The Treachery of Russian Nesting Dolls

CHAPTER 6

Breakfast came with the room at my hotel, and they offered a royal buffet and eggs to order. This morning I ignored the magnetic pull of the chocolate croissant basket, the aged cheeses, and the fresh squeezed juices, and settled for an egg white omelet and four slices of cucumber. I still had my mind set on Thai food and sea salt caramel, and I was determined to wait until at least a partial celebration was in order.

I left De Vroom three messages before noon for him to call me back. He didn’t. I was sure he’d traced the license plate by now. With each passing hour, I imagined the mystery lover slipping further from my grasp. He was no fool. He’d bolted as soon as he’d seen me in Iskra’s office. He’d kept his cool on the sidewalk and he’d had a car waiting for him at a designated spot. The car was the latest Porsche model, priced at over one hundred thousand euro. The mystery lover was either loaded or had access to the wealth of his family or friends. He’d sat in the back of the Macan even though the front passenger seat had been empty, suggesting he might have had a driver. If he were fearful of being discovered or had another motive to leave town, I suspected he had the means with which to disappear quickly and effectively. My fear was that he was already gone.

In the absence of progress on that front, I turned my attention to something within my control. Iskra Romanova had lived in an apartment in the sleek and sexy Jordaan area in West Amsterdam. The northern part of Jordaan boasted a quaint row of shops and restaurants along Haarlemmerstraat, less than a mile’s walk from my hotel. I called and asked Iskra’s father, George Romanov, to meet me for lunch. He sounded curt and reluctant on the phone, but he finally agreed.

The phrase “Stout!” was a Dutch term used in reference to people who were misbehaving or calling attention to themselves. In this case, it was also the name of a cute café in Jordaan favored by thirty-somethings, and one of the few establishments in Jordaan that was open for lunch. I thought the restaurant’s name was perfect for my agenda in a contrarian way, as I was intent on behaving properly and calling no attention to myself. I feared Iskra’s father was more likely to do the restaurant’s name justice, given his unfriendly vibe on the phone. I pictured the prototypical ruddy Russian who drank the savings his wife didn’t spend on clothes she should have never been seen wearing.

How wrong I was.

I took a table on the elevated floor in the back of the restaurant. I counted fifteen couples eating lunch, and when Romanov stepped inside, all eyes went to him. He looked like a Russian athlete who’d never stopped training or crying after being left off the Olympic team twenty-five years ago. His face was a slum crammed with lines, pits, and pock marks where shadows grew and tears collected. His green suede jacket gathered at the tiniest waist and looked like a cobra’s hood around his torso. Above the neck, he seemed destined for assisted living. Below the neck, he appeared competition-ready.

He barely looked at me when he muttered hello, and his expression could have frozen the melted wax beneath the candle at our table. I detected a mixture of grief and anger so palpable I felt at risk of being assaulted if I said the wrong thing.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” he said, in Russian. “I’m only here because my wife insisted. I’m here for my daughter. She said you come highly recommended by that egomaniac-friend of hers. If it weren’t for my Iskra and how desperately I seek justice for her murder, I would never be seen talking with you.”

“Why is that, Mr. Romanov?” I said.

“Because you’re an American whore.”

His charm and subtlety caught me by surprise. I assumed we shared the same objective, which meant our relationship would be civil. Obviously that wasn’t going to be the case. I managed a big smile, in keeping with the theme of maintaining a contrarian disposition while dining in an establishment called Stout!

“I’m not sure what you mean when you say I’m a whore,” I said.

He shrugged as though I’d asked him to explain why borsch was red. “You’re the product of a decaying society with no morals. American women are so revolting, they are so willing to spread their legs for anyone with money that their own men come to Russia and Ukraine to look for wives, to find women with virtue and grace. Take you, for example. My wife told me you rented yourself out as a prostitute last night. What self-respecting woman would do such a thing under any circumstances? Only a woman for whom it comes naturally. In other words, only a whore. You, Miss Tesla, are the lowest form of life from the lowest society on this planet. You are an American whore.”

His words started a fire inside me, and the implication that Simmy had told his wife about my methods in De Wallen only served to stoke them. I let the flames subside for a few seconds. Then I licked my lips and gave him my own shrug.

