by Kelly Oliver
Dmitry peeled his hand away from his father’s death grip. He gazed down at the tiny desiccated hand he’d just been holding. How could that be his father’s hand? He didn’t believe it. He tried to move, but couldn’t. In life, his father had been a grizzly bear that chased him away. In death, his father was a scorpion that paralyzed him with its sting.
“Mother,” he sobbed. “He’s dead.”
Chapter Forty-One
When Nick sprang out of the hospital bed and grabbed at the key, he took the sheets with him and Jessica fell onto the floor.
“Hey, watch it,” she said, picking herself up and brushing off her jeans.
“Let me see that key.” Nick was wearing only his hospital gown.
Wow. Nice thighs.
He held out his hand. Lolita leaned forward, looked him up and down, smiled, and then dropped the small key into his outstretched palm. “M. A. N. A. 307,” he read out loud. “That’s MANA art storage. It’s on the Lower West side, near Chinatown,” he said. “But you’ll need the password.”
“Password?” Lolita asked.
“Yes, they require a key and a password,” Nick said. “Double security in case you lose your key and someone else finds it.” He narrowed his eyes at Lolita. “How did you get this key?” he asked.
“Don’t start with the interrogation again,” Jessica said. “Or I’ll kick your butt.”
He smiled. “My butt is yours. Lolita, I’m sorry I was rude to you and your father. I hope you can forgive me.”
“Forgiveness is irrelevant. Just help me get my father’s paintings back.”
“Paintings, plural?” his eyes widened.
Lolita told him about her grandfather, Anton Yudkovich, the buyer at Tajan auction in Paris, and her grandmother, Lolita Yudkovich, and how she’d given the Kandinsky and Goncharova paintings to Dmitry on the night he left Russia.
“You have a Natalia Goncharova too?” Nick was excited. “I would love to see one of her paintings. But we need your father’s password.”
“My father doesn’t have the password and never did. He hid the paintings in Professor Schmutzig’s office for safekeeping, but the professor discovered them under his floorboards and moved them to a vault somewhere. Then he was murdered.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time someone was murdered for art,” Nick said.
“What do you mean?” Jessica asked.
“Obviously,” Nick said, “the killer was looking for the paintings. Why else would anyone murder Professor Schmutzig?”
Jessica mentally scrolled through her list of suspects and their motives. More than one person had a reason to kill Wolf that didn’t involve Russian art.
“We need that password,” Lolita said. “How are we going to get it?” She was pacing the room. “Jessica, was there anything in the diary that might give us a clue?”
“Not that I remember. I gave the journal to Amber since it turned out the professor was her dad. I’ll call her.” She slid her phone out of her back pocket and tapped in Amber’s number.
“Did I wake you up? Sorry. Hey, Amber, any idea what Wolf might use as a password?”
“Could be the same as his email password.” Amber replied, “Fritz 10-15.”
“How do you know that?” Jessica asked.
“Gary and I hacked his email,” she said. “I just wanted to know more about my biological father.”
“Twisted Twix? You two hacked Wolf’s email? How’d you do that?”
“Gary showed me how,” Amber said. “It was easy. Like chess.”
“10-15, Nietzsche’s birthday, Fritz, Nietzsche’s nickname.” Jessica mumbled into the phone.
“Fritz was the name of his first cat,” said Amber. “His security question was name of your first pet.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Dmitry flew past his mother and the bodyguards to escape the suffocation. He couldn’t get out of the hospital fast enough and plowed through the first exit he saw. He found himself outside in a bright courtyard and the penetrating sunrays stung his eyes. He braced himself against the void, holding his arms out in front of his torso, and stumbled onward, tears streaming down his face.
His father’s death had broken the flukes of hatred and fear that had anchored his existence for so long, and far below the surface of the everyday the pain he’d suppressed was cut loose. For most of his life, he’d been riding the hook along the surface of a wide sea of emotions, not dredging the depths of his being. Now, the tension holding his life together had gone slack, and without his father, he was unmoored. Without his father, he was free.
