Last to Fold

CHAPTER 15

I checked e-mail as soon as I got up. Foos’s message, timed at 3:42 A.M., said, “Risly was good, but not as good as he probably thought he was. I’m in. Gonna grab some shut-eye. I’ll have whatever there is to have in the morning.”

I called Brighton Beach. I didn’t worry about the hour.

“What the fuck do you want now?” Lachko said.

“How’s Iakov?”

“In the fucking hospital.”

“He’s alive.”

“I suppose you take credit for that.”

“He was lucky. Which hospital?”

“Why?”

“I want to visit.”

“Stay the fuck away, Turbo. We’ve had enough of you.”

“I’ve got Rislyakov’s computer.”

That stopped him. “What computer?”

“Laptop. He had it with him yesterday.” Iakov hadn’t said anything to Lachko about the computer.

“It belongs to me. I want it back.”

“That’s why I’m calling. As soon as I hear that Sasha is out of jail, all charges dropped, back at his job, you can have it.”

“Turbo, you dick-sucking son of—”

“That’s the deal. Tell Sasha to contact me in the usual way. I’ll call back when I hear from him. Which hospital?”

“Fuck your mother. Mount Sinai.”

“I’ll drop by later this morning.”

The line went dead. I wiped away the sweat on my forehead. The air-conditioning was working, but the temperature had risen ten degrees in two minutes.

He hadn’t asked about Eva. One more thing out of whack.

I ran three miles at a good clip, legs loose, body ready to do whatever I asked, despite the heat. I pumped iron for half an hour. When I got home at seven fifteen, a black Suburban with tinted windows was idling out of place in front of my building. Two men in suits got out. I recognized the big one—he’d been with the group that arrested Mulholland. He wasn’t quite as large as a refrigerator, but he had the same boxy build.

“Your name Vlost?” he said.

“Who wants to know?” I replied, smiling to signal I wasn’t being obstinate, just cautious.

Fridge pulled out a wallet and showed me an ID card that read FBI. “Special Agent Coyle. This is Agent Sawicki. Boss wants to talk to you.”

Sawicki grunted. I wondered if he knew I was Russian.

“This a social invitation or you guys strictly business?”

“It’ll be better for all concerned if you come along for a chat,” Coyle said.

Sawicki grunted again.

I pulled at my sweat-drenched T-shirt. “Can I shower first? Whoever your boss is probably doesn’t want to meet me like this.”

Sawicki grinned at that. Coyle hesitated.

“You can come upstairs if you like. I’m not going anywhere.”

“We’ll be in the car,” Coyle said. “Make it quick. She doesn’t like to be kept waiting—and she’s been waiting since last night.”

Sawicki grinned again. For whatever reason, Coyle was giving me a heads-up. I smiled. “Appreciate that. I’ll be right back. You guys want coffee, there’s a deli around the corner.”

He nodded. “Already found it.”

The three of us drove in silence to an office tower in St. Andrews Plaza, one of a hodgepodge of government, court, and police buildings between City Hall and Chinatown. The area teems from late morning to late afternoon, but at five after eight on another hot day, it was dead quiet. The Suburban’s air ran full blast the whole way and almost stopped my sweating by the time we arrived.

A brief walk through the heat, a longer wait to be metal detected, and a still longer ride in a slow government-service elevator. The sign on the glass door read UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT–NEW YORK. No receptionist at the desk. Coyle left me with Sawicki and went down a hall. A few minutes later, he took me down the same hall to the end. Empty outer office. In the room behind, a raven-haired woman stood at the window, her back toward me. She turned as Coyle left, closing the door.

“I’m told y’all are fuckin’ around in not just one but two of my cases. Suppos’n you tell me why and what for before I have your ass deported back to whatever socialist shit-hole you came from in the first place.”

CHAPTER 16

I listen to what used to be called country music because of, as Charlie Parker once reportedly said, “the stories, man, the stories.” It’s now known by the nondescriptive “roots” or “Americana,” but whatever the term, I was standing in front of the inspiration for countless tunes about the honky-tonk angels who turn otherwise strong-minded men into helpless fools. When I finally told her that, she took it as a compliment—she’s a big fan of Loretta Lynn.

Victoria de Millenuits. Victoria of a thousand nights. I realize I’m in no position to say it, but what’s in a name? It fits her like a pair of tight jeans.

She’s a few inches shorter than I am and built, to use a marvelous metaphor, like a brick shithouse. (Americans, like Russians, can be clever with wordplay, even when it makes no sense.) She has long legs, a full figure, just the right amount of honky-tonk mascara and lipstick, and a pout that turns men—at least this one—to jelly before she gets her lips fully formed. She wears her black hair thick and long, past her shoulders. The eyes—green ellipses that seem descended directly from ancient Egypt—are as deep as the Nile. They laugh when she wants them to and turn sad when she doesn’t. Her nose is a touch too small and her mouth—those pouting lips—too large. The overall effect would have driven Botticelli to distraction.

That first meeting, in her U.S. attorney’s office, the full package was on subdued display. An Armani suit straightened the shithouse curves, but they still took my mind off worrying whether Agents Coyle and Sawicki knew about Greene Street. The black hair was pulled back and tied up behind her head. Horn-rimmed glasses wrapped the green eyes, but they didn’t dull the color. Jade is jade, no matter what it’s encased in.

I stuck out my hand. “Pleasure to meet you. Call me Turbo.”

That defused her—for a nanosecond.

“I know your damned name. Sit down!”

I kept my hand outstretched. “Then you have the advantage. You are?”

“The goddamned U.S. attorney for the Southern District!”

“Your title is stenciled on the door. I’m asking your name. Courtesy’s a starting point in the socialist shit-hole I come from.”

The eyes flashed, jade striking iron. I’d pushed it too far. Then they softened, the lips curled up, and she laughed. A big laugh—one that knew something about life. An Armani-clad arm came across the desk. The grip was firm.

“Victoria. Victoria de Millenuits. Thank you for coming to see me on short notice. Apologies for my greeting. You know what they say about litigators.”

“No, we didn’t have any to talk about.”

The flash was back. “Don’t push your luck.”

“Okay. Doesn’t matter. May I sit?”

“Please.”

I took my chair, she took hers. We eyed each other across a big, cheap, veneered desk, as feminine as a tractor. The rest of the office had the same feel. Men’s club wannabe leather. She read my thoughts.

“I haven’t been here long, a few months. My predecessor’s decor. No time to redecorate.”

“Not a priority.”

“I was appointed to do a job. That’s my focus. Furniture…” She waved a delicate hand in the air.

“The kids I grew up with would’ve killed for a shit-hole like this.”

The flash was back. “All right, goddammit. Y’all made your point.”

I was trying to place the accent—Southern, certainly, more bayou than banjo.

“Description wasn’t inaccurate, if it makes any difference.”

She dropped her eyes as she opened a file on her desk, brought the eyes back up and said, “Small talk’s been a pleasure, Mr. Vlost. Let’s get down to cases.”

“Turbo.”

“Where’d you spend last night?”

“Why?”

“My men waited outside your building until after one.”

“You work late.”

“I work till whenever. Where were you?”

“I work late, too.”

“Doing what?”

“I think my lawyer would advise against answering that.”

“Because you have something to hide?”

“Because he doesn’t approve of fishing expeditions.”

“This wouldn’t be our mutual friend Bernie Kordlite?”

“Why do you ask?”

“He gave me your name and address.”

“Bernie sold me out?”

“I could’ve looked in the phone book. What’s your business, Mr. Vlost?”

“Turbo.” I took out a business card and handed it across.

She laughed—another real laugh. “Vlost and Found? Whatever your business is, we know you’re not a comedian.”

“I help people find things.”

“That make you a flatfoot?”

“I believe gumshoe is the correct technical term.”

“What’s Mulholland looking for?”

I shook my head. “I’m sure Bernie didn’t tell you I’d answer that.”

She looked down at her desk. “What’s your business have to do with Lachko Barsukov?”

“Lachko’s an old friend. From the socialist shit-hole.”

“And Rad Rislyakov, also known as Ratko Risly?”

Careful now. “You seem to know a lot about my movements.”

She took a photograph from the file and turned it toward me. I was looking at myself getting out of the Lincoln in the Badger’s Brighton Beach courtyard. The close focus and blurred background said it had been taken with a long telephoto lens. She turned over another picture. I was exiting Ratko’s Chelsea apartment building.

She said, “Tuesday, you’re at Mulholland’s. Coyle saw you there. Yesterday morning, you show up at Risly’s building. Later, you pop out to Brighton Beach for a visit with a top member of Russian organized crime, someone who’s in business with the someone you went to see that morning. When you get back to Manhattan, you play cute all over downtown, then on the Lexington Avenue IRT, like you want to lose anyone following you. Then you don’t come home. Bernie says you’re straight, but Bernie used to be a spook, too. What are you up to, Mr. Vlost?”

I gave up on her calling me Turbo, at least temporarily. “Sounds like I was successful.”

“Successful? At what?”

“Losing that tail.”

She slapped the desk. “Goddammit—”

“Okay, okay. Lachko’s an old friend, like I said. We used to work together—in the KGB. I heard he was sick.”

“So you were visiting a sick friend?”

“Sure. Is that a crime, even if we are both ex-socialists?”

She ignored me. “Why the shenanigans in the subway?”

“Don’t like being followed. Occupational hangover.”

“Why did you think you were being followed?”

“I wasn’t wrong.”

“You’re not as smart as you think you are either. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Lachko has a couple of guys camped out in Ratko’s lobby. You know that. He was asking questions about Ratko yesterday that suggest Ratko has dropped out of sight. And since you’ll undoubtedly ask, no, I don’t know where he is.”

Technically and spiritually true, if factually dubious. Two out of three ain’t bad.

“Your powers of deduction knock me over. You know who Risly is?”

“No.”

“Why would he want to drop out of sight?”

“Never met the guy. Have you?”

The jade flashed again. “Why did you go to see him?”

“Had something to talk about.”

“Something involving Barsukov or Mulholland—or both?”

“I hope you won’t hold it against me if I don’t answer that. Maybe if you tell me why you’re interested in Risly, I could help.”

“Just my luck—a socialist with scruples. I’ll ask again—what do you want with Risly?”

“I think this is where I came in.”

“I can make life difficult.”

“You mentioned that earlier. First thing you said. Kind of got us off on the wrong foot. I’ll take my chances on whether the different agencies in the federal government have actually started talking to each other.”

“You really do think you’re clever, don’t you? Is Mulholland your client?”

“Suppose I gave you my word that whatever my business, as you put it, with Mulholland, it has nothing to do with predatory lending or anything else at FirstTrustBank.”

She doodled on her notepad while she considered that. “Don’t take offense, but what’s the word of a socialist spook worth?” she asked with a smile.

“Former socialist spook. Now I’m just another small businessman, backbone of the American economy.”

“Don’t give yourself airs. What about Barsukov and Risly?”

“Straight up—I have no business with Barsukov. He and I had a falling-out back in the eighties. Big one. Yesterday was the first time I’d seen him in more than twenty years. I hope it’s the last. He does, too.”

“How do you know that?”

“He told me.”

“How sick is he?”

“I’m not an oncologist, but he’s my age and used to be my size and weight. He looks like he’s eighty and weighs one-twenty. He’s got cancer and he’s still chain-smoking. I wouldn’t bet on him being around this time next year. On the other hand, I was recently reminded of a saying we have. He who’s destined to hang won’t drown.”

“Not before I nail his ass. And Risly?”

I shook my head with a grin. “I’ll tell you this. I very much doubt that my business with Risly, again as you put it, has anything to do with whatever you’re interested in.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He was trying a very stupid shakedown. It didn’t work.”

“What kind of shakedown?”

“Amateur effort. Not even worth talking about.”

“That’s your opinion.”

I shrugged.

“Who was he shaking, Mulholland?”

I shrugged again.

“Somebody phished Mulholland.”

