before with ample quantities of Kirin. But the salmon roe and eel did not make my mouth water, and I’d stepped on enough sea urchins to know I’d rather eat porcupine quills. Besides, I’ve seen the sludge that pours into our waters, so I prefer my fish cooked.

When I hesitated, Yagamata tried gentle persuasion. “Perhaps some miso ae, a very light appetizer?”

I looked a question at him.

“Conch, octopus, and cucumbers in a miso sauce. Or you may prefer flying fish eggs and swordfish belly.”

I would have preferred a cheeseburger with a chocolate shake, but I settled for cold tofu spiced with ginger and scallions. The taste was fine, though the consistency reminded me of a soggy sponge. I was washing it down with some of Matsuo Yagamata’s champagne when he asked why I had wanted to see him.

“To learn more about Crespo and Smorodinsky,” I told him.

His arms were folded across his stocky chest. “You received their personnel files, did you not?”

I had. There was nothing useful in them. Crespo had worked for Yagamata Imports for five years, Smorodinsky for three. Each one had been shifted around, sometimes assigned to the Atlantic Seaboard warehouse, sometimes helping at a wholesale distribution office, or on the Yugen, even doing chores at Yagamata’s Palm Island home.

“The two men shared some work details,” I said. “Did they ever argue? Did Smorodinsky do anything to provoke Crespo?”

Yagamata dismissed the notion with an economical wave of his hand. “I am not that close with my workers. Ask your client these questions.”

“I have. All he talks about is an argument over eighteen dollars.”

Yagamata speared a slice of squid on a fancy toothpick with a frizzy red head like Little Orphan Annie. “Men have been killed for less. Surely you know that.”

“Crespo’s making it up as he goes. He didn’t kill the Russian.”

Yagamata showed me a meager, quizzical smile. “Tell me, what does a lawyer do when he doesn’t believe his own client?”

“Keeps on breathing, ‘cause it happens every day.”

“So your job is not to find the truth, Mr. Lassiter.”

“Truth is for judges and juries. My job is to make the best possible case with whatever evidence I’ve got, and leave judgment day to somebody else.”

“Then why do you worry so much? Take what you have and present it to your judge and jury.”

“What I have stinks worse than two-week-old catfish.”

I immediately regretted the reference to rotting fish, but staring at octopus tentacles doubtless has a subliminal impact. I drained the rest of my champagne, which made my head rock gently with the tide. I am not used to midday doses of the bubbly. Especially combined with sun and a swaying boat.

“Besides,” I continued, “I lied.”

He looked puzzled.

“I can’t do it, leave judgment day to someone else,” I explained. “I have to know. It isn’t enough just to win or lose. Like the sign says in the courtroom, ‘We who labor here seek only the truth.’ My problem is I believe it. Not that the system searches for the truth. It doesn’t. It only seeks evidence, and that can be true or false; it doesn’t matter as long as it meets certain technical rules of admissibility. The truth can be excluded and the falsehoods can be admitted and polished to a fine gloss by smooth-talking lawyers. I’m looking for the literal truth. Who done it? And why? I can’t help it. I just have to know.”

“Regardless of the consequences?”

Now it was my turn to look puzzled.

“Isn’t it conceivable that your client knows better than you how his interests are best served?” Yagamata asked.

“It’s possible,” I said, warily, realizing he was playing lawyer, setting me up for another question.

“So that if you thwart his intentions out of some misguided belief that you are helping him, you could actually do him great harm.”

We were dancing around like a couple of boxers in the first round, feeling each other out. I said, “It’s also possible he’s being misled by others, and unless he levels with me, or I figure out on my own what’s going on, he could be doing himself great harm without knowing it.”

Yagamata’s eyes were hooded by the wire-rimmed sunglasses. “And who would do such a thing to your angelic client?”

His voice was tinged with sarcasm, the words filled with challenge. Would I call his bluff? He didn’t think so, and he was right. Yagamata had probably paid for the thick carpet my partners loved so much in their offices. He was also paying my client’s fees. I had no proof, nothing to go on, and he knew it. “I don’t know. That’s why I do my best to poke around in the shadows, to turn over rocks.”

“In my country,” Matsuo Yagamata said, “we have an expression. If you look under enough rocks, you will eventually find a snake.”

I was just this side of woozy but could still figure that one out. A warning in pleasant tones, but I got the message loud and clear. While I was thinking about it, a crewman in a white smock silently delivered another bottle of champagne and expertly popped the cork. He refilled our glasses without spilling a drop. I could take being rich if I didn’t have to lie, cheat, and steal to get there.