Dmitry spent the rest of the day wandering the grounds of the Mayo clinic. He hadn’t eaten or slept, or showered or shaved, since he’d left home. His eyes were so swollen from crying that he was looking through stinging slits, and his mouth was so dry his tongue felt like cracked rubber.
Joggers stared at him as he staggered around the pond behind the clinic. On another day, he might have appreciated the manicured grounds with flowers and trees neatly placed around the walking path in perfect balance of colors and symmetry of shapes, but he knew nature was not so peaceful. These attempts to bring order to the chaos of life were vain, temporary supports that would soon give way to violence.
He walked in circles around the grounds until his knees ached and the sun was setting.
Sometime after dark, a familiar voice caught up to him, “Boss, Boss. Come on now.” And his cousin’s strong grip led him by the arm back to the parking lot. It was near midnight by the time Vanya forced him to rest in the Escalade.
At dawn, he noticed his cousin open the door and exit the SUV in a cloud of smoke, leaving Dmitry to sink back into an agitated sleep in the backseat. He woke up when the doors opened again and Vanya and his mother peered back at him from the passenger side of the SUV.
“Where did you go?” his mother asked. “I was worried when you rushed out. Thank god for cousin Vanya.” Her skin was dusty and dry like she’d aged twenty years overnight.
“Where did you spend the night?” he asked his mother, afraid of the answer.
“I stayed with Anton until they took his body away. Yuri is making arrangements for his body to be sent back to Moscow for a funeral. I’ve got to get back, too.”
“Please stay for a few days to meet your granddaughter. You can stay with us,” he said, and then remembered they were living at a Residence Inn. “Or, I can get you a hotel room. You’ll love Lolita. You two are so much alike.” Dmitry was so exhausted he felt nauseous. Vanya must have noticed because he ran back into the hospital and returned with three coffees from the cafeteria. When Dmitry sat up in the backseat and took the coffee, Bunin wriggled between the seats from the back compartment and licked his face. He got the cup into a cup holder just in time.
Nose in the air, the husky barked, and then wagging his tail so hard it whacked Dmitry in the face, he nuzzled his muzzle into his mother’s lap. After Dmitry pushed his hindquarters down and Bunin was laying between the seats, he took his cup into both hands and guzzled the tepid liquid, trying to wake up. Luckily, he didn’t have to drive, and Vanya was so full of nicotine he never seemed to need sleep.
On the ride home, Vanya and his mother reminisced about the times “little Ivanovich,” as she called him, stayed at their country house for the summer. She hadn’t seen Vanya since his father had been killed and the rest of the family had been forced to leave Russia.
“I remember when you were just a little Cossack getting into trouble and leading Dimka astray.” She laughed. “Remember that afternoon at the Count’s when I told you the story of the prince and the tiger?” His mother turned and looked over the seat at him. “Anton and I were like the prince and the tiger, bound together through pain. I met him when I was only fifteen,” she said. “He was thirty. My mother took me to see The Nutcracker Ballet at the Bolshoi Theatre and Anton was sitting alone in our loge box. I was drunk on the ballet and that’s when he wounded me with his first arrow.”
; Dmitry stared into his half empty coffee cup as if it might hold the answers he sought.
“My parents disapproved of Anton,” his mother said. Dmitry’s maternal grandparents were respectable upper-class industrialists.
“They knew of Anton’s reputation,” she said. “Everyone did.”
“So why did they let you marry him?” Dmitry asked.
“They didn’t,” she said. “They forced me to choose. And I chose Anton. We eloped to Paris.” His mother smiled and stared out the window. They rode in silence for the next few miles.
“On our wedding night,” his mother said softly, “Anton made me a woman. That was the second arrow. We were back in Moscow only fifteen months before Anton took a mistress. Sergei was just a baby. That was the mortal wound.”