“Yeah, I understand Ratko’s got quite a rep in those circles. I don’t know anything about that.”

“Your word as an ex-socialist spook turned law-abiding small businessman?”

“That’s right.”

“The phisher used a forged letter from my office. That pisses me off. I also infer the phisher knows more about my business than he should. Bernie tells me you know your way around technology crime.”

“I met Mulholland for the first time Tuesday morning. I’d hardly heard of him before then. My word as an ex-socialist spook.”

She made another note. No jade flash this time.

“All right, Mr. Vlost. Thanks for your time. If you learn anything about Risly, I’d like to know.”

“You’re counting on a lot of ex-socialist goodwill.”

“Very funny. Bernie said you could be a real pain in the ass.”

“I’m really very friendly and engaging. Let me buy you dinner.”

The green eyes gave me an I-can’t-believe-you-just-said-that look over the top of the glasses.

“I think we’ll get along better on a strictly business basis.”

“That’s been a real treat so far.”

One more flash. Sooner or later I was bound to get burned, if I got the chance. She closed the file in front of her and stood.

“Good day, Mr. Vlost. If you ask him, Bernie will tell you I can be a pain in the ass, too. He’ll also confirm my reputation for periodically crushing neighboring anatomical appendages. Maybe everything you say is true and this has all been one big coincidence. If so, nice meeting you. But feminine intuition and the statistics course I took back in college say bull to that.”

“Sometimes, an inside straight fills.”

“Maybe. Whatever you’re up to, y’all’d be well advised to stay the hell out of my way. If I find out you are fuckin’ around in my cases—or if you’ve been less than one hundred percent straight—I’ll make sure you do time in a good old American jail for obstruction, and that’s before I get your ass deported. Do I make myself clear?”

The twang was back. She worked hard to cover it, but it came out when she got angry. I found it charming. I was finding everything about her charming.

Before I could say more than “Very clear,” a clock chimed 9:00 and the end of the first round. Coyle and Sawicki were nowhere to be seen as I showed myself out of the building. A young man in a white linen suit with black curly hair and an eye patch gave me a quick once-over as I passed through the reception area. He didn’t look American, more European, and could’ve been Russian. I almost spoke to him, to test my hypothesis, but prudence knocked on my skull and said I’d already used up the day’s quota of luck.

CHAPTER 17

The heat sucked the energy off the street. Traffic—vehicular and pedestrian—moved a beat slow, and the mood was morose. BEARS RULE—DOW DROPS 610, the Post cried from a newsstand. I’d lost track of the market gyrations. Maybe I could train Pig Pen to broaden his horizons and provide updates on the Dow Jones.

No cabs in sight. I walked slowly back downtown, replaying the conversation with Victoria as I went. Coyle seeing me at Mulholland’s was a coincidence—or bad luck, depending on your point of view—but she had people watching Barsukov’s palace and Ratko’s building. She didn’t know about Greene Street, at least not yet. Lucky for me, or I wouldn’t be walking around. Why did she bring me in to show her hand? Maybe Bernie’s word was good enough for her. More likely, she didn’t have much, so she was reaching for something.

I stopped at the deli and ordered black coffee and a toasted bagel, one half with butter and jam. I chewed that on the way to the office.

“Hello, Russky,” Pig Pen said, his eyes fixed on the brown paper bag. “Pizza?” A mix of eternal hope and here-and-now resignation in his voice.

“Good morning, Pig Pen. Bagel,” I said, removing his half.

“Cream cheese?”

“No cream cheese for parrots.”

“Cream cheese?” he tried again, but he saw the fix was in.

“Cream cheese means cholesterol, and cholesterol makes Pig Pen an ex-parrot.” I have no idea how a parrot’s cardiovascular system works, but it seemed a reasonable assumption. Besides, Pig Pen thinks he’s human like the rest of us.

“Python,” he said, his head bobbing up and down. He’s a fan of the dead parrot skit, along with everyone else, even if his ancestry is the butt of the joke. I handed over the bagel. He pulled off a piece.

“Onion!” Things were looking up.

“Happy now?”

“Muchas gracias…”

“You’re welcome.”

“…cheapskate.”

The neck feathers ruffled. Maybe I’m mistaken, and twelve is still adolescence in parrot years.

“Where’s the boss?”

“Pancakes.” Breakfast.

“Pig Pen, what do you know about Wall Street?”

“BQE?”

“No, not traffic. Stock market. Dow Jones. NASDAQ.”

“Cross Bronx. Accident cleared.”

“Is your life’s ambition to be a cab driver?”

“Triborough—two lanes closed.”

He went back to the bagel. Morning rush hour was the wrong time for this conversation.

“Tell Foos I said thanks for the hard drive.”

“Drive-by.”

“Not drive-by, hard drive. Computer.”

He nodded as he chewed, but I think he was just pacifying me.

Bernie’s secretary confirmed he was in the office. I got the hundred grand from the safe and walked down to Hayes & Franklin. Shirt wrinkled and tie loosened, he was bent over a thick stack of papers. He barely looked up when I dropped the bag on his desk.

“You want to count it?”

He shook his head.

“Do I need a receipt?”

Another shake.

“Who should I talk to about my fee, you or Mulholland?”

He held up the papers he was reading. Bloodshot eyes, exhaustion written all over his face.

“Bankruptcy petition, Turbo. Mulholland’s busted.”

“Come on, Bernie, this is America. People like Mulholland don’t go broke.”

“Remember how you told me he was buying FTB? You didn’t know the half of it. He was buying on margin—as the stock fell. Best we can figure, he paid north of nine hundred million for shares now worth three.” He looked at his computer screen. “Less. Market opened down again.”

“Surely he’s got other assets.”

“Yeah, but looks like he’s pledged those, too. We’re trying to get a full picture. It’s a mess.”

“I’m sorry,”

He took off his glasses and wiped them on his tie. “He’s not such a bad guy when you get to know him. Rory and I… We met at college, Yale, two scholarship kids in a pool of privilege. He was a poor mick from the wrong Boston ’burbs, me a Jew from Brooklyn. We formed a bond of sorts, us against the rest. Went our separate ways afterward but stayed in touch—holiday cards, reunions, that sort of thing. When I started here, he called me up, said he needed a lawyer he could trust. FTB was already a pretty big bank then, and he sealed the deal here for me. I owe him. He’s human like the rest of us, he’s got his flaws, but…”

“I won’t argue with you, not today.”

“Don’t worry about your fee. We’ll get it, one way or another.”

“I’m not worried,” I said, mainly to be polite. “How’s the girl?”

He shook his head. “Touch and go. Docs say she was on Rohypnol. Borderline overdose. Still in the ICU.”

“The date rape drug?”

“Yeah, but some kids take it recreationally. Roofie, they call it. Amnesiac—she probably won’t remember a thing.” He shook his head again. “She’s been through rehab a couple times already. Didn’t take. This stuff with Rory won’t help.”

“Maybe. Everybody needs a wake-up call. Something that makes you realize it’s not all about you—unless you want to piss your life away. In which case, that is all it’s about.”

“Once more, Turbo, you’ve found just the right way to cheer me up.”

“I met your former partner this morning.”

“The piranha?”

“She hauled me in for a talk. Kind of intimated you sold me out.”

“No way. You must be getting rusty. She knew who you were, where you’d been, who you’d been with. All she asked for was a character reference, which I’m guessing is why you’re not in jail. How’d you make out?”

“All right, under the circumstances. She tried to push me over, I pushed back. No blood spilled.”

“Sounds like Victoria. She likes to intimidate first thing out of the box. Thinks she needs even footing with the boys. I’ve always thought she’d do better using her feminine assets, but who am I to argue? She’s done more than all right her way.”

“How well do you know her?”

“Like I said, she came here about eight years ago, with that Atlanta firm. She’s got brains to match her looks, and she’s tenacious as hell. Every guy in the office hit on her with the same result. No soap. Used to be lots of rumors—lesbian, S&M, frigid, you name it. If her time sheets were any indication, not much social life of any kind. She was at the top of billable hours every year she was here.

“We were all surprised by the U.S. attorney appointment, but she networks a lot, she’s active in the Bar Association, she’s got a great rep in white-collar crime. After all the Wall Street scandals, that’s probably what the Justice Department thought they needed. She may be a little out of her depth—organized crime, drugs, and terrorism haven’t been her thing—but I bet she figures it out.”

“She’s trying. Not sure she’s there yet.”

“Only been a couple of months.”

“Okay. I’ll get out of your hair.”

Bernie went around his desk and closed the door. “How bad was it, when you found Eva last night?”

“Bad as could be. You really want specifics?”

He shook his head. “Why’d you cover? Why not call the cops?”

“Multiple reasons. Eva’d be in jail now, looking at lots worse than a possible drug rap. There was a dead guy in that loft who’s tied up with the Russian mob. He ran the kidnap scheme, I’m pretty sure, but no question Eva was in on it. She was walking around the streets of SoHo yesterday afternoon.”

“So?”

“This whole thing’s screwy, has been since the beginning. Like your former partner pointed out an hour ago, Tuesday, I meet Mulholland, who thinks his daughter’s been kidnapped. Then he gets arrested. He’s worried about his wife, but he doesn’t know who she really is. I go looking for the supposed kidnapper—Rad Rislyakov, a.k.a. Ratko Risly, big-time identity thief, screwing around with a small-time shakedown. Next thing I know, Lachko Barsukov—that’s right, that Lachko Barsukov—whom I haven’t seen in twenty-plus years, tells me to stay away from Ratko and applies some heavy pressure. But he doesn’t know about his ex-wife, now married to Mulholland, or his daughter, who’s screwing around with Rislyakov. Then I find Eva in Ratko’s hideaway, blotto, along with a corpse that’s probably Ratko. I also find Lachko’s father—right again, Iakov Barsukov—who has no reason to be there, except he says it’s Cheka business. I also find a computer that may tell me what Lachko is worried about and Victoria is looking for. Haven’t had a chance to check yet. So maybe I’m in a position to solve the mystery, help Eva, make a deal with Lachko, and possibly help Victoria, although I don’t know at the time I want to do that—but not if I call the cops. Make sense now?”

Bernie shook his head and opened the door. “About as much sense as a Russian novel. Sorry I asked.”

“Life’s not as simple as crossing a field.”

“One of your proverbs?”

“One of the more cheerful ones.”

Foos was chewing another bacon-egg-cheese-grease-on-a-roll when I got back to the office.

“I’m guessing Pig Pen’s jealous.”

“He offered to trade his bagel and got all out of sorts when I declined. You could at least get him cream cheese.”

“I’m trying to prolong his life, although I’m not sure why.”

“Pig Pen said something about a drive-by.”

“Pig Pen’s a bird brain. I said hard drive.”

“You may have grabbed more than you bargained for when you took that computer.”

“Lachko and his father are keen to get their hands on it—that tells me something.”

“The something is what it’s running. I left it asleep last night, but online in case someone wanted to e-mail the late Mr. Risly. This morning, it woke itself up at six, activated e-mail, and received a bunch of messages. Three hundred twelve to be exact. Came in from all over, including overseas. Couple of apps went to work, downloaded the data in the e-mails, sorted them, sent out a bunch of new messages. Those went through zombies, so I can’t tell where they ended up.”

“All automatically?”

“Yep.”

“What’s in the e-mails?”

“You’ll see. Lists of figures. Code, most likely.”

“Lists? You mean like spreadsheets?”

“Yeah, but these aren’t calculations, just lists.”

“Hold on.”

I retrieved both BlackBerrys from the safe. Long list of new messages on Ratko’s. Shorter one on Marko’s. None of the senders meant anything to me, but I showed them to Foos.

“This one’s getting copied on all the e-mails. The other’s only receiving a few.”

“First one belonged to Ratko. The other to one of his associates.”

“Ratko sent himself copies. There’s more. You told me Mulholland got phished. Risly was the phisher. They’ve got three computers on a wireless network. Risly hacked all of them.”