Okay, I figured, my head buzzing pleasantly. Why not listen to the rich guy and let Francisco Crespo take the fall? He seemed willing enough to do the time. Be smart for once, Jake old boy. Go for the champagne lunches and six-figure fees. Or be a schmuck and keep turning over rocks until you grab a rattlesnake by the tail. Which would it be?

I moved the champagne glass across the table, out of my reach, but still within temptation. I always preferred beer, anyway. “I noticed several Russian names on your payroll list.”

It was a question, and Yagamata knew it. It was also an answer to my own question. I thought I heard him sigh, but it might have been the wind. We were cruising at a stately ten knots, the cruiser ably cutting through the chop, headed for calmer waters.

“A lot of Russians have emigrated in the last few years,” I continued. “But Miami hasn’t gotten that many, and I was wondering…”

C’mon, Matsuo, I wanted to yell. Help me out here. Don’t make me subpoena you. I’d have to commit hara-kiri if my partners found out.

He probably considered telling me to go to hell. But after a moment, he settled back in his chair and said, “As you know, I collect Russian art. I did business there even in the days of Brezhnev. It is much easier now, of course, though knowing who to bribe is a little more complex.” He allowed himself a slender laugh. “I do not have the traditional Japanese antipathy for the Russians. They are a sad, yet beautiful people. Very warm, very spiritual. Lovers of high art, ballet, the finest music. Even Smorodinsky was a worldly man of culture.”

I must have been thinking about the brute on the slab in the morgue, because Yagamata smiled and said, “Don’t look so surprised. Americans believe that you have to live on Park Avenue and subscribe to the Metropolitan Opera to be cultured. In Russia, art has long been enjoyed and understood by the masses. Both Smorodinsky and his brother were well versed in native Russian art and had a passing familiarity with European painting. Vladimir was an intelligent man, who knew the lessons of history. There were many nights he and I walked along the River Neva debating the future of his beloved homeland. He was more than a valued employee. He became a friend.”

Vladimir? Whatever happened to I am not that close with my workers? “You brought Smorodinsky here from the Soviet Union? You collect Russians, too.”

A hundred yards off the stern, two dolphins jumped in unison, their question-mark silhouettes etched into the horizon. Yagamata’s look was impenetrable. He seemed to be deciding how much to tell me. “Vladimir began as a low-level operative for one of my business contacts in St. Petersburg, when it was still called Leningrad. He spoke English reasonably well and knew how to grease the wheels in the old bureaucracy to get things done. He was a resourceful man who helped me obtain certain, shall we say, hard-to-get items.”

“He was a thief, a smuggler?”

Yagamata very nearly smiled. If he found me amusing, maybe next time he’d send a limo for me, instead of two goons. “The Russians have a far kinder term. Fartsovshchiki, black marketeer. Religious icons, vestments, antique weaponry, a divan from Mikhailovsky Castle, silver bridle chains that may or may not have belonged to a czar, these were his specialties.”

“Still, he was a criminal. If Smorodinsky had a known propensity for violence, it could help Crespo’s defense.”

Yagamata gave me a quizzical look, as if the furthest thing from his mind was Francisco Crespo. “Criminal,” he said, rolling the word around his tongue, “is a relative term. In my country, and yours for that matter, a successful businessman who generously shares his wealth with underpaid public servants is considered a criminal. Yet, in certain Latin American countries, that is the accepted method-indeed the only method-of doing business. When there was still a Soviet Union, everyone looked for ways to circumvent a system no one but the party apparatchiki wanted. It was great sport to battle the government, to get the extra sausage or to steal state property from a factory. The Russians tell a wonderful political joke that is just as meaningful now as when the verkhushka, the Party elite, called the shots. What’s the difference between communism and capitalism?”

I played along and held up my hands.

“Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, and communism is the opposite.” He laughed at his own joke. “Mr. Lassiter, do you know much about art?”

“No, I don’t even know what I like.”

Yagamata nodded with approval. Maybe he preferred working with a clean slate.

“Japanese art is very simple, very clear. By Western standards, the depiction is unreal, highly idealized, and there is little perspective. If a painter always has his cherry blossoms in bloom, always facing the viewer, always in full color with no shading, the art is mere decoration.”

“And you find Russian art more complex and interesting.”