“Well, I’m insulted, Mr. Romanov. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. I don’t know of any other woman who would have posed as a prostitute in an Amsterdam window to find your daughter’s killer, and I’m certain I was the only American working De Wallen last night. So please don’t insult me by calling me an American whore. I’m not an American whore.”

“Then what are you?”

“I’m the American whore.”

Romanov blinked several times as though not believing what he’d heard me say.

“I’m the American whore. I’m the one. I’m the one that’s going to find the bastard who drove screws through your daughter’s hands and feet. I’m the one that’s going to find out who snuffed out your little girl’s life by letting her bleed to death.” I bared my teeth. “So the next time you decide to call me names, get it right, my self-indulgent Russian friend.”

Romanov appeared ready to launch himself across the table. “How dare you…”

A petite waitress with hesitant eyes had walked up to our table without my realizing it. She asked if we wanted something to drink. The question snapped Romanov out of his rage. He settled back in his seat like a coronary patient who realized he shouldn’t let his blood pressure rise. He ordered coffee. I chose still water. When she asked us if we knew what we wanted to eat, Romanov glanced at the menu.

“Yoghurt, granola, wolfberries,” he said.

The waitress noted his selection on her pad and turned to me.

I had no idea what wolfberries were but I liked the sound of them. Plus the insatiable hunger in my stomach had died the moment Romanov had criticized America.

“Just the wolfberries,” I said.

The waitress started to write and stopped. She raised her eyebrows. “Just the wolfberries?”

“That’s right. Just the wolfberries.”

She jotted my order down, slipped her pencil behind her ear and left.

Romanov studied me with a condescending smile. “You are such Nazis.”

That was a new one. “I beg your pardon?”

“First there was Napoleon, then Hitler, and now there’s America. You want to corrupt the entire world for the sake of your own interests. That’s why you fight the subversive war against Russia, trying to poison our youth with your message of homosexuality and pedophilia.”

“Excuse me?”

“And when our president stands up to your imperialist ways—who are you to tell Russians how to manage their region—you punish our country with economic sanctions. The only question is how long it will take for your society to crumble. You have no family values, you have no childbirth, you have no future.”

It sounded to me as though Romanov’s cable television was set permanently to the Russian channel, except I’d never heard the bit about pedophilia.

“That’s not the question, Mr. Romanov.” I softened my voice so it was barely audible. “The question is are you going to help your daughter get justice, or am I on my own?” I shifted in my seat and placed my leg in the aisle as though I were preparing to leave.

Romanov looked away as though contemplating whether he wanted to answer my question or vanish before his yogurt arrived. He looked back and forth into space and at me, and exhaled in one long, massive breath. He didn’t look particularly relieved, just fortified enough to converse with the American whore.

“Growing up in Russia, she was a perfect child,” he said. “I was an alternate on the Russian national diving team so I had certain privileges. She went to good schools. She painted, studied ballet, and was a member of Nashi.”

“Nashi?” The word meant “ours.”

“It’s a grass roots organization of young people who love Russia. President Putler started it after the Orange Revolution in Ukraine to make sure that subversive American interests never manipulated the people of Russia into doing the same.”

Of course, I thought. Whenever any country did something that threatened Putler’s expanding empire, he blamed America. “What did Iskra do for Nashi?”

Romanov chose his words carefully, the way a man does when’s trying to withhold information. “She organized rallies… created internet sites… campaigned for politicians and the like. She was a lovely child.”

“And then?”

“And then we moved here.”

“When was that?”

“Twelve years ago.”

“Why did you move here? You seem to love Russia.”

“Of course I love Russia, just as I’m sure you love that decrepit pit you call home.” Once again, Romanov paused to consider his answer. “It was time to leave. For business reasons.”

That meant he probably had to leave Russia to avoid prosecution for some offense, real or imaginary. This suggested he’d fallen out of favor with the people in the Kremlin, who may have been prepared to support his competitors’ attempt to have him jailed, or were intent on subduing him themselves.

I was curious to know more, but I knew better than to pry into his business affairs. Tap a Russian’s heart, and it might come pouring out. Inveigle yourself in his business affairs and he might give you an up-close and personal tour of his company’s waste disposal equipment.

“How old was Iskra when you moved here?” I said.