“Ratko’s got—had—a talent for that kind of thing.”

“Yeah, but phishers, as we know, play a percentage game. They phish lots of people, hoping to sucker a few, and they’re looking for stuff they can steal—bank accounts, brokerage accounts, hard assets.”

“So?”

“The only person Risly phished was Mulholland, and it looks like all he stole was information. Then someone took that information from him.”

“How’s that work?”

“Ratko removed a big file from one of Mulholland’s computers. Removed as in removed—stolen, then erased, permanently. No way to retrieve it. He clearly wanted the only copy. Then someone moved that same file, along with another one, to an external drive and erased them from Ratko’s hard drive. Again permanently.”

“No way to tell what they were?”

“Uh-uh. Just two big-ass files, two hundred ninety gig and three hundred fifty gig.”

“That someone was likely Ratko himself.”

“True enough, but where’s the hard drive?”

“Good question. He didn’t have it with him. It wasn’t at the loft or in Chelsea.”

“Anyone know you have his computer?”

“The aforementioned Barsukovs.”

“I’d watch my step, then—a little more carefully than the late Mr. Risly did.”

“I’ll do that.”

“There’s more. E-mail, from Risly’s computer through a zombie to felixmulholland@aol.com. Listen to this. ‘Greetings, Polina Barsukova. We know who you are, who you were, what you did, what you’re trying to do. We know it all. We’re thinking a partnership could be attractive for both of us. You get to keep your income stream—or 50% of it. You get to stay alive. We’ll be the only ones who know who you are, who you’ve become. You can’t find us. But don’t doubt for a second we know exactly where to find you. We’ll be in touch soon. In the meantime, if you don’t believe us, check your computer. You’ll find something missing. We have it now—another reason we think you’ll welcome a partnership.’ No signature, no return address.”

“When did she get that?”

“April eighth.”

“Right after the phishing expedition.”

“That’s right. A week later, she gets another message. Contains a list of bank accounts and instructions for her to transfer money into them. Doesn’t make any mention of amounts, just percentages. Take a look.”

He spun the laptop around. The message read,

I turned the computer back. “Basilisk didn’t show any of this activity.”

He nodded. “I know. I double-checked. But the e-mail refers to ‘the accounts in which you have received payment.’ They could be, probably are, under some other name or names.”

“Ratko seems to know all about whatever arrangement she has in place for whatever she’s up to. When the money’s coming in, where it’s coming in to, and the fact that he doesn’t mention an amount suggests he knows how much. He’s working both sides of this deal. But why?”

He spun the computer back. “Hold the phone. She gets another e-mail, couple weeks ago. Thanks her for the May payments. Gives her the account numbers for June. Then it says, ‘We’re afraid we must make a one-time assessment to cover the partnership start-up costs. Shipping and handling charges. $100,000. This will be a cash payment, small, used bills, please, tens and twenties. You have a week to collect the money. We’ll be in touch with delivery instructions.’”

“Hundred grand? That can’t be coincidental.”

“It’s not. That picture you showed me, the kidnap photo? Photoshopped. Four separate images, the girl, the gun, the Times, and the background.”

“How’d Ratko…”

“He didn’t. It was Photoshopped on Mulholland’s computer. The same computer used to type the kidnap note. Look.”

He banged on the keyboard and turned the laptop around. Four images, as he said—Eva, the newspaper, the hand with the gun, and a chair against a brown wall. Foos reached around to the keyboard.

“Voilà.”

The four images merged into the picture Mulholland had handed me Tuesday morning.

“And here’s your kidnap note.”

He hit a few more keys, and the note appeared on the screen.

“I’m not into judgment,” he said, “but it looks to me like you’ve been taken for a ride.”

I couldn’t argue. “You install the keyboarding bug?”

“Anyone does anything with that computer, you’ve got a front row seat.”

“And no one—especially Lachko Barsukov—is going to know we were in there?”

He raised a bushy black eyebrow, his usual reaction to a question that’s beneath response.

“Sorry,” I said. “We need to erase all this. I have to hand the computer back to the Barsukovs.”

“Already done. You’re looking at the copy I put on this hard drive. Figured you’d want to keep your inadequacies to yourself.” He clicked some keys, pulled out a cable, closed the laptop, and pushed it across the desk.

“One more thing. I got waylaid this morning by a pissed-off U.S. attorney.”

“Uh-oh. He know about your extralegal activities?”

“Fortunately not. But she knows more about me than I like. She also turned down my dinner invitation.”

“Cause and effect?”

“See what the Basilisk can find on her, starting with a home phone. Victoria de Millenuits is her name.”

“Millenuits? Midnight?”

“Close. Mille—thousand, nuits—nights.”

He shrugged. “My dinner invitations are usually accepted. I’ll look into it after lunch. Pig Pen and I have a date at Lombardi’s.”

I took Ratko’s laptop and Foos’s external drive to my office and woke up my own computer. I plugged in a cable, and an icon for Ratko’s hard drive appeared on my desktop waiting to be invaded. Almost like the good old days.

Not. Still, given that the computer now belonged to the Barsukovs, I enjoyed the irony.

I clicked on the icon, and the hard drive opened up. The home page for something called the Slavic Center for Personal Development appeared. I ignored that and began to work through the contents, starting with the spreadsheets. Two hours later, I was less than a quarter done, and my eyes hurt. I felt like a beer but settled for a glass of water and went back to my desk.

If Bill Gates had a dollar for every line of Excel spreadsheet employed by Ratko Risly, he’d have many more millions than he already does. The computer contained workbook after workbook, each titled with a number and all following the same format—a group of three columns on the left, five on the right, but the right columns contained many, many more entries. The first column in each group appeared to be a date. The earliest started six months ago. The most recent were the ones the computer added by itself this morning. The other columns contained what could be account numbers and dollar amounts, but that was pure guesswork on my part. On the other hand, why keep such elaborate records for anything other than financial transactions? Ratko’s outgoing mail contained messages similar in content—five columns of numbers—but the messages, which numbered dozens per day, went to an array of addresses. Zombies, Foos said. Sleeping computers, left online, hijacked by cyber-pirates for a host of nefarious purposes, usually to send spam blasts or to corral into botnets, but also to cover tracks. Ratko’s BlackBerry received confirming copies of the e-mails issued by Ratko’s computer.

My stomach was rumbling, but I kept at it. Another forty minutes and I’d found the contents of several of Marko’s e-mails logged into various workbooks. Sure enough, on the five-column side, every entry had a match a day or two later. The three-column entries were singles. I was pretty sure I was looking at the inner workings of the money laundry Ivanov said Ratko was building for Barsukov, but it beat the hell out of me how it worked.

My eyes, head, and stomach were all angry. I checked my e-mail before heading out in search of sustenance and almost cried aloud when I saw Sasha’s name in my in-box with the subject “Vacation.” That was code—he wasn’t writing under any duress. The message read “Weather lousy here. Thinking of a trip. Always wanted to visit Istanbul. Can you recommend hotels?” More code—something had happened (he couldn’t know I knew what), and he was going incommunicado for a while. I tapped out, “Try the Four Seasons, in an old prison, you’ll like it,” to tell him I understood.

Food forgotten for the moment, I placed another call to Brighton Beach. “Tell Lachko I’m going to visit Iakov. I’ll leave the computer with him.”

CHAPTER 18

Iakov had a Central Park view he couldn’t use from the top floor of the Guggenheim Pavilion at Mount Sinai. The place felt more like hotel than hospital—carpeted hallways, fancy wallpaper, mahogany doors, private rooms, and, no doubt, room service. No private insurer was footing this tab. Still, all the ersatz luxury couldn’t quite excise the commingled smells of illness and death.

Two of Lachko’s thugs stood guard. One blocked the door while the other put his pockmarked face a few inches from mine. Tobacco and vodka on his breath. “Lachko said one visit and don’t come back, don’t call, they don’t want to know you exist. I’ll take the laptop.”

“Iakov asked first.” I pushed past them into the room.

Iakov was sleeping, his head lolled over, the back of his bed propped up in a sitting position. His shoulder was wrapped in white gauze under the hospital gown. His color looked good, or as good as a pale-faced Russian’s can, and his breathing was slow and even. He had an IV in the back of one hand. A machine beeped electronic indications of life. He hadn’t changed much in the twenty-plus years since our last meeting. Permanently thin as well as tall, he’d always looked old for his age, and the years were finally catching up. His bones made their own mountain range beneath the hospital sheet. The face wasn’t wrinkled, but it had deep creases I didn’t remember from the eyes to the flare of the upturned nose, then down to the corners of his mouth. The white hair flopped over his forehead. It was thinning, patches of scalp beneath. I sat beside the bed and took his hand.

There was a time when I would have walked the length of the Trans-Siberian Railway barefoot if he’d told me to—no questions asked. Even today, I probably wouldn’t dismiss the request out of hand. Iakov was at once savior, mentor, guiding light, and surrogate father. Each of us is responsible for our own destiny, but he was the reason I had any destiny at all. I’ve often wondered whether his father knew mine—they would have been young officers in the Cheka’s early days. I’ve asked the question but never received a satisfactory answer. Nor has he been forthcoming about how he found me among the hundreds of thousands still in the Gulag in the early 1970s. I’ve never felt in a position to press either point. Find me he did, though, and one day when I was seventeen, a weak, hungry, tired, calloused kid, clad in rags, I was brought to the office of the commandant of the Vorkuta camps and interviewed by a man in a captain’s uniform, first in Russian, then in Ukrainian, then Hungarian and Polish, and finally in broken English. His skills were passable. Mine were better. Two days later, still digesting my first real meal in years, I was on a train to Moscow.

I was installed in a small apartment with seven other students at the Foreign Language Institute, where I studied English and French. I didn’t know it, but this was a training ground for the Cheka. In time, I was taught the basics of intelligence—building agent networks, surveillance, agent communication, etc. Seems funny looking back, but this would comprise most of my formal training. The rest I had to learn on my own—overseen, sometimes firsthand, others from a distance, but consistently, by Iakov.

The eyelashes flickered once or twice before opening to reveal piercing sky blue. Where Lachko and his brother got their hostile gray, I’ll never know.

“Turbo!”

“Hello, Iakov. How do you feel?”

He waited a minute, taking stock. “Pretty fit, for a seventy-four-year-old Russian with bronchitis and a bullet wound.”

“You look good.”

“They tell me I can probably leave tomorrow. That would never happen in Moscow.”

“You wouldn’t get this room in Moscow, either. Well, maybe you would.”

“Don’t start. Capitalism has its faults, too.”

“I didn’t come here to argue. I just wanted to see that you’re okay.”

“Thanks, if I remember, to you.”

“Fate was kind, for once.”

He smiled.

“What happened in that loft, Iakov?”

“The American police want to know the same thing. They were here this morning.”

“They don’t know about me, do they?”

“Turbo, what kind of jackass do you take me for, after all these years?” His eyes sparkled, showing the rebuke was half in jest.

“I’ve never doubted you. But what were you doing there?”

“I told you—Cheka business.”

“Am I permitted to ask what kind?”

He smiled up at me, but he didn’t answer.

“I’m guessing it involves this computer you want so badly.” I held out the laptop.

He took the machine. “Rislyakov was working on something for me.”

“Did that something involve Eva?”

“No!” He spoke too fast. His voice softened again. “I didn’t know she was there. How is she?”

“Alive. Near overdose of a bad drug—Rohypnol. Not sure whether she took it or Ratko gave it to her.”

“Ratko wouldn’t…” He stopped. “I shouldn’t say. I don’t know. Where is she?”

Something told me to be careful. “A friend took her to a hospital. Your Cheka business, does it involve Polina?”

“Polina?” He nearly spat out the name. “I never… Why these questions?”

“I’m just trying to figure out what happened.”

“This is none of your affair. At least, I don’t see how it could be. But perhaps you should tell me what you were doing there last night.”

“I wanted to talk to Rislyakov.”

“Why? What’s he have to do with you?”