“ European art. Once Peter the Great came to the throne in the early 1700s, Russia left its Byzantine past behind. Its artists were greatly influenced by those in France, Italy, and Holland. The Russians know fine art and appreciate it. Have you ever been to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg?”

He didn’t wait for me to say no before continuing. “The Winter Palace of the czar. Three million artifacts! Let your mind try to comprehend it. It is impossible.”

I thought about it. “How do they even keep track of it all?”

“Precisely, and if you know anything about the laziness and incompetence of the Russians under the old order, you would know that they do not. Less than ten percent of these works are on display. What is in storage is priceless. What is available for viewing will take your breath away. More than a hundred forty rooms of just Western masterpieces. Monet, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse, da Vinci, Rubens, Goya, El Greco, Raphael…”

Yagamata kept going, a roster of first-team All-Pro painters. I didn’t relate to it. Oh sure, I could name the 1976 Dolphins roster, top to bottom, but somehow, it didn’t have the same cachet.

“You know the place pretty well,” I said.

He let out a little snort. “You could live in the Hermitage and not know it well. It is too vast. Too much of the great work is simply not to be found. Even with special privileges, even knowing Russians with blat — connections-they can’t find half of what I wish to have.”

“Have?”

He drained his sparkling champagne. “Have a look at. Unfortunately, you cannot buy them.” He scowled, apparently thinking of the injustice of it. “It wasn’t always so. After the Revolution, the Bolsheviks were so strapped for hard currency they sold off a number of priceless pieces. You’ll find more than twenty in your own National Gallery in Washington, thanks to Andrew Mellon.”

There was no doubt Matsuo Yagamata preferred it the old-fashioned way. Pay as you go; buy what you want.

“So you are left smuggling silver bridle chains…”

“I have business associates who take care of the necessities of exporting certain items of value,” he explained in language a clever shyster could admire.

“Like the Faberge egg with the choo-choo train.”

Yagamata looked as if he suddenly regretted kidnapping me for lunch. Off the stern, an osprey with lethal talons swooped low, eyeing our wake, on the lookout for an a la carte lunch. I thought about offering some swordfish belly.

“A gift,” he said.

The party at Yagamata’s house. The way he had stage-managed our privileged view of his precious egg. I could have sworn he said he bought it. But I couldn’t quite remember. And it would be awkward to ask who gave it to him. Still, if it had anything to do with Smorodinsky, I needed to know more.

“A generous friend,” I probed.

“The Russian people are indeed generous.”

He left it hanging there and I didn’t know how to grab it. After a moment, I said, “The liberalizing of the economy under Gorbachev must have helped your exporting business.”

“ Perestroika was irrelevant to what I do, Mr. Lassiter. Politics is irrelevant. What was it your Will Rogers said? ‘All politics is applesauce.’ There was always a profit motive in the Soviet Union, at least among those who knew how to manipulate the system. Before the liberalization, the masses would say of the Party leaders: ‘They preach water, but they drink wine.’ It was only a matter of time before the leaders were toppled. For me, there were methods of doing business before Gorbachev and Yeltsin, and there will always be methods. You cannot stop what the Russians call spekulatsiya, speculation and profiteering, under any system. There was always a free market in the Soviet Union for those who knew how to push the right buttons. The failed coup, the dismantling of the Union, the destruction of the Party, it’s all applesauce.”

The yacht was slowing, and the water had calmed. Hard shafts of sunlight danced off the bay. “You like them for it, don’t you? Sort of what you do, spekulat…”

Yagamata’s brow furrowed with just a hint of surprise, like maybe I wasn’t as dumb as he thought. I should shut up. It’s better if they think I could be used for a blocking sled.

“I have great affection for the Russians,” he said. “They have a finely tuned sense of the human dilemma. Far superior to the Japanese, I must say.”

“And Smorodinsky. What can you tell me that will help my client?”

“Nothing, Mr. Lassiter. Vladimir Smorodinsky was not a violent man. And in many ways that even he did not understand, he was true to his principles and a patriot. Perhaps too much so.”

“I don’t understand.”

We were in the quiet waters of the channel with the old Mediterranean homes of Star Island visible off the bow. The skyline of downtown Miami-built with loot from failed savings and loans-dominated the horizon. Yagamata took off his sunglasses and turned to me. The nosepiece had left little red dents alongside his nose. His eyes were black and bottomless.

“It is not necessary that you do,” Matsuo Yagamata said.