by Paul Levine
Yagamata blinked twice, his eyes darting from Foley to me and back again. “And my personal collection?”
“Anything you’ve taken for yourself you can keep. It’ll be written off.”
“Including my new Matisse, of course. Girl with Tulips. I have coveted it for years. The girl is Jeanne Vaderin, and—”
“Yeah, yeah, including your new Matisse. You know, you’re really a little over the top about the art, Matsuo. It affects your judgment.”
Yagamata wasn’t listening. “And the works by Fabergé, of course. I must keep the Trans-Siberian Railway Egg of 1900.”
“Yeah, the eggs, the paintings, whatever you’ve skimmed off before selling to your buddies in Kyoto. We’re talking international politics here and you’re concerned with a few pieces of art?”
“Aren’t you?” Yagamata asked.
“I don’t give two shits about the art.”
“Then you are a fool.”
Foley shook his head. “Okay, I’m an ugly American, a déclassé barbarian. Happy? Now, do you want the money or do I start reading you your rights?”
Yagamata seemed to think about it. “How much? How much for my trouble?”
“Fifty million.”
This time Yagamata didn’t blink. “I could make a hundred times that by selling the art.”
“You could get a hundred years in the can. I’ll use the forfeiture laws to confiscate every asset you have, right down to the last tin of caviar.”
Across the patio, a woman’s laugh tinkled like wind chimes on a balcony. “What is the timing of such an arrangement?” Yagamata asked.
“First, I take delivery of the shipment. Within twenty-four hours, you’ll be paid.”
“Are you authorized to make such an offer?”
“From the highest possible authority.”
“How do I know . . .”
“Have I ever breached a commitment to you?”
Yagamata shook his head. “No. You are consistently dishonorable and therefore immensely trustworthy. You always eschew principle and reward venality.”
“So what’s it going to be? We don’t have all night.”
“Ah, the well-known impatience of the Americans.” Yagamata tried to put some Midwestern corn pone into his voice. “Let’s cut to the chase. What’s the bottom line? Is it a done deal, baby?”
“Matsuo, you’re getting on my nerves.”
“All right. I agree to your terms. What are the logistics?”
“Give me the location of the shipment. I’ll provide tractor-trailers. We’ll use your workers. We’ll start tomorrow at 0900. Fair enough?”
“Oh, perfectly fair. Unfortunately, however, I have no idea where the shipment is.”
Foley appeared stunned. “Why not?”
“It is not yet under my control. Kharchenko will release it to me after he has been paid and the goods repackaged to resemble cartons of pottery from Peru. As you can imagine, my outlay is many millions of dollars. Ordinarily, I would wire the funds to the Swiss accounts of Kharchenko and various Russian functionaries who made all this possible. Obviously, I do not intend to make the payment if you are going to appropriate the property.”
“You’re telling me you don’t follow the goods once they’re offloaded. You don’t know the warehouse Kharchenko uses. You don’t place agents along their route, bribe the drivers—”
“It’s not my concern. He always delivers when promised.”
Foley was incensed at Yagamata’s lack of professionalism. “Have you gone soft?”
Yagamata reached for a blini from a passing tray and dipped it in sour cream. “Maybe so, or maybe I just enjoy waking up each morning. You don’t play both sides of the Volga with Mr. Kharchenko.”
“I’ll deal with him,” Foley said, anger in his voice.
“Then, perhaps we should go inside,” Yagamata said. “There is something I would like you to see.”
“Yeah, what?”
“A little display I have put together from my personal collection. I call it the Treasure of the Czars exhibit. Furniture, artifacts, icons. It really is suitable for a museum. It’s in my gallery, and so is Comrade Kharchenko.”
“Let’s go have a look,” I suggested, “before he steals it all.”
***
The floors were white marble, the columns green malachite, the cornices leafed in gold. Real gold. The ceilings were high, the lighting subdued. The gallery was quiet, almost churchlike. The only worshiper was a thick-necked man with a bandaged face.