I’d thought about this on the way uptown. How much was I willing to give? I decided to stick with the truth—or the truth as I knew it before Foos erased the inner workings of Ratko’s computer.

“Rislyakov, and maybe Eva, hatched a stupid fake kidnap scheme. They were hitting on Eva’s father, her adoptive father. He hired me to take care of the kidnappers.”

“Kidnapping? What the devil for?”

“Not clear. How well did you know Rislyakov?”

“Not well. He was Lachko’s protégé.”

“You aware he had a gambling problem?”

That came as a clear surprise. “No.”

“Was Lachko?”

“I don’t believe so. I don’t know. Lachko and I… We don’t talk much anymore. He doesn’t confide in me, hasn’t since… you know.”

“You still blame me for that?”

“At my age, I don’t blame anyone, except life and fate.”

“Lachko does.”

“You ruined his career.”

“He hasn’t done badly.”

“You know what I mean. He was going to run the Cheka.”

“Maybe he should’ve thought about that before he started stealing.”

“Everybody stole, Turbo. You know that, too.”

“Not true. You know that.”

“All right, you didn’t. You still could’ve looked the other way.”

“Like everyone else.”

“We’ve been over this ground before. Is there a reason you’re taking us on another tour?”

Good question. No good answer, except that old wounds, when they’re deep enough, don’t heal.

“What happened last night? Who shot you?”

He shook his head. “Rislyakov and I were talking. Someone buzzed from outside, and he asked me to wait in the back. I heard him yell, and the shot. I wasn’t armed—I stayed where I was. I didn’t hear anything else, so I thought whoever it was had left. He was just outside that door to the kitchen, waiting. He shot me as soon as I opened it. I must have passed out. The next thing I remember is you.”

The blue eyes were thoughtful. I thought about the questions he wasn’t asking, like Why was Eva in that loft? Is Polina living here? He could already know the answers. Or he could be biding his time. Or some other reason altogether. Iakov taught me to play chess when I was a student at the Foreign Language Institute. I was never much good at it. He always beat me.

He gave up a pawn. “So Polina’s remarried?”

“That’s right.”

“She’s still married to Lachko.”

“Apparently that hasn’t stopped her.”

“Who’s the new father Eva has?”

Another caution signal. “Does it matter?”

“Turbo!” The voice was sharp. “Remember where your loyalties lie. Lachko will want to see her. He has a right.”

“The loyalty question got put through the grinder back then, Iakov.”

“Your memory is self-serving, as so many are. You started the grinder.”

I stood and went to the wall of the small room.

“Tell me about this kidnapping,” Iakov said.

“Not much to tell. Just Ratko—or Ratko and Eva—trying to score a quick hundred grand. I assume he had an impatient casino creditor. Unfortunately for him, he had some associates who were neither bright nor brave, which is how I got to Greene Street. Did he and Lachko have some kind of rift, do you know?”

“Why do you ask that?” The sharpness was back.

“The name on the buzzer was Goncharov. Lachko didn’t know that.”

“You’ll have to talk to Lachko. Rislyakov was only doing a job for me.”

He was lying. I could feel it. He’d been tiptoeing around the truth as carefully as I had.

I pointed to the computer on his lap. “Lachko wants that, too.”

“You told him you had it?”

“Only way to find out what hospital you were in.”

He smiled. “You explore its contents?”

“Of course.”

“Of course. Anything interesting?”

“Spreadsheets. I assume they’re what Lachko wants.”

“What else?”

“Nothing.”

“Truth?”

I tried to read what was behind the blue eyes. He was watching me watching him. I gave him the same face I use when I’m holding a full house, although I felt like I had anything but.

“Truth.”

He opened the laptop and turned it on, balancing it on his legs and working the keyboard with his one good hand. After a few minutes, he said, “How thoroughly did you check this?”

“Thoroughly.”

“Data recovery?”

“Two large files copied and removed—permanently—some time ago.”

He nodded, as if that were the answer he expected. “You tell Lachko that?”

“He didn’t ask.”

He nodded and continued to work the keyboard.

“What happened between Lachko and Polina?” I asked.

“Why do you care?”

“Curiosity.”

“She was never loyal to him, just like she was disloyal to you. She was screwing a man called Kosokov the whole time they were married.”

“The banker?”

“That’s right. Everyone thought she ran away with him.”

“You didn’t believe it?”

“It was always too cut-and-dried for me. Life isn’t that neat.”

“You always said there are a million shades of gray, and my job was to get within a hundred of the right one.”

He smiled. “You have no idea how much good it does an old man to see you again.”

“I feel the same. I’ve always regretted everything that happened.”

“We can’t fight fate.”

“You didn’t answer my question—about Polina and Cheka business.”

“What are you looking for, Turbo?”

“Just trying to solve a riddle for a client,” I lied. “What are you looking for?”

“Trying to lay a few old ghosts to rest.”

He was lying, too.

The door opened, and the pockmarked thug came in. He nodded at Iakov and whispered in my ear. “Fuck off. Lachko’s downstairs.”

I looked down at Iakov. “Will you be in Brighton Beach?”

“I don’t know.”

I picked up his hand again and squeezed it. He smiled up at me.

“You know, of all the men I brought into the Cheka, you were the best.”

I smiled back. Just like old times. Only thing missing was warmth.

There was a shaded bench across Fifth Avenue, but I walked a few blocks up to the Conservatory Garden in case Lachko should decide to look out his father’s window. All manner of flowers in bloom, including a few purple tulips hanging on to their last petals—color so deep they were almost black. I wondered if they were Russian. I sat in the thick shade of the canopied crabapples and almost felt comfortable. My psyche felt anything but.

I was trying to process too much at once—emotions, reactions, suspicions, doubts. Seeing Iakov for the first time in twenty years, and seeing him in that condition, rattled the door to the soul. Polina resurrected her own grave full of memories. Lachko, too. They all brought back the heartache of the Disintegration. I thought I’d succeeded in locking away those feelings, but Lachko knew how to reach in and squeeze, and his father and Polya, without even trying, amplified the pain.

Then there was Iakov, not telling the truth—for the first time I could remember. He’d betrayed me two decades ago, but that had been aboveboard. Put between a rock and a hard place, he’d chosen Lachko, his own flesh and blood. I understood that. The ramifications were going to be dire for one of us, and family won out. The irony was, Iakov couldn’t avoid the chasm that would be ripped open whatever he chose to do. He was too close to see that. I was, too, at the time. This afternoon, he had no need to lie that I could fathom. Yet he had.

Motion beside me. I turned fast, ready to face one of Lachko’s goons. The man looking down was the same one I’d seen in Victoria’s reception area, in his white linen suit and eye patch. He bowed formally from the waist and extended a hand. “My apologies if I startled you,” he said in Russian. “Petrovin. Alexander Petrovich Petrovin.”

“Call me Turbo,” I replied in English, taking the offered hand. His greeting was old-school Russian. Mine was anything but. Nobody’s called me the mouthful my mother saddled me with since the orphanage, except Lachko when he wants to piss me off. “I saw you earlier today, if I’m not mistaken.”

“That is correct. I apologize again for intruding. I’m told we have a mutual acquaintance in Rad Rislyakov. I was wondering if you’ve seen him recently.”

“Never met him, I’m afraid.” Technically true.

He looked me over, taking his time. He was a handsome man in his midtwenties, maybe an inch taller than I am but a good thirty pounds lighter. The linen suit was well tailored and hung stylishly from his slender frame. With the eye patch and full head of black curly hair, it gave him a certain flair. His one brown eye took me in with intelligence, and his easy smile indicated he meant no offense with his examination.

No reason not to be polite. “Please. Have a seat. Are you working with Victoria?”

“We’re collaborating, yes.”

“You’re in law enforcement?”

“In a manner of speaking. I will apologize in advance and tell you that I am necessarily sparing with the facts of my professional pursuits. Even my real name, well… Life is extremely inexpensive in Russia these days, as I’m sure you are aware, especially for people in my line of work. I came from Moscow to see Victoria—and Rislyakov. He was supposed to meet me earlier today, but he didn’t show up. That’s one reason I asked if you’ve seen him.”

The formality of his tone and language seemed out of place for a man of his age in this day and time. He carried it off without affectation.

“I understand,” I said, “but I like to know who—and what—I’m dealing with. Your reticence could make it difficult to find a basis for discussion. You with the FSB?”

“Certainly not!” His tone indicated I’d succeeded in insulting him.

“CPS?”

“As I just said…”

“You working for yourself or the government?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t see how I can help you.”

“I believe if we continue our conversation, we will find we have interests in common.”

He had a card he wasn’t ready to play. “What do we have to discuss?”

“Rad Rislyakov.”

“We’ve just exhausted that.”

“I’m not so sure. Rislyakov works for the Barsukovs. You’ve seen two Barsukovs in two days.”

How long had he been following me? Why was Rislyakov so important to him?

He read my thoughts. “I was coming to see you earlier today. I saw you leave. You seemed to have a purpose. I decided to tag along.”

“My destination surprise you?”

“Not necessarily. You were in Brighton Beach yesterday.”

“Victoria told you about my visit?”

“You were spotted there, as you know.”

“So?”

“The Cheka sticks together. You were a colonel in the KGB.”

He’d also been checking up. “That ceased to be a state secret years ago.”

“The Cheka has a long reach.”

“Suppose I told you I haven’t set foot in Lubyanka or Yasenevo in more than fifteen years.”

He considered that. “Yasenevo—First Chief Directorate?”

“That’s right.”

He adjusted his eye patch and backed down a little. “I apologize if I’m touchy on the subject. My run-ins with your former colleagues have not always ended well.”

“My own run-ins have not always gone smoothly either. The wounds just aren’t as readily apparent. Consider me an ex-Chekist.”

“Putin says there’s no such thing.”

“Maybe I’m the exception that proves Comrade Putin’s rule.”

He sat for a moment, watching me with his one eye. He possessed remarkable presence for someone his age.

“Excuse me for pressing the question, but what kind of dealings does a self-proclaimed ex-Chekist have with the Barsukovs?”

“Old friends.” I shrugged.

“What do your old friends have to do with Rad Rislyakov?”

“You’ll have to ask them.”

“That is hardly likely, as you know.”

I shrugged again.

“What were you doing with Iakov just now?”

“Visiting an old friend.”

“How did you know he was in the hospital? You say you’ve been out of touch. My understanding is he only just arrived in New York.”

I couldn’t see what cards he held, but the ones he was playing indicated a strong hand. Good time to get out of the game. I stood and stretched. “I’m afraid this conversation is too one-sided. Good luck in your inquiries—whatever they are.”

“Victoria said you can be less than forthcoming. However, she’s not as well informed as I am, at least not yet. For example, I happen to know you spent more than an hour last night at 32 Greene Street, in apartment 6A, which is registered to a certain Alexander Goncharov. Witty fellow. When you left said apartment, you taped the door open. You were accompanied by a young woman who’s been seen quite often in the company of Rad Rislyakov. The woman appeared the worse for wear, and you had to hold her up. Not long after, Lachko Barsukov arrived with a small army in tow. Iakov appeared injured when they brought him out, and this morning I learn he was admitted to the hospital with a bullet wound. Superficial, too bad. He’s one ex-Chekist the world could do without.”

His voice took on a bitter edge, but I hardly noticed. My mind was racing. He hadn’t followed me to Greene Street, I was certain of that, and he purposely hadn’t told Victoria of my whereabouts. He was playing a solo hand.

“Barsukov’s men carried a rug out of the loft. Fat enough to have something wrapped inside—a body, for instance. All of this is made more interesting by your reluctance to tell Victoria where you were last night. Leads someone of a suspicious nature to conclude you have something to hide. I’m going to make the wild guess that this something involves Rad Rislyakov. Correct?”

“I thought you and Victoria were collaborating.”

