House of Secrets - v4

by Richard Hawke

  YOU’VE GOT TO START SOMEWHERE

  With our blessings.

  Whit & Lil

  Seven years after they moved in, Christine and Andy’s enviable expanse of sky had suffered the incursion of black smoke moving northward from the cruelly bludgeoned tip of the island. Christine’s particular cries on that horrible day — quite piercing at their peak — had been for vastly different reasons than those of so many of her fellow citizens. Far from being a response to the swift shuttering of so many lives, Christine’s cries had sounded the requisite agony accompanying the miracle of new life. A daughter. Barred from their home those first weeks after the cataclysm, Christine and Andy had given their newborn her first taste of true luxury living, taking her up to the other Greenwich — not the street but the town, Greenwich, Connecticut — and the rambling family estate where Christine and her brother, Peter, had spent their childhoods. The sprawling house was also where Michelle Foster’s parents had legally linked their fates in matrimony some years previous, for better or worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as they both shall live.

  So far so good. At least, so it seemed.

  Rosa had left a phone message that she and Michelle were going to head over to Hudson River Park for a while after school, so Christine puttered the afternoon away on her own. She wasn’t able to get Andy on the phone until several hours after her return home. He’d been tied up in closed-door hearings all day over the situation in Athens (what the situation was, she didn’t even know) and she’d managed to catch him during a brief recess. She had grabbed the Times and pulled a chair up to the large picture window, elevating her foot on a stack of magazines. Out on the water, a large brown barge was being nudged upriver by a comparably tiny tugboat. Michelle called them pushboats, a logical enough renaming. Seven and a half years and counting and the little girl had never seen any of the cartoon-looking craft actually tugging anything. It was all push and nudge.

  Christine opted not to share with Andy her own injury. It could wait. Instead, she scolded her husband. “What do you think you’re doing running around with fresh stitches in your head? Are you a nut? You should be taking it easy. I think you can put off saving the world for one day.”

  “Tell that to the Greek defense minister.”

  “Gladly. Put him on the line.”

  A red balloon trailing a long white ribbon appeared in the window, moving diagonally across Christine’s vision, buffeted by minor gusts. Christine swiveled her foot gingerly.

  “Seriously, Andy. Are you all right? How in the world did you manage to fall down in a shower of all things?”

  “I didn’t mention the banana peel?”

  Christine ignored the joke. “Seriously, though. You’re okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Andy said. “Except for my pride. I do feel pretty stupid.”

  Christine laughed. “If I know you, your pride will heal up a lot quicker than your head.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Suck it up, Senator. But listen. I’m serious about you taking it easy. You’re not a hundred percent. I can hear it in your voice.”

  Christine’s gaze landed on the newspaper on her lap. She winced as she shifted her foot again. “Andy, what’s all this noise about Chris Wyeth? I thought you told me it was just politics as usual. But it sounds to me like this VP thing is actually heating up. We’re not actually talking anything serious here, are we?”

  “I don’t think so,” Andy said. “You know how it goes. Something’s got to bring the president’s honeymoon to a close. Too much good cheer makes people nervous.”

  “So, it’s just political spitballs.” The term was a favorite of her father’s.

  “Exactly. It’ll pass.”

  The two chatted for another few minutes. Andy informed his wife that on orders from the doctor who had stitched him up, he was planning on taking the Amtrak back to New York the next day instead of flying.

  “We don’t have anything planned until Sunday, right?”

  Christine switched the phone to her other ear. “Not much. Some charity dinners. Dancing at the Rainbow Room. I think you’re giving a speech to the Aardvark Society. And, oh yes. You’re supposed to go down to the seaport and christen a boat or two and kiss a whole bunch of babies.”

  “So, basically we’re just laying low until Sunday.”

  “Basically.”

  “Good. I’ll sign off on that plan.”

  “Okay then, sweetie,” Christine said. “You’d better get back and patch things up for the Greeks. Otherwise everything will be in ruins, ha ha. I’ll see you tomorrow. I promise we’ll do absolutely nothing together. It’ll be nice. I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” Andy said. He added, “Seriously.”

  Five minutes later, the front door opened and Michelle bounded into the apartment.

  “Mommy!”

  Mommy was still seated by the window with her foot up on a stack of magazines. She was still gazing out at the sky. Still musing on her husband’s sign-off.

  Seriously?

  What the hell was that all about?

  Dimitri tossed the last empty mussel shell onto the plate. He tore a chunk of bread from the small loaf in the wicker basket and dabbed it among the shells, saturating it with garlic butter. The waiter was passing by the next table, and Dimitri waved the chunk of bread to get his attention.

  “Hey! Another beer.” He shoved the piece of bread in his mouth.

  Acknowledging the order with a nod, the waiter addressed the woman seated across from Dimitri.