“Why did you stay with him?” Like everyone else, Dmitry knew his father had been unfaithful.
“When I learned of his mistress, I went to Paris with the baby,” she said. “That’s when I met Count Volkov. Do you remember the Count? So different from Anton. He was everything Anton wasn’t. Anton commanded the center of attention. Konstantin preferred the periphery. Anton was gregarious and so aggressive with everything and everyone, while Konstantin was reserved and circumspect, a man of integrity.” She gazed out the window and said softly, “Strength may open the door, but only virtue enters.”
His mother leaned her head against the seat and closed her eyes. He watched her in the rearview mirror, her face relaxed and peaceful. He wondered if she was napping. She must be exhausted. She had been keeping vigil with his father in the hospital for a week, sleeping in a chair by his side. She jolted forward and he grabbed the back of her seat as Vanya swerved off the highway onto an exit.
“What are you doing, chuvak,” Dmitry yelled at his cousin.
“I’m about to piss my pants, Boss.” Vanya tamped out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. “And there’s a Krispy Kream at this exit.” He grinned into the rear view mirror at Dmitry.
Krispy Kreams and more weak coffee lifted Dmitry’s spirits and the ride back home went faster.
“Why did you go back to him?” he leaned forward to ask his mother when they were back on the highway again.
“I didn’t,” she said. “He found me and took me back. Always, for Anton, the belly was full, but the eyes were still hungry.”
“Why did you stay?” Dmitry had always wondered why his mother and father stayed together. They had nothing in common. Yet, for some reason, his mother was fiercely loyal.
“If you’re given a choice between apocalypse and pastry,” she said, “you don’t ask what kind of pastry.” She paused and he waited for her to explain. “A broken heart isn’t fatal,” she finally broke the silence. “I couldn’t leave alive,” she said, “but I made sure that you did.”
“Why did father let you live after you betrayed him?” It sounded like an accusation and he regretted his words as soon as they’d left his mouth. His mother had betrayed her husband to save him. She’d risked her own life to spare his.
“Betrayal.” His mother laughed. “I didn’t betray Anton by bringing you the valise, my son,” she said. “I had already betrayed Anton by loving you more than life.” She stared out the window again. He followed her gaze to see what she saw out there. All he saw were fields of dirt waiting to be sown, but he suspected she saw something more, a future harvest to prove you don’t always reap what you sow.
“Your birth was my revenge,” his mother said, “and my salvation.”
“Revenge?” he asked.
“You were born from love, Dimka,” his mother said. “Because of you, I went back to Moscow with Anton.”
“A broken heart isn’t always fatal,” he said softly.
“Anton’s poisonous arrows may have wounded me, but they never pierced my heart,” she said. “My heart never belonged to Anton. Only later was it stolen by another.” When his mother reached her hand behind the seat toward him, he took it. She squeezed his hand, and said, “Dimka, my heart belongs to the love of my life. It belongs to your real father, Konstantin Volkov.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Jessica peered out the window of Nick’s limo. It stopped in front of a mammoth maze of red brick building, a former factory on the southeast side of downtown. One part of MANA was square, another rectangular, and a third triangular, a geometer’s dream.
In the center of the whimsical shapes was a funky sculpture garden set amongst bright flowers and green shrubs in a neat courtyard. Nick’s bruised and swollen face might draw suspicion, so he stayed in the limo. Jessica and Lolita got out of the car and met Amber in front of the building as she stepped out of a taxi Uggs first with her flowing paisley skirt close behind.
Just before they got to the glass entrance, Amber stopped and pulled one of her herbal potions from her vast purse. “Who’s Raskolnikov?” she asked as she dropped liquid from a vial onto her tongue. Hair escaping in all directions, eyes wide, she looked frazzled and in desperate need of Rescue Remedy, but the tincture didn’t seem to be working.
“The main character in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. He murders an old pawn broker woman just to prove he can and then returns to the scene of the crime and gets caught,” Jessica answered. “Why?”