Kharchenko stood next to a jade pedestal on which stood a gold vessel filled with what looked like white marbles. Yagamata raised his hand as if to signal Kharchenko not to be alarmed. Yagamata bolted the door behind him, and we crossed the room together. Enameled saddles shared space on polished wooden frames with silver bridle chains. Antique weaponry—rifles with ornate fretwork of silver beasts—was attached to the walls, along with intricate Russian needlework. Golden chalices laced with rubies and emeralds shared space with decorative military breastplates. A mannequin of a nobleman was dressed in eighteenth-century finery, its vestment encrusted with precious gems. Closer to the jade pedestal, I could see the gold vessel contained pearls—hundreds, the same size and luster.
As we approached, Kharchenko pointed to a nearby painting of what looked like a holy man, head bowed in prayer. In excellent English, he said, The Measure Icon. Ivan the Terrible honored the birth of his son by commissioning a painting of the boy’s patron saint. Twenty-seven years later, Ivan murdered his son in a fit of rage.” Kharchenko watched us for a reaction, his dark eyes alert above the white bandages.
“Your history is like that,” Foley said. “Works of great beauty, acts of great horror.”
“Is it so much different from yours? We had our Gulag, you your lynchings.”
Yagamata cleared his throat. “Politics is so boring compared with business, and in any event, your histories are about to merge. With the free market, soon you will not be able to tell the difference between the streets of Boston and St. Petersburg.”
For some reason, I thought about the Hermitage going condo.
Yagamata was fondling a gem-studded egg that he had picked up from a marble-topped table. The egg was covered with a map of Russia engraved on silver. Two gargoyle creatures with shields and swords stood at the base of the egg, protecting Mother Russia, I supposed. Yagamata lifted off the top of the egg and withdrew what looked like a gold chain. “My favorite piece,” he said, unfolding a miniature train of solid gold, “the Trans-Siberian Railway Egg. I sometimes carry the train with me, just to draw it out of my pocket and enjoy the sheer pleasure of it. Have you ever seen such workmanship, such love of detail combined with whimsy?”
“Whimsy,” Foley said, barely suppressing a sneer. “It’s just a thing, Matsuo. It’s just an object to be bought and sold like everything else.”
Yagamata folded the train back into the egg. “No, Mr. Foley, it is not. Some ‘things’ are too valuable to simply be bought and sold. Some are more valuable than life.”
“Enough talk,” Foley said, his eyes seeming to narrow behind his glasses. He turned toward the Russian, who hadn’t moved. “Your face looks like shit, Kharchenko. Tell me, did a woman really do that to you, tough guy?”
“You cannot provoke me,” the Russian said. “I have my instructions, and I will carry them out.”
“There’s been a change in plans. I’m taking charge in the field. You’re to turn the shipment over to me.”
Kharchenko’s smile revealed a missing front tooth. He pointed a finger at Foley and said, “I don’t take my orders from you.”
Foley’s hand shot out with frightening speed. He grabbed the jabbing finger and pushed it backward. Hard. The crack echoed off the marble floors. Kharchenko let out a high-pitched wail, and Foley twisted the finger, left then right. Crack, crack. Three clean breaks, one at each knuckle. Kharchenko was on his knees, tears filling his eyes.
Foley never let go o
f the finger, but used it to yank the Russian’s right arm behind his back. His movements were so smooth, so quick, I never saw the clear plastic handcuffs come from his pocket. In a moment, Kharchenko’s hands were bound behind him. The Russian rocked back and forth, still on his knees. He gave the impression of being in painful prayer.
Foley’s eyes darted around the room. On an ornate desk was a gold wicker basket filled with lilies of the valley. Foley motioned for me to get it.
“Now? You want flowers now?” I asked.
Yagamata sensed something I didn’t. “You wouldn’t,” he pleaded with Foley, a tinge of fear in his voice. “Please. I abhor violence and detest the destruction of beautiful things. That is Fabergé’s first flower study, a gift to Empress Alexandra—”
“Lassiter! Give me the damn basket. That’s a direct order.”
“Hey, I never joined up.”
“Dammit! You’re an American, and I’m calling on you by the power vested in me by the President.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but it sounded impressive. I walked over to the desk and picked up the basket. These lilies didn’t need water, and the only scent was of unlimited money combined with incomparable artistry. I am, in the main, untutored in the world of art and artifacts. I do not go gaga over a fine jade doodad; I do not wax ecstatic over a Ming dynasty vase; but even my rough-hewn self could appreciate this. I had never seen such beauty in a man-made object.