Romanov thought about the question. “I’d say she was about nine or ten. She was a good student. When she turned seventeen, she was accepted into the modern theatre dance program at the Amsterdam School of the Arts. Her mother and I were very proud. We rented an apartment for her and gave her space. We kept our distance even though we live close by in Oud-Zuid—old South Amsterdam. Her mother insisted we not interfere in her life. I knew it was a mistake. She fell in with a bunch of liberal types at school and became an experimental child.” He looked at me and nodded. “Probably just like you.”

“How so?” I said. The only thing I’d ever experimented with outside of school was a microscope my parents gave me for my ninth birthday.

“Sex, drugs, rock and roll. It was all born in America, wasn’t it?”

“Rock and roll, I think so. The other two may pre-date my decrepit homeland. I know this is a sensitive topic, but I have to ask you. How long did she work a window in De Wallen?”

“Spare me your false sympathy. You’re a mercenary. Act like one.”

“How long had Iskra been working as a prostitute?”

“Not long. Three months. She worked part-time, weekends only.”

“Did you know about this from the start?” I said.

“No.”

“How did you find out?”

He considered the question. “The second worst way possible.”

I made the obvious deduction. “A friend?”

He shrugged. “We asked her to stop, we begged her… I threatened to cut off all financial support but she said she didn’t care. She said she wanted to make her own money and this was something she wanted to do. That if other girls from Russian were doing it, she could, too.” Romanov shook his head.

“And the mystery lover wasn’t her only customer?”

“I wish,” he said.

“Did Iskra have a boyfriend?”

Romanov’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Obviously she had a boyfriend. That was the reason you prostituted yourself.”

“I don’t mean the mystery boyfriend, I mean, was there anyone else?”

He shook his head.

“There had to be other boyfriends.”

“There were many boys,” he said softly, “and a few men. But she never brought anyone to our house for dinner. If there had been someone serious, she would have brought him to dinner. Do you have leads on the identity of this mystery lover?”

“I’m working on it. Are you conducting any kind of inquiry of your own? Because that would not be helpful…”

“The police warned me to stay away, and these days, a Russian in Amsterdam must listen to the police. Besides, Simeonovich has insisted to my wife that you will get to the bottom of this. And regardless of how much of a hypocrite he is—if a hand were to fall on his shoulder, it would release a mountain of dirt from beneath his Brioni suits—I have never known him to give compliments where they are not deserved.”

“I agree.”

Romanov nodded hopefully. “That you will get to the bottom of this?”

“That he doesn’t give compliments. Do you have any enemies that might have done this?”

“I sold my business when I left Russia. There is no reason for anyone to hate me. Besides, if a Russian wanted to get even over something that happened in the distant past, he’d come after me first.” He paused and looked me over. “Your last name, Tesla. What is the ethnic origin?”

“My parents were full-blooded Ukrainians.”

I braced myself for a derogatory response, but instead the sun burst on his face. “Ukrainian? Why, that is fantastic,” he said.

“Why is that fantastic?”

“Because that means you’re a full-blooded Russian, too.”

The temperature in Stout! seemed to rise. “I… I don’t understand. I told you my parents were Ukrainian.”

He shrugged good-naturedly, not a patronizing or condescending note about him.

“There’s no such thing as Ukraine and there are no such people as Ukrainians,” he said. “That’s just some senseless nonsense created by a few self-styled Nazis near Poland. This is great news. The investigator from America is actually Russian. I see why Simeonovich thinks so much of you. He may be a genius after all.”

If my brother, Marko, were here, he would have short-circuited, had a stroke, and fallen to his death. His demise would have been a function of not being able to decide whether to stab Romanov in the eye with his fork, or try to spoon it out and force it down his throat.

The waitress brought our food. Romanov spooned his yoghurt with zest and enthusiasm. I eyed my spoon with newfound fascination, and ate my wolfberries one at a time to make my meal last. I even calmed myself down enough to chew a few of them.

When we were done, Romanov insisted on paying the bill. I didn’t object. Instead I let him impress me with his gentlemanly ways.

Then I countered with my own insistence.

I demanded he take the American whore with the Russian bloodlines to the place she wanted to go more than any other.

I insisted he take me to the scene of the crime.