“Alexander Le Blanc was writing emails to Professor…. uh my dad, about him,” she said. “He was comparing my dad to a teacher in some old Hitchcock film called Rope. Something about putting theory into practice.”
“Rope?” Jessica asked. “The one where those crazy gay guys murder their friend, stuff him in a trunk, and then host a dinner party on it? Supposedly trying to prove their superiority. Love me some Hitchcock, but not my favorite film.”
“I spent all night reading my dad’s emails and rereading his diary,” Amber said. “Learning about the professor is making me feel weird around my dad, I mean my mom’s husband.”
“Come on girls,” Lolita said, holding the door open. “You can reminisce about the professor later. We have work to do.”
The sleek inside of the building stood in stark contrast to its industrial outside. Crossing the threshold was like stepping through a time portal from the 19th Century into the 24th. Inside, everything was white: the walls, the floors, the ceilings, and the attendants’ uniforms. They were even wearing white watches. A young woman with her slick hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, wearing a fitted white Chinese-style jacket and trousers, appeared at the door and asked if she could help them.
Jessica was gesturing for Amber to wipe the chocolate off of her mouth, but Amber just followed her finger with her eyes. Frustrated, Jessica pulled a tissue out of her pocket, licked it, and wiped it off for her. Lolita scowled. When the Chinese-jacketed woman asked again if she could help them, Lolita nudged Amber.
“We would like the paintings from storage, left here by my father,” Amber said.
“Your father’s name?” the attendant asked.
“Baldrick Schmutzig,” Amber said. She sounded as if she’d practiced saying his name.
“Can I see some identification?” the attendant asked.
Amber pulled out her driver’s license. “Amber Bush,” the attendant read out loud.
“Yes. My mother remarried,” Amber said with less conviction.
“Do you have the key?” the attendant asked.
Lolita held out the key to the attendant. She led them to a glass elevator looking out over floors of thick white walls with small black locks, rows and rows of them.
On one wall there were small boxes, like post office boxes, white with black rims and black locks. Along another wall, there were a series of steel panels, reflecting back everything off their shiny surface, only slightly askew. They followed the attendant into the elevator and then out of the lift at the third floor. The expansive space was a futuristic maze, everything white with touches of black and steel.
Vault 307 was a thin steel door with two black locks and a computer touch pad like an iPhone only smaller. The girl
s exchanged glances.
“As I’m sure your father told you,” the attendant said, “you need to insert your key, then enter your password, after which I will open the door with my key.”
When Lolita inserted the key, the touch pad illuminated, and Amber wiped her hands on her moo-moo, then slowly tapped in Fritz 10-15. A red message flashed on the screen Incorrect Password. She tried again. Again, the threatening red message. The attendant asked, “Did your father give you the correct password?”
“Maybe it’s case sensitive,” Jessica said. “Try again, capitalize Fritz.” It was freezing in the storage building but she’d broken into a cold sweat, and her hands and feet were clammy.
“Perhaps he used another password,” the attendant suggested. “Or, maybe he changed the password.”
“Maybe it’s his bank account password,” Amber said.
Jessica gave her a quizzical look.
“Yes, that makes sense. Try his bank password,” Jessica shook her head in agreement.
Amber tapped in another series of letters and numbers. “A.M.B.E.R. 2. 18,” she said out loud as she entered the code. “My birthday,” she said softly and dug in her purse for more herbal tranquilizers. A green light appeared on the screen. The attendant inserted her key and the vault opened. Inside were two paintings in large glassine envelopes sandwiched between cardboard. When Lolita reached in to pull them out, the attendant stopped her.
“We’re going to take them now and close the account,” Lolita said.
“Don’t you want these?” the woman asked, holding out a pair of white gloves.
“Of course, thank you,” said Lolita.
“Is your father dissatisfied with our service?” the woman asked. She emphasized the word father and glanced back and forth between the three girls.
“He’s dead,” Amber said.