The moss was spun gold. The delicate looping stems were solid gold rods, the flowers were pearls encircled with diamonds. Who was it who said that diamonds are a pearl’s best friends? I gently touched the green leaves.
“Nephrite,” Yagamata said.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Yagamata laughed. “There is nothing like it, anywhere in the world.”
“Gimme!” Foley barked.
I walked toward him, and Foley tore the basket from my hand. He leaned over Kharchenko, who was silent now. “Where is the shipment?”
Kharchenko muttered something in Russian. Foley grabbed him by the collar of his brown suit coat and yanked backward. He roughly pulled one of the flower stems out of the golden moss. “Let’s see how much you love art, Kharchenko.”
There were perhaps ten pearls on the stem, tiny ones at the tip, growing larger toward the base, where each one was tipped by six rose-cut diamonds. Foley put a hand to Kharchenko’s bandaged face, then pressed hard at the jaw muscles, forcing the Russian’s mouth open. Then he jammed the stem in and let go of his jaw. “Eat! Savor every morsel.”
Kharchenko let the pearl-laden stem sit in his mouth but did not move. Yagamata looked away. He seemed to be memorizing every detail of a colorful tapestry. Foley crouched down, grabbed another of the Russian’s fingers, and bent it back again until it cracked. Pain shot across Kharchenko’s face, and he involuntarily crunched down. I heard the stem break between his teeth. “Be a good boy and chew every bite. You don’t want your tummy to hurt.”
Slowly, Kharchenko worked his jaws. Tiny cuts appeared at the corners of his mouth. Foley leaned over him. “Swallow! Swallow, you greedy Russian pig, or I’ll break every bone in your body, one at a time.” He picked up another golden stem and rammed it in. “Eat, you big cow! Eat your country’s precious art.”
Blood flowed in rivulets down Kharchenko’s chin, staining the gauze bandages, as he chomped down again and again. A tooth broke with a sickening crack.
“Now,” Foley asked, squatting close to the Russian, “where is the shipment?”
Kharchenko spit a bloody fragment of gold into Foley’s face.
With an angry hiss, Foley straightened, paced around the room, and stopped in front of the vessel filled with pearls. “Lassiter, a Western visitor attended one of the czar’s parties in the Hermitage where the guests ate their weight in caviar. Do you know how he described the Russian nobility?”
I shook my head.
“He said they were ‘dripping pearls and vermin.’ Hey, Kharchenko, we’ll provide the pearls. You probably have your own vermin.”
Yagamata stood silently, hands clasped behind his back, eyes closed. Foley was relishing this. But I wasn’t. I was thinking about it, reading my moral compass. Kharchenko killed Crespo and Eva-Lisa, and if anybody deserved to die, he did. But it’s one thing to declare a man’s guilt and another to execute him. It gnawed at me now, watching him tortured, my standing there doing nothing, my silence deafening.
“Foley, I don’t think he’s—”
“Shut up, Lassiter. You did your job by finding him. Let me do mine.”
Foley grabbed the gold vessel from its pedestal. He waved it in front of Kharchenko’s face. “Neither cast ye your pearls before swine.” Foley laughed. He yanked Kharchenko’s head back again, forced his mouth open, and poured the pearls into it. They rattled against his teeth and filled his mouth and throat. The Russian coughed and choked, spitting out as many as he could. I saw his Adam’s apple bob, the muscles of his neck contract, his throat thicken.
“Where!” Foley demanded.
Kharchenko was gagging, spitting up blood and yellow phlegm, but trying to talk, too. Foley leaned close, listening. Kharchenko’s lips moved. Foley smiled and patted the Russian affectionately on the top of the head. Then he stood, hitched up his formal black trousers, drew his right knee to his chest, then kicked Kharchenko flush on the temple, toppling him sideways. By the time the Russian hit the floor, a purple stain had appeared beneath the skin where his meningeal artery had ruptured. Quickly the stain spread under his ear and across his face.