“Ahhhh, you are wondering why I haven’t told her what I just told you. We are collaborating on some matters, that is true. I am pursuing others on my own. They are not her affair, nor that of the U.S. government. I thought perhaps my knowledge, which I came upon most serendipitously, I must tell you, might present something of a bargaining chip.”

“And you’re bargaining for?”

“Rislyakov.”

I shook my head.

“Was he in that loft?”

“I just told you, I never met him.”

“Was he there—dead or alive? Or was he there and you killed him?”

“Why would I do that?”

“The Barsukovs wanted him dead. Chekists—”

“Yeah, I know, we stick together. Even the devil’s not as black as he’s painted, Petrovin.” Time to play a chip of my own. “What are you after? The money laundry?”

“What do you know about that?” he snapped.

“More than I read on Ibansk-dot-com.”

He thought for a minute. “The laptop. When you left Greene Street last night, you had the girl in one arm and a laptop in the other. You had the laptop when you arrived at the hospital today. You don’t have it now. You just delivered it to Iakov.”

He was much too observant.

“As I said, I have yet to discuss your actions with Victoria, but I think she would find them most interesting. Unless… Tell me what happened last night at Greene Street.”

“Tell me your real name and who you work for.”

He shook his head. “I see no reason…”

Victoria’s threat, wrapped in bayou twang, to put me behind bars echoed in my ears. Petrovin had an even stronger hand than I thought—and he knew it—even if I couldn’t see right now how he’d acquired it. But he couldn’t play the cards without losing them. A good time for a little urki betting.

“Your threat lacks punch unless you are prepared to follow through on it, and if you do, I might suffer, but you don’t necessarily gain. We both want information. Neither of us is willing to divulge what we already know. We’re not going to get very far that way. So I’ll tell you this much. My interest in Rislyakov has nothing to do with the money laundry. However, I could be in a position to provide a great deal of information on the laundry—how it runs, possibly a record of every transaction it executes. If I’m at liberty to pursue my own inquiries.”

“You’re willing to share the results?”

“So long as there are no adverse consequences for me or my client.”

“Who is?”

I shook my head. “Not the Barsukovs.”

“You didn’t mention this to Victoria.”

“As you point out, you are much better informed.”

“A generous, if ambiguous, offer. Forgive me if I ask why you make it and why I should believe it.”

“Like I said, I’m trying to be the exception to Putin’s rule. That good enough?”

He grinned and adjusted his patch once again. “Admirable, but not remotely good enough. Question is, are you a man one can do business with?”

“Careful. That’s how Brezhnev described Nixon.”

He laughed out loud. “You don’t often meet a Chekist with a sense of humor.”

“Former Chekist, remember? I need a little time, Alexander Petrovich. Moscow wasn’t built in a day. I’ll be in touch. If I’m not, you and Victoria both know where to find me. Where are you staying?”

“You’ll understand if I don’t answer that. I have a local cell phone. Here’s the number.” He handed across a piece of paper. “Do you really follow Ibansk?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

I was still thinking about the man in the eye patch an hour later, back downtown. He reminded me of something, or someone, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I wondered if he wore his white suit in Moscow, where his real identity would be known to those who cared. He was almost daring them—here I am, come and get me. Ballsy, especially since they’d already tried once. Courageous, or crazy, or both. Also, as he said, much too damned well informed—about me.

He’d waited for me at Victoria’s office, and he’d followed me to the hospital. Okay, but how had he pegged me at Greene Street? And what was he doing there? And why hadn’t I seen him?

What had he said—Iakov had only just arrived in New York?

A few minutes later, Expedia.com and the Basilisk supplied the answer. Ratko, traveling as Alexander Goncharov, had flown from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport to JFK on Delta flight 31, which had arrived early at 2:15 P.M. Wednesday. Aeroflot flight 315 carried Alexander Petrovin and Y. Andropov, traveling separately, on the same route and also landed early, at 4:45 P.M. Andropov was Iakov’s own joke—the former Cheka chief and general secretary of the Communist Party died in 1984. Petrovin must have spotted Iakov—or somehow knew he was on the flight—and followed him to Greene Street. Then I showed up, then the locksmith, then… somehow he managed to hang out without getting spotted.

I called Gina.

“When you were at Greene Street Wednesday, did you see a tall guy with black curly hair and an eye patch?”

“Yeah, now that you mention it. He walked up the block and back down a few minutes later. Didn’t stop or look around, so I didn’t pay any attention. Handsome guy, white suit—looks a little like Mark Twain. Did I screw up, not mentioning him?”

“Nope. I didn’t pay him any attention either. Thanks.”

One mystery solved—but new questions raised. Most significantly, to me anyway, why had Iakov followed Ratko to New York? Age and illness made travel difficult, and he hated this city—always had. What prevented his Cheka business from being dealt with in Moscow?

I turned on my laptop. Foos had come through. Or had he?

“Three possibilities. 1) Your prosecutor wannabe pal is schizo. 2) There are two Victoria de Millenuits. 3) She’s had her ID heisted. Doesn’t sound like your type in any event. Proceed with caution—she has a handgun permit.”

The data backed him up. In New York City, Victoria Millenuits owned a condo at Sixty-seventh and Third, for which she paid $1.7 million, no mortgage. She shopped at Bergdorf, Bendel’s and Grace’s Marketplace. She ate at East Side restaurants, especially a place called Trastevere, maintained a five-figure bank balance, and paid off her three credit cards in full every month. In Fayette County, Pennsylvania, she lived at Windy Ridge Home Court, bought kids’ clothes, Wonder Bread, house-brand soda, and the occasional flat-screen TV at Walmart, and had no bank account but four credit cards all pushing their limits. There was a gun permit—in New York—but no phone number.

I was about to pound the desk when I saw his PS at the bottom of the screen—“212-517-4667. Thought I forgot, didn’t you?” Sometimes he’s not as funny as he thinks he is.

I dialed the number, and a machine picked up. Her voice said simply, “Please leave a message.”

“This is Turbo. We Russians are stubborn as well as funny. I’m still hoping you’ll join me for dinner. Tonight, Trastevere, eight o’clock. If you haven’t checked your credit rating recently, I’d advise it. I’m looking forward to seeing you again, I hope under less confrontational circumstances.”

The phone rang as soon as I replaced the receiver. A female voice said, “Please hold for Mr. Mulholland.”

He didn’t make me hold long. “I need your help again.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Eva. She’s… not well. Quite ill, in fact.”

“I know. I found her last night and got her to a hospital.”

“Yes. Bernie told me. We’re grateful. Now she’s run away. She left the hospital this morning. The doorman at her building says she stopped there before noon. Arrived by cab. He lent her the money to pay the fare. Only stayed about half an hour and left on foot.”

“Does your wife know you’re calling me?”

“Felix? No. I’m at my office. I called her, of course. She was frantic, as you’d expect. I said I’d get help.”

“You might want to tell her who the help is.”

“What? Why?”

“Better if she explains. Call her back, then meet me at Eva’s apartment.”

“I can’t leave the office. I’ve got meetings… I’ll talk to her. Lachlan, my driver, will meet you. He’ll have the keys.”

“Half an hour. I’ll come to your office after.”

“Her building’s at—”

“I know where it is.”

“How…”

I hung up before he could finish and headed for the subway.

CHAPTER 19

It took more than an hour to get uptown. A block from the Wall Street station, the sky darkened to the point of nightfall or Armageddon—it felt like even odds which. Close cracks of thunder and street-freezing flashes of lightning portended the latter. A fire hose from the heavens let go as I dropped down the stairs. The train stalled for twenty-five minutes after it left Fifty-first Street. Flooding uptown, the conductor said. The air-conditioning was working, but the car was packed. I’d given my seat to an elderly woman at Twenty-third Street and ended up jammed in the scrum near the door. The old lady got off one stop later, and a young Hispanic man took her place, listening to hip-hop on his headphones so loud the whole car could hear. There are days you can only say, New York—whattayagonnadoaboutit?

The crowd surged up the stairs at Sixty-eighth Street, eager to get out of the subterranean steam—until it met the force of bodies rushing down, pushing to escape the rain. I went with the breaking waves and emerged, lightly bruised, on Lexington Avenue. The rain had slackened, but everything’s relative—still enough to get soaked in short order. I waited under an overhang outside a hair salon until the storm moved on, ignoring the frowns of the black-clad hairdressers who doubtless considered my shaved pate poor advertising. A layer of mist rose from the wet concrete into the waterlogged atmosphere. The temperature hadn’t dropped one degree.

Eva’s building was a big, brutal, thirty-story concrete bunker, with its own similarities to Soviet architecture—the Khrushchev-era apartment blocks that mar Moscow and most every Eastern European city. The only thing you could say for this hulk was, unlike its Communist counterparts, it wasn’t rotting from the outside in and the inside out. The tower ran the full block from Seventieth to Seventy-first Street, flanked by two small parks east and west (probably the price the developer paid for a midblock building this tall) and a covered driveway along the east side. A gray and black Maybach limousine was parked near the door. The driver got out as I approached and ground a cigarette under his heel. He was built like Jimmy Rushing, Mr. Five-by-Five, except this guy was white with a buzz cut so short you couldn’t tell the color of his hair, a flat face, slits for eyes, and purple lips permanently pulled back over tobacco-stained teeth. Despite the heat, he was wearing a cheap wool suit and a flat cap. I looked for the bulge under the arm. It was there. He came in my direction, favoring his right leg.

“You be the snoop.” The Irish accent was thick as peat. It’s often pleasant to listen to. Not on this guy.

“I’m Turbo, if you’re Lachlan.”

“Don’t like fookin’ snoops. Don’t like fookin’ snoops who’re late.”

“Talk to the MTA.”

“Let’s go. Gotta get back to Midtown. Traffic sucks today.”

I was going to ask when traffic didn’t suck, but he might try to answer. I followed him to the door, where he nodded at the doorman and went straight to the elevator on the north side of the building. We rode to the fifteenth floor. A long hallway with lots of doors. He went to the one marked F and used two keys to unlock it. I followed him inside. The air was stale and warm.

“Look around, snoop. But make it quick. I gotta get—”

“You told me. Go ahead. I’ll lock up when I leave.”

He shook his flat face at that idea, shut the door, and leaned against the frame, arms folded. They were half as wide as he was. I tried to ignore that and focus on the apartment.

We stood in what passed for a foyer but was really one end of the living room. Windows at the far end looked east; I could see the river and Queens beyond. Galley kitchen to my right. A short hallway to the left leading to two bedrooms and a bath. I started with the living room, which was furnished traditionally with lots of chintz and flowered fabric. Everything placed just so. Dad had hired a decorator. The kitchen held all the basic appliances but little else. In the fridge, I found a half-drunk bottle of Perrier, some orange juice, a few staples, and two jars of organic peanut butter. That was mildly interesting, but I had no idea why.

Five-by-Five followed me down the hall to the bedrooms. Her room was simple and feminine—queen bed with lots of pillows, dressing table, pair of chairs, TV, closets. A few fancy outfits, but more jeans and tops than anything else. The bathroom had less makeup than I expected until I told myself I had no way of knowing what to expect.

Flat-screen TV, upholstered chair, and desk in the other room. A few books, more magazines—Back Stage, Variety, Vanity Fair, and something called Stage Directions. A scribbled note on the desk—“You should have left me with Lena.” No signature. From Eva? To Eva? Eva to whomever she thought would come looking for her? Five-by-Five reached for the paper, but I picked it up first and put it in my pocket.

“That ain’t yours, snoop.”

“I’m here to find Eva, remember? This might be a clue.”

I think he gave me a nasty look, but it was hard to tell. His normal look was nasty enough.

No datebook, address book, or checkbook. I hit REDIAL on the telephone and got a drugstore. No answering machine. Probably used the phone company’s service. The signal light on the iMac flashed slowly, indicating the computer was asleep. I clicked the mouse, and it came to life.

I almost missed it. The screen flashed, and the digital clock in the upper right corner reset to the current time, 4:52. Before that, it read 11:44. I opened the e-mail program. A slew of unread messages. None opened today. I felt Five-by-Five’s breath on my neck as I brought up the Safari browser and clicked on “History.”