The room was silent except for a faint pinging as Empress Alexandra’s pearls dropped, one by one, from Kharchenko’s bloody lips and rolled merrily across the gleaming marble floor.
22
A CZAR’S RANSOM
The street was dark, the pavement potted with craters. Overhead, a jet whined on final approach to Miami International Airport. It was an area of warehouses, loading docks, freight-forwarding companies, and import-export firms servicing Latin America. In the middle of the night, the buildings were dark as tombs, locked and shuttered.
We looked for a warehouse painted army green with a sign that said simply, Inter-American Casket Company. Maybe the name was Kharchenko’s little joke. Was he burying communism here, or merely discouraging thieves? Foley drove the Plymouth with Yagamata in back and a dog-tired me riding shotgun. Without a shotgun. Foley kept swinging the car over the curb, shining his headlights on the darkened buildings. Finally, he spotted something, hit the brakes, and killed the lights.
Foley was out of the car first, running his hands over a corrugated metal door secured by a padlock. That was it. No guards, no alarm system. Just a padlock I wouldn’t trust to keep my Schwinn from being kidnapped at Bayfront Park.
Foley opened his trunk and dug out a flashlight and tire iron. He popped the padlock, and I pulled up on the handle. The door rumbled open, and a blast of cool air hit us. Pitch black. From somewhere inside, the whirr of a massive air-conditioning system.
Foley shone a flashlight on the wall, found a switch, and hit it. Overhead, bright lights blinked on, blinding me. I jumped when I heard the sound behind me, but it was only Foley closing the door.
Along one wall were wooden cartons of various sizes, sheets of Styrofoam packing material, rolls of twine and brown wrapping paper. Lettering in Spanish indicated the cartons contained Peruvian pottery. Some of the cartons were already filled, others open and empty. Waiting.
The rest of the warehouse was a jumble of colors and textures, gilt and glitter. It was filled from floor to thirty-foot ceiling with gold and silver, paintings and artifacts, statues and coins, icons and gems of all descriptions. The treasure spilled out of boxes and overflowed onto the floor, in cartons, on the walls, and on makeshift tables made of sawhorses and plywood. A czar’s ransom in riches.
“One of my favorites,” Yagamata said, pointing at a painting. “Cezanne’s Lady in Blue.” He stepped closer a
nd spoke to it. “Why are you so sad, pretty lady? Don’t you want to return to the homeland?”
“How many trucks will it take?” Foley asked.
Yagamata ignored him. He was studying a painting of dusky-skinned women eating fruit by a lake. “Sacred Spring. Gauguin offered it for sale in Paris, and no one would buy it, not for twenty francs. Foley, have you ever been to Tahiti, or is there too little mendacity there to interest you?” He chuckled and walked slowly along a table where paintings lay scattered like brilliant playing cards. “Perhaps this is more to your liking.” He gestured to an oil painting of dead, bloodied birds, surrounded by riding gear. “Trophies of the Hunt by Hamilton. On the other hand, for my taste, there is nothing lovelier than a full-bodied nude.” He pointed again, this time to a dim, greenish painting of a woman toweling off a bare, ample hip. “After the Bath, by Degas. Contrast that, for example, with Three Women by Picasso.”
Foley looked at the Picasso dispassionately. “I like my babes a little rounder,” he said. “I’ll take the Degas.”
Yes, you will, I thought.
Yagamata roamed across the warehouse, touching this and that, talking mostly to himself. “Look what the fools have done. They’ve mixed the French with the Russians. Malevich’s Flower Girl next to Matisse, and Goncharova’s Laundresses, about to be packed with a Chagall.” He clucked his disapproval and moved on. “Foley, do you know what Khrushchev said the first time he saw the avant-garde art of the modern Russian painters? That was decades ago, and there was the tiniest breeze of liberalization blowing through Moscow. At an exhibition in the Manezh, the czars’ old riding school, Khrushchev spat at the paintings. ‘Dog shit,’ he called them. ‘A donkey could do better with its tail.’ Ah, how long ago it seems. The dark ages. Do you know that Gorbachev was the Russians’ first leader since Lenin to have a university education? Oh, how he and Yeltsin changed their world.”