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised—if she’d been hanging out with Ratko, he would have taught her a trick or two. From the way Eva worked her away around UnderTable.com, she’d learned her lessons well.

“Move it, snoop. You’re gonna make me late.”

I was tempted to point out that under the circumstances, his tardiness was the least of his employer’s problems. I went back to the entryway, where I’d left the case I’d brought from the office. Five-by-Five limped behind. Four-room apartment—he wasn’t letting me out of his sight. I took an Apple laptop and FireWire cable from the case and plugged the latter into Eva’s computer. I shut down the machine, started it again, and began the transfer of its contents.

“Hey, you can’t do that!” Five-by-Five said. I ignored him on the grounds he had no idea what I was doing.

A big left hand reached for the laptop. I caught the wrist and twisted counterclockwise until I’d turned his body half around and he grunted with pain. His breath wreaked of tobacco.

“We work for the same guy,” I said. “Call him.”

I let go of the wrist and handed him the phone. He ignored it, took a cell phone from his pocket, and went out to the hall. He came back and handed it to me.

“He wants to talk to you.”

“Lachlan tells me you’re doing something with Eva’s computer,” Mulholland said.

“Copying the contents of its hard drive.”

“Is that necessary?”

“Lachlan and I can stay here all afternoon while I do a manual search. Or I can take the contents back to my office, where I have software that’ll do it in an hour. I’m working on the assumption time’s of the essence.”

There was a pause before he said, “Lachlan can be overprotective, but he means well.” I doubted that, at least toward me. “If you put him back on the line, I’ll tell him to stay out of your way.”

“Did you call your wife?”

Another pause. “We’ll discuss that when you get here.”

I handed the phone back to Five-by-Five. He returned to the hall. When I finished, he was waiting by the front door, slit-eyes narrower than before, pulled-back lips curled in a sneer. The odds on bonding didn’t look good.

Neither of us said anything as he locked up and we rode the elevator to the lobby. Outside, he didn’t offer me a lift. He lighted a cigarette and blew smoke in my direction.

“We had a fookin’ snoop in the village I come from. One day he woke up with his balls in the blender—while they was still attached.”

“Hammett was right.”

He looked me up and down. “What the fook does that mean, snoop? Who’s Hammett?”

“‘The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.’”

He looked me up and down again. “Who you callin’ crook? Who’s this fookin’ Hammett?”

“Nobody you know.”

He looked me over one more time, blew more smoke, and dropped the butt at my feet. He climbed into the limousine and pulled away. I exhaled slowly when the car turned into Seventy-first Street. I checked the office for messages. Nothing. As I put away the phone, the Maybach swung back into the driveway from Seventieth Street and drove slowly past. Five-by-Five watched me through the open window. Time to go. The poststorm heat was suffocating. Despite that, I shivered and headed back to Sixty-eighth Street.

She called as I walked through the cool corridors under Rockefeller Center after another slow subway ride across town. The subterranean halls always seem like they belong in some other city, not New York, where life is on the street—four seasons a year—today, however, they were full of commuters, tourists, and others just escaping the heat. Where had she got my number? I was going to have to talk to Bernie.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she said.

“Following your husband’s instructions, for the moment. I haven’t told him about you yet. Have you informed him about me?”

“I told him I don’t want you anywhere near my family. I’m telling you the same thing. Stay the fuck away from me. Stay away from Eva. Stay away from him. You’ve done enough damage.”

I’d done damage? I almost told her all the things Ratko had phished off her computer, but there would be a more productive time for that. Instead, I said, “I got Eva out of a nasty situation last night. I could have handed her over to the police. I could have left her for Lachko to find. I’d accept a thank-you, but I’m unlikely to get one. Your husband called me today, when she ran from the hospital. He asked me to find her. I’m on my way to see him now. I’ll just pick up my fee and tell him you said beat it, if that’s what you want. Have a nice day.”

“Wait! How bad?”

“How bad what?”

“How bad a situation—where you found Eva.”

“I’ve already told Bernie it’s best if I keep that to myself.”

“Goddammit, Turbo—she’s my daughter.”

“That might have meant something, once.”

“Bastard. Liar.”

“I’m not the one pretending to be someone she isn’t.”

“Hah! You—the biggest deceiver of all.”

We’d had this argument many times before—at higher decibel levels and with more vitriol. Try as I might, I couldn’t refute the accuracy of what she said. Still, I made my usual lame attempt.

“My passport was clean. You know that.”

“You got the aparat to say that. You got the aparat to say you had no past. You were a zek, Turbo. A lying zek. You always will be. How bad, dammit?”

“Bad as could be. Drugs, gun, corpse. Glad you asked?”

“The doctors said Rohypnol.”

“They didn’t know about the gun. Or the corpse.”

“Don’t mock me.”

“I’m telling you straight. I took care of them. You despise me. I understand that. But I don’t necessarily live down to your expectations.”

Silence. “Turbo, I…”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been upset. It’s been a hard few weeks. I appreciate what you’ve done. It’s just…” Her voice was wound tighter than a bale of tin wire—she was trying hard. I should’ve given her credit, but old wounds, cut deep, still bleed.

“I’m still a lying zek.”

“FUCK YOU! Get the fuck out of my life!”

“Tell me something first. Eva left a note in her apartment. ‘You should have left me with Lena.’”

A long pause. “What?”

“‘You should have left me with Lena.’ No salutation, no signature. Woman’s handwriting. I assume hers.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

I waited.

“I don’t.”

I almost believed her the first time. “I have to assume she left it for you. Maybe Mulholland will have an idea.”

“No! I mean, I’m sure he won’t.”

“Eva ever mention someone named Rad Rislyakov, possibly Ratko Risly?”

Even on a cell phone, I could sense her tightening, ever so slightly. She didn’t recognize Rislyakov’s name, but she sensed danger.

“No. Who’s he?”

“Friend, perhaps. Lover, maybe. Pusher, I’m not sure. I do know he’s the man blackmailing you.”

She took her time processing that. “I’m sorry. I don’t follow.”

“There’s not much you don’t follow, Polya. Never has been.”

“I go by Felix now.”

“What’s Rislyakov have on you, other than the fact that you didn’t always go by Felix?”

Silence.

“He works for Lachko, Polya.”

“SHIT! JESUS! WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THAT? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU—”

“I’ll call back.”

I broke the connection. The phone buzzed as she tried calling me. I shut off the power. I shouldn’t have taken any pleasure, leaving her to stew in fear, but victories over Polina have been few and deserve some modicum of savoring.

FirstTrustBank’s logo, a three-dimensional, intertwined FTB, spun slowly on a granite pedestal outside its shiny, boring building on Sixth Avenue. The lobby was white and gray marble, and the best thing you could say about it was it was well air-conditioned.

I announced my destination to the guard, who looked me over, looked me over again, and called upstairs. He probably didn’t think I was properly dressed for a meeting with the CEO. After a short wait, I was given a sticker for my jacket and told to wear it as long as I was in the building. I took a fast elevator to the fortieth floor, which was labeled, helpfully, EXECUTIVE OFFICES. The two floors above were marked EXECUTIVE DINING AND FITNESS and LIMERICK CLUB.

An attractive woman of a certain age in a tight red dress met me at the elevator, introduced herself as Maude Connolly, and led me through the wide, hushed corridors. I alternated between admiring the machinery of her hips and reflecting on the silence of what was billed as a working office for a bank at risk of failure. Felt more like a mausoleum—maybe appropriate. At the end of the hall were a pair of glass doors with OFFICE OF THE CHAIRMAN stenciled on one. Maude Connolly put a plastic security card against a reader on the wall, which generated an electronic click. With a flick of the gluteus maximus, she pushed open the door and admitted me to the inner sanctum.

A large reception room with a seating area furnished by Mies and Breuer, several secretaries’ desks occupied by several secretaries, and a half-dozen doors, all open, leading presumably to executives’ offices. Still no noise. Five-by-Five leaned back on a white Barcelona chair, looking like a slug on a tablecloth. Maude Connolly paused, eying him with distaste.

I said, “You could’ve offered me a lift.”

Five-by-Five hauled himself out of the deep, low seat. That took effort and exposed the gun in his armpit. A female friend once observed Barcelona chairs are like Ferraris—you don’t sit in either one unless you’re wearing pants.

“I’ll be searchin’ you, snoop. Nobody sees the boss who ain’t clean.”

Maybe it was the call from Polina, maybe it was Five-by-Five, or it could have been Mulholland himself, but I’d had enough of all of them. “No deal.”

“Rules is rules.”

I said to Maude Connolly, “Please tell Mr. Mulholland he can talk to me now, I can take his thug down, or I can just leave. He has thirty seconds.”

She came back in twenty-seven, smiling. Five-by-Five glared at me the whole time but stayed by his chair.

“This way, please,” she said. “Mr. Rory says everything’s fine, Lachlan.”

Mr. Rory? I gave Five-by-Five a thumbs-up and followed her through the open door.

The office was large and airy, with two walls of windows sporting views over the city to the north and west. One wall held bookshelves stuffed with good-citizen awards and Lucite-encased mementos. The fourth was covered with photographs of golf courses, mostly aerial views of individual holes. Mulholland was a golf nut—something else we lacked in common.

He was seated in a group of upholstered chairs. “You took your time getting here.”

“Perils of public transportation. And I had to stop to talk to your wife. What’d the market do today?”

I don’t know whether it was the mention of Felix, a Marxist asking about the market, or the fact that the Dow had lost another four hundred points, but the question made his surly look more surly until he turned away. Maybe he didn’t like insolence that matched his own. I told myself to improve my mood and behavior, but I saw little reason to follow my instruction.

“Sit down,” he snarled. He made a faint stab at courtesy. “Coffee, soda?”

“Nothing, thanks.”

“Lachlan says you found some kind of note.”

“That’s right. ‘You should have left me with Lena.’ Your wife says she has no idea what that means. Do you?”

“None,” he answered too quickly. “Did you find anything on her computer?”

“Haven’t checked yet,” I said, which was half true. “Your wife pretty much told me not to bother. She’d prefer—make that, she insists—I stay away from all of you.”

The snarl turned to a frown. “You said she called.”

“Half an hour ago. I told her you asked me to help find Eva. She said cease and desist. Perhaps you two should talk.”

The frown deepened. “She indicated you know each other.”

“Another time, another place. We were two very different people.” I didn’t add that was literally true in her case. “Hardly seems relevant now. She can explain if she wants to. I’ll take payment for the kidnappers. You and she can decide what you want to do about Eva.”

“Bernie said you dealt with them, but he wouldn’t say how. What happened?”

“They were some unsavory guys, but fortunately for us, stupid unsavory guys. I took care of them. They won’t bother you again.”

“You seem very confident.”

“I guarantee it—or your money back.”

“I’ll need an invoice.”

“Of course,” I said. I picked up a pad of lined paper from the coffee table and wrote “Vlost and Found” at the top, “For services rendered… $700,000” underneath, and signed my name below that. I added my taxpayer ID number at the bottom. Whatever the system, the government wants its piece of the action.

“This includes expenses. They ran high.”

Mulholland looked at the page and frowned again. “This is somewhat unorthodox. I would assume that—”

“I don’t use letterhead. Keeps costs down. And I don’t think a more detailed description of my services is in anyone’s interest.”

Still frowning, he went to his desk and took out a big checkbook and a gold pen. He scribbled for a minute and returned holding a check for $700,000, drawn on his account at FTB. I didn’t ask about Bernie’s bankruptcy petition. I was tempted to inquire about the bank’s solvency but minded my admonition to behave. Still, I intended to make a deposit as soon as I got out of here.

Mulholland was looking me over, trying to decide something. He stood behind his chair, his hands on the back. He dropped his eyes to the floor and brought them back up to meet mine. “Eva was part of the so-called kidnapping, wasn’t she?”

He wasn’t as obtuse as I gave him credit for. Yet he didn’t know the half of it—and I didn’t want to be the one to tell him. “She could have been. She’s been hanging out with some bad people, criminal people.”

He nodded, as if I’d confirmed his hypothesis. “She’s always been a troubled child.” He sat in his chair, and the frown began to ease. After a minute or two, he just looked glum. “You don’t think much of me, do you, Mr. Vlost?”

“I don’t know you well enough to have an opinion. Bernie speaks highly, and I‘ve never found reason to fault his judgment.”

“A good nonanswer. I don’t mind telling you, I’ve spent much of the last few days staring into an abyss. My business, family… I learned years ago you can only fight so many fights at one time. You have to prioritize or be overwhelmed. You have to know when to ask for help.”

He stopped long enough to take a breath and collect his thoughts. This couldn’t be easy. He’d probably never asked for help in his life.

“I have to attend to my legal problems. I haven’t done anything wrong, but that doesn’t mean I can be lax in my own defense. I have to save my bank. I owe it to our depositors and shareholders. That leaves Eva, where, I’ll be honest, I’m at a loss about what to do.”

He put his head in his hands.

“That fight Eva had with her mother the last time we saw her, the one I mentioned when we met before,” he said, looking at the floor. “I heard things no one should ever say to someone else, especially family.” He freed his head and looked up. “Maybe that’s what some families are all about. I’m not sure I’d know.”

“What did they fight about, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“What didn’t they fight about? Life, each other, me, the past, the future… No perceived sin or offense omitted.”

Sounded like Polina. “This a common occurrence?”

“I’ve witnessed three or four. There may have been others. What they lack in frequency they more than make up for in intensity.”

“What set this one off?”

“You know, I’m not really sure. Some little thing. You don’t see it coming. Then, all of a sudden, it’s like each of them puts a match to her own gas can of resentment and anger, and… boom!”

He shook his head and put it back in his hands.

“Are you sure you don’t know what Eva meant by that note?”

He looked up. The black eyes had lost their hardness. They were needy, almost desperate. “She said it that Sunday, the same thing. ‘You should have left me with Lena.’ Screamed it at Felix, right before she ran out.”

“But you don’t know who this Lena is?”

He shook his head again. “Eva had some major trauma in her childhood—the full extent of which I do not know. Lena’s part of that, I think. She had no father until I attempted to fill the role. Her mother has—how shall I put this?—cared too much and tried too hard to overcome the other issues.”

Mulholland kept his voice low and even. “Eva believes—believes very firmly—that she herself is responsible for much of the misfortune that has befallen her. I also believe she feels guilt for her mother, for reasons I don’t know. It’s clear this guilt eats away at her, that it’s responsible for her lack of self-esteem, her erratic behavior, her drug use, her animosity toward us. Even her stutter. I’m very afraid of what she might try to do. I appreciate your not wanting to get between Felix and me. I’ll talk to my wife. Right now, though, I need to know we are doing whatever we can to help Eva. So I’m asking you to find her. If it’s a matter of money, I’ll pay whatever you ask. Will you help me?”

I couldn’t picture the man I’d met last week saying what he’d just said. Perhaps looking into the abyss does change a person.

“I’ll do what I can. But even if I find her, I can’t guarantee she won’t take off again.”

He nodded. “I know that, of course. Something else I learned—one step at a time.”

“Any idea why she would have run from the hospital?”

He shook his head. “Only to avoid being brought home.”

“Any idea where she would have gone?”

“None. I’m afraid that for all our concern, we don’t know nearly as much about her as we should. That goes for her mother, too.”

“You will talk to her? Your wife, I mean,” I said.

“Yes. I’m on my way home now.”

“I think you’ll find her under some stress.”

“About Eva?”

“In part. How much do you know about her past?”

He hesitated, surprised by the question. “Not a great deal. She grew up in Queens, Jackson Heights. Went to CCNY. Sold real estate—very successfully. Married once before. Her first husband died. I haven’t pried. Not really my business.”

“I don’t mean to add to your troubles, but her past is a good deal more complicated than that.”

“What are you driving at?”

“Just that I think it’s about to catch up with her.”

CHAPTER 20

Trastevere was in the early Eighties. I didn’t know it, the Eighties not being my normal neck of the woods. A simple room, in an elegant kind of way, the kind of simplicity that comes at a price. I arrived hot and sticky and was greeted at the door by an old-world Italian gentleman of about fifty with kind eyes and a warm smile.

“Ms. Millenuits just called,” he said when I announced myself. He looked around the room as if trying to decide something. “She… she said she is very sorry, but she’s been detained. She doesn’t know how long she’ll be. She suggests that you meet here tomorrow night. She said…” He stopped and looked troubled.

“You’re being very kind. I’m guessing she isn’t sorry, very or otherwise. You can tell me what she really said.”

He was clearly uncomfortable. A good host doesn’t attack his guest as soon as he walks in the door.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ve already been on the receiving end of Ms. Millenuits’s temper. Would you like to see the bruise?”

He smiled, but he didn’t relax. He unfolded a piece of paper from his jacket.

“She said, ‘Tell that bald Bolshevik he can buy me your best bottle of wine tomorrow night if I cool off between now and then. And tell him to bring his body armor. He’s going to need it.’ Those were her words. She wanted me to repeat them exactly.”

“I’ll attest you did as requested, if given the chance,” I said with a smile. “No hard feelings.” I put out my hand, which he took quickly.

“I’m sorry to—”

“Don’t think any more about it. Would it be okay if I had a bite at the bar? Since I’m here, and solo.”

“Of course. But please, let me give you a table.”

“The bar’s fine. I’ll have a dry martini with Russian vodka, if you have it, followed by whatever pasta you’re recommending tonight.”

“Right away.”

The martini was cold and dry, just like it should be. It went down quickly, so I ordered another. The pasta came coated with a sauce of escargots and mushrooms that was wondrous in its depth and complexity. I found myself looking forward to coming back regardless of whether Victoria showed up.

The place was busy, as was the bartender. With no one to talk to, other than the owner, who came by three times to make sure I wasn’t angry at him, I spent the meal musing on intersections of past and present.

I probably shouldn’t have warned Mulholland about Polina. It wasn’t my business, and he’d made his own bed (with her)—but in spite of myself, I felt bad for him. Perhaps because I knew in ways he’d yet to experience what he was in for. Perhaps because he’d surprised me with his concern for Eva, real and heartfelt. Perhaps because a new snake pit was about to open at his feet, one he wasn’t likely to see before he fell in. Bad enough that Polina had been married to me and hadn’t told him, but Lachko was a whole different nest of vipers. I had a mental image of Victoria licking her Cajun chops when she heard the news.

Nothing I’d learned in the last thirty-six hours caused me to change my initial belief that Polina was hiding from Lachko. I still couldn’t see why. Lachko had expressed less than no interest in her or Eva. I’d half expected him to drag me back to Brighton Beach or at least send Sergei around, but he hadn’t even asked which hospital Eva was in. Maybe he’d found out by other means. Iakov expressed more curiosity in Eva and her mother, and he hated Polina. Always had.

Then there was the enigma of Ratko. He knew exactly who Polina was—he was using the information to put the bite on her. How, and why, had he found out in the first place? Why didn’t he tell his boss? Why was he getting ready to disappear as Alexander Goncharov? Greed—not wanting to share the spoils—seemed much too simple an answer.

Iakov’s Cheka business somehow involved Ratko. How had he put it—laying old ghosts to rest? Why did he need Ratko for that? Why didn’t Lachko know his resident tech genius was working on the side for his old man? There was a lot Lachko didn’t know—a lot that was going on right under those thundercloud eyebrows. Maybe his illness had slowed him down to the point where he was out of touch. Based on our encounter yesterday, I doubted it.

One piece of good information had come from all this. Aleksei was alive and, according to Lachko, working with the CPS—the Criminal Prosecution Service. I hadn’t wanted to show it, but that was the first hard news I’d had in years. It appeared Polina had abandoned him following Kosokov’s death. Perhaps she’d left him with her sister, or another relative. Had she been in touch since? Did he know about his mother’s new identity? Then there was the question I’d been asking myself for two decades—what, if anything, had she told him about me?

My head was starting to spin, and other investigations tugged. I’d had enough vodka to numb whatever pain was in Sasha’s envelope. Tonight was as good a time as any to look into my own old ghosts. I asked for the check. Two martinis and pasta—eighty-five dollars by the time I signed the receipt. There are sound Marxist reasons why the East Eighties aren’t my neck of the woods.

I remembered my disabled cell phone and turned it back on. It buzzed half a minute later.

“BASTARD! Tell me right now…”

I’ve never appreciated the opportunity to listen to other people’s phone conversations while I’m eating, even when they’re friendly, so I told Polina to hold on, thanked the owner and reminded him I looked forward to sampling his fare again tomorrow, and walked out into the heat of Second Avenue. Just after nine thirty, the street was still hot and busy.

“You keep calling me like this, I might think you have ulterior motives,” I said.

“Ulterior motives? My only motive is to get you out of my life!”

“You talk to Mulholland?”

“He’s a stubborn fool, like all men.”

“He’s trying to help. Eva, I mean.”

“I can take care of her. I always have.”

I didn’t point out that Mulholland thought that was part of the problem. Or that I agreed with him. “Why’d you pull that scam?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The kidnap picture. You Photoshopped it, sent it to Mulholland with that bullshit kidnap note. Why didn’t you just tell him you were being blackmailed?”

“What? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“How do you… Nobody’s blackmailing me!”

“If you say so, but the only person delusional this time is you.”

“You… You… You haven’t changed at all, you son of a bitch.”

“Still the same guy, zek and all, I always was. What are you afraid of? Lachko?”

Pause. “Yes.”

“Why’d you run out on him?”

“Long story.”

“You want to tell it? I’m not far away.”

“Stay away from me!”

“I’m not the one trying to hurt you, Polya.”

“I said, stay the fuck away.”

This was getting nowhere. “Where’s Aleksei? Did you leave him in Russia?”

“He’s all right. That’s all you need to know.”

“Lachko says he’s working for the CPS.”

Another pause, longer this time. “That bastard.”

“You can’t isolate yourself, Polya. Lachko, me, Mulholland. A couple of us might still be on your side, if you let us.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“I think you do. I think that’s why you called. What did Rislyakov take from your computer?”

“This conversation is over.”

The line went dead. I was at Seventy-first Street. I walked south and tried calling her from Fifty-eighth Street. I tried again at Fifty-second. No answer. I hailed a downtown cab.

The office was dark, but Pig Pen was awake, listening to his radio.

I retrieved Sasha’s envelope and stopped to say good night.

“Truck lanes closed. Exit nine. Fuel spill,” he said.

“Not on my route. Pig Pen, what do you know about serendipity?”

He gave me his hostile one-eyed stare. He hates words of multiple syllables—he thinks I’m teasing him.

“No joke, seriously, serendipity.”

“Pity me?”

“Not pity. Luck. Good luck.”

“Lucky Russky.”

“Exactly.”

The neck feathers ruffled. “Luck. Crap shoot.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with the boss.”

“Crap shoot.”

“Okay. Maybe. Boss likes statistics and probabilities, but sometimes you gotta go with what’s working. If I roll seven on this crap shoot, pizza’s on me.”

That grabbed him. “Seven—pizza!”

“You got it.”

“Seven. Lucky Russky. Pizza!”

One thing about Pig Pen. He doesn’t lack focus.

I took my time walking home. The streets were still steaming. I was anticipating a painful evening, vodka-numbed or not.

“Lucky Russky,” Pig Pen had said. If he was right, tomorrow night I wouldn’t dine alone.

I put down the letter and went to the freezer for the vodka. I hadn’t had enough to numb the pain after all.

No one can say how many people died in the Gulag. Estimates run into the millions. I now knew for certain one of them was my grandfather. I have the record of his arrest, with his wife and daughter, on November 26, 1937, the first year of Stalin’s Great Terror. I have a record of them at Solovetsky—the cradle of the Gulag, a network of islands in the White Sea and the Soviet’s first forced labor camp— in 1938. I have an old photograph of the sign that welcomed new arrivals—WITH AN IRON FIST, WE WILL LEAD HUMANITY TO HAPPINESS. I know Solovetsky’s inmates worked and died in its forests, timber mills, fisheries, and factories. When the islands had been largely deforested, the camps were incorporated into the larger Belbaltlag network, whose inmates built the White Sea Canal. Those camps were vacated in 1941, ahead of the German advance, and I have documentation of my mother’s transfer to Norillag in Siberia, where she stayed until her release in 1946. My grandparents disappeared from the record. Until now.

My mother’s name was Anna. She was nineteen, Eva’s age, when she was arrested. Her parents were artists, members of the Russian avant-garde, committed revolutionaries, friends of Malevich, Rodchenko, Olga Rozanova, and the rest. She studied music. She was a singer, a soprano, and apparently an accomplished one, even in her teens. There was no legal reason for their arrest, just some trumped-up charge about working to undermine the revolution. Stalin had set quotas, and the NKVD dutifully fulfilled them, just as other agencies produced economic results to meet the five-year plans. The economics were often fiction; the arrests were real—1,575,259 people in 1937 and 1938 alone. The Cheka shot 681,692 of them.

I stopped at the stereo to turn up the volume. I was listening to Mahler, his Ninth Symphony, perhaps his most prayerful piece, which he wrote after discovering his wife was sleeping with Walter Gropius. He was my mother’s favorite composer, or so I’ve been told. I prefer Prokofiev—I like percussion—but tonight it seemed a little prayer couldn’t hurt.

I’d done my best to bury my past. When Iakov got me out of the Gulag and into the Cheka, he also procured a new passport, one that bore no record of my birthplace or incarceration. Over time, serving in the Cheka enabled me to shed the fear of rearrest that haunts many former prisoners, even those who were now “clean” and led a normal life, or as normal as was possible in Soviet Russia. That was all blown up during the Disintegration when Lachko extracted his revenge by informing Polina about my time in the camps. Horrified that my taint would rub off on her, terrified that I would return her to the shambles of insecurity that was her childhood, she did everything she could to use my shame against me. She succeeded beyond her greatest expectations.

It took many more years, the dissolution of the Soviet state, and my finally moving away from Russia before I came to realize that I would remain imprisoned by my past, just as sure as I was an inmate of the Gulag, until I confronted it head-on. I also had the vague idea that the one thing I could give Aleksei was the truth about his family. How and when I would pass it on was an open question, but I figured I’d find a way if and when the time came. First I had to unearth the story.

That’s not easy. The Gulag doesn’t give up its secrets without a fight. You have to know how to dig, and you need help. Even then, many are buried too deep to ever be found. There’s also an emotional price. Working on oneself, the early Bolsheviks had called it—trying to rewire human psychology to adapt to new social goals by altering one’s identity. “The new structure of political life demands from us a new structure of the soul,” the de facto Bolshevik propagandist Maxim Gorky wrote in 1917. Reconstructing the history of my mother’s life was the psychological equivalent of dismantling the soul I structured when Iakov plucked me from the Gulag and I entered the Cheka. Lonely work, but maybe someday I’d be able to tell somebody about it.

Mahler faded to silence. Most symphonies rise to great final crescendos. Not Mahler’s Ninth. He hints and feints, starts the climb once or twice, but backs off into deeper contemplation. In the end, as Bernstein put it, he simply lets the strands of sound disintegrate. I’ve always felt that fourth movement comes as close as anything to capturing the tragedy of the human experience—in a few bars of music.

The vodka glass was empty, too. I didn’t need more, but I got a refill anyway, stopping on the way to play Miles Davis and Gil Evans’s Sketches of Spain. I went back to my papers as Miles sounded the first few bars of “Saeta”—literally, “heart pierced by grief.”

I never knew the man with the funny name who was my father. I know how he met my mother in Norillag, a few months before she was released for the first time in 1946. He was an NKVD officer, on the staff of Lavrenty Beria, head of the secret police and Stalin’s chief executioner. Her beauty was intact. I have a letter he wrote attesting to that fact. He could not approach her there—zeks were nonpersons, untouchables—but as soon as she got out, he found her in Moscow.

This was a risk on his part. Release did not mean rehabilitation in the eyes of the state, and fear ruled the populace. Former prisoners were shunned, then as now, even by family and old friends. My father took the chance, and they fell in love. He also paid the price. They had two years together, but when she was taken away again in 1948, in a wave of rearrests, he was picked up, too. She got a second ten-year sentence and a trip to Dalstroy, a complex of camps in Kolyma in far northeastern Siberia. He was sent to Steplag in what is now Kazakhstan. The fact that he was an NKVD officer, the son of a prominent Chekist and friend of Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Cheka, didn’t matter. Or maybe it did. He was released after two years, in 1950. By 1951 he was again wearing an NKVD uniform.

None of this was as unusual as it sounds. Naftaly Frenkel, a Stalin favorite who oversaw construction of the White Sea Canal, rose from prisoner to camp commander. The deputy director of the Dmitlag camp, a guy named Barabanov, was arrested in 1935 for drunkenness and escaped the Great Terror because he was already in jail. He emerged some years later, went back to work for the NKVD, and rose through the ranks until, in 1954, he was deputy director of the entire Gulag.

How my parents reconnected in Kolyma in 1952 is another mystery I’m trying to solve. Maybe they didn’t—there are other, less savory explanations for how I came into being—but I’ve been told by three women who knew her that he came to Kolyma that year and they were reunited, however briefly. I also know they wrote each other constantly and a few letters got through. I also know because when I was born, she named me after him. Thanks, Mom.

When Stalin finally died, everybody owned up, at least for a time, to what a disastrous experiment the Gulag had been. Beria made a play for the premiership, but Khrushchev, Molotov, and others on the Politburo stopped that. He was arrested and shot later in 1953, but in one of his last acts, he began emptying the camps. His first amnesty, declared only a few weeks after Stalin’s death, included prisoners with less than five-year sentences, pregnant women, women with children, and prisoners under age eighteen. We totaled more than one million people.

It was one thing to be released, another to get home, especially when home was five thousand frozen miles away. Kolyma is a thousand miles north of Vladivostok, a region that the words frigid, barren, and isolated do not begin to describe. I’ve been back as an adult, and I cannot believe that anyone survived there. It’s said that the permafrost still gives up an occasional corpse, even today.

The only transport was Gulag stolypinski, rail cars refitted for prisoners, which meant gutted to hold as many zeks as could be squeezed in. My mother didn’t make it. This is the irony that breaks my heart whenever I think about it. She spent all but a few years of her adult life in concentration camps, somehow keeping starvation, disease, rape, and worse at bay, but she was too weak to make the final journey home. Pneumonia took her somewhere in the Urals.

I flipped through the pages in Sasha’s file. Letters, in her hand, stretching from 1937 to 1953, including her two terms in the Gulag, 1937–46 and 1948–53. They were what I’d been planning to go to Moscow to pick up before the Mulhollands intervened. “Your mother had a cousin who kept every letter she received from her,” Sasha e-mailed me. “22! A stroke of luck—I found them in the cousin’s file.” That Sasha had discovered them was miraculous, but no more so than her finding the means to write in the first place—or that the letters had reached their recipient. Prisoners went to great lengths to record life in the camps and to communicate with those outside, and written records do remain, but not that many.

I skipped though the stack of paper, looking for letters from 1952–53, the time of my birth. Somewhere, I hoped against hope, she might have mentioned my father. A note in a different hand, shaky script drawn by heavy black marker, stopped me cold.

Lachko. I thumbed through the pages. The same message had been inserted in place of a half-dozen letters. I had the feeling they all mentioned my father. Lachko had found another way of toying with me.

I turned on my computer and began the laborious process of entering dates, names, and places. I got halfway through the correspondence, but my mind kept going back to that first letter. I couldn’t shake the image of the girl and her mother in the cold new snow, watching her red-haired father being led to his execution.

I can remember each of the times in my life when I’ve cried. At fourteen, when I was sent back to the Gulag. At thirty-six, when I made the choice that would change everything. A few months later when I saw my son for the last time. Now, two-thirds of a century after the fact, I wept for three people whose suffering ceased long ago. Their fate—no different from that of millions of others—made me wonder whether God should have locked the gates to the Garden of Eden when he had the chance and put an end to his experiment with humanity there and then.

I fell asleep, as I often do on such nights, a hollow feeling in my soul, pondering the unanswerable, while the pillows soaked up my tears.

CHAPTER 21

The Chekist leaned back and closed his eyes. He didn’t need the transferred tape to remember what happened next. It was imprinted on his memory, as permanent and precise as any digital code.

Snow falling heavily as he drove through the birch forest. Three or four inches already on the dirt road. He could see an earlier set of tire tracks, covered by an inch at least. Telling his driver to stop, he knelt in the snow, brushing away the newly fallen flakes with his gloved hand. Outbound tread. Someone had left since he started here ninety minutes ago. Was he too late?

He told the driver to move on. He’d chosen the man just for this job. He knew what to do when they got there.

The headlights of the limousine swept the buildings in the clearing—caretaker’s cottage, barn, main house—illuminating their silhouettes in the snowfall. Two Mercedeses parked on the side. He recognized them as Gorbenko’s and Kosokov’s. Polina’s BMW was nowhere in sight. Hers was the tread on the road.

A rectangle of light framed the caretaker as he came out his door, waving in greeting and bending forward, sludging through the wind. The driver leaned across the roof of the car, waiting until the man came close. The caretaker fell backward as the driver shot him, the crack of his pistol muffled by the snow. The driver was halfway to the door of the cottage before the man hit the ground.

The front door to the house was unlocked. The Chekist didn’t stop to shake the snow from his suit but turned left toward the study. That’s where he’d be. That’s where he was, pulling files from a desk drawer.

“I warned you, Anatoly Andreivich,” he said.

“Whaaaa!” Kosokov dropped a pile of papers and turned.

“Who were you expecting?”

“I… I…”

“The Cheka knows. The Cheka always knows. Where’s Gorbenko?”

“He… I…”

The Chekist hit Kosokov in the side of the face with his automatic. Blood spurted from the banker’s nose. “Where’s Gorbenko?”

“He’s… dead.”

“Dead? How?”

“Polina…”

That didn’t surprise him. Chivalrous to the last. “God knows what she ever saw in you,” the Chekist said. “Just a small greedy coward. Where is she?”

“Not here.”

“I can see that, you fool. Where?” He raised his gun hand to swing at the banker again.

“Stop! She… She went back to Moscow.”

“Coming back?”

“No.”

“Bullshit.” With one eye and the gun on Kosokov, the Chekist searched the room. The CDs Kosokov had told Polina about weren’t there. “Let’s go,” he said.

“No! I—”

The Chekist hit him again. “Show me Gorbenko.” He pushed him to the door and grabbed the half-full vodka bottle on the way out.

The driver was waiting. The Chekist told him to search the house and put the banker’s computer and files in the car. Then he followed Kosokov to the barn. The lights were on. The Chekist felt more than saw movement from the right, near a row of horse stalls. When he turned there was nothing there. Probably just a rat. Kosokov led him across the big empty floor to a trapdoor in the back. Cement stairs led down into the hole. An old bomb shelter. The Chekist shone his flashlight through the hatch. The beam caught Gorbenko’s lifeless eyes staring up at him from eight feet below. A perfectly serviceable grave.

“Have a drink, Anatoly.” He held out the bottle.

Kosokov shook his head.

“I said, have a drink.” He raised his gun hand.

Kosokov cowered and put the bottle to his lips.

“That’s better,” said the Chekist. “Have another.”

Kosokov did as he was told.

“Good,” said the Chekist. “Now, tell me where you hid the CDs.”