  “Would you like another Chablis?”

  Irena Bulakov had been nursing her glass of wine throughout dinner. Over an inch remained. “No, thank you.” Her intention to smile fell short. She was nervous; she couldn’t help herself.

  After the waiter left, Dimitri spoke through his chewing. “What is it, are you pissing in your pants over there? Why don’t you enjoy yourself? Here. Have some of this butter.”

  As he slid the oval plate across the table, a few of the slick black shells spilled onto the floor. An elderly couple was coming through the front door to the restaurant, and Irena glanced over to see the Coney Island Cyclone a block away, silhouetted against the ghostly dusk.

  “I don’t want the butter,” Irena said.

  “You only ate half your fish.”

  “I am not hungry, Dimitri. The butter is too rich.”

  “The food is good here,” Dimitri said, scowling. “You see what it costs.”

  “I’m sorry.” Irena leaned over and retrieved the empty shells from the floor and returned them to the plate. She hesitated, then lapped at her fingers. “There. Very tasty. Thank you.”

  The beer arrived, and the waiter swapped it for Dimitri’s latest empty. Dimitri took a large swig, internalized the belch, and looked around at the nearly full dining room. A somewhat older crowd, many of the men wearing coats and ties. The pimply boy at the hotel across the street had recommended the restaurant.

  Irena placed her hands in her lap. Her small shoulders were hunched forward. She had a narrow face with a small thick mouth and a long narrow nose. Her eyes these days generally knew two modes: weary and wearier. Tonight was the latter.

  “Dimitri?” It was almost a mew. “Why don’t you talk to me? Please tell me. What happened yesterday? Why are we in a hotel? I am so confused.”

  Dimitri had been drinking beer ever since meeting up with his wife. That was three hours ago. She had done as he asked on the phone the night before and packed a bag and located a hotel. She had phoned Dimitri at noon, as instructed, and told him where she was. When he arrived he was full of energy, but still grumpy and nonresponsive. All he would say to Irena’s questions was, “Not now. I have to think.”

  Irena hadn’t dared to say it out loud. But you don’t think, Dimitri. You drink.

  Dimitri had not been quite so round-bellied when Irena met him nine years before. He had shown her his smile more often back then. Soon after their ma
rriage, however, she had come to discover that her husband’s good moods had a distressingly short shelf life. The same could be said concerning Dimitri’s employment. If he arrived home stinking of beer and ranting about how stupid his coworkers or his boss were, Irena could be pretty sure that her husband was out of work again. Just under two years ago, Irena had prayed to Jesus and crossed her fingers when Dimitri and his brother, Leonard, signed the lease for the building they were planning to convert into their Ping-Pong center. The brothers had been so excited. Dimitri had come to Irena with dollar signs in his blurry eyes.

  “Look at what people do with the pool halls and the bowling alleys. Leonard and I can create a demand, and soon we will have to open up a second center. This is how it is done. You attract the best players. You become tournament level! You have no limit to what can happen.”

  While working on his dream, Dimitri had wearied of trying to work for other people and had gotten his hack license. He calculated that within months of his and Leonard’s Ping-Pong parlor opening he would be able to quit his taxi job. This had proved an ambitious calculation. Before the first year was out, Dimitri had added a number of shifts. Dimitri and Leonard had lined up several silent partners to help with their initial financing. There were several bank loans as well, but the preference — mainly Dimitri’s — had been to accept the services of certain “community leaders,” as the local newspaper liked to call them, men whose philosophy was that countrymen should look out for countrymen. One such person in particular, a mobster named Aleksey Titov, had taken a special interest in Dimitri and his brother. Against Leonard’s protests, Titov had arranged for the brothers to procure a liquor license for their establishment. The original plans had not called for the serving of alcohol, or even much food beyond light snacks. But Titov had convinced Dimitri otherwise, even arranging free of charge for a set of plans to be drawn up that would include a full-service tavern in the rear of the parlor. Titov arranged for the extra loans to cover the additional costs. He brought in some people who, he told Dimitri and Leonard, could do the construction work in half the usual time. An exaggerated claim, as it turned out. In fact, a second loan had been required — this one also choreographed by Aleksey Titov — to help finance the unfortunate overages.

  Dimitri’s smile had made fewer and fewer appearances as the construction and the money hemorrhaging had dragged on. The grueling schedule of his taxi shifts and his time spent overseeing matters at the parlor — he and Leonard had come up with the name, Paddles — left him punchy and increasingly irritable. The balance on the loans never seemed to be budging. Equally discouraging, the quality of play at the tables was hardly screaming “tournament!” People came to play, yes, but mostly it was just for fun. They were not taking the game seriously. The night that Dimitri and Leonard had their first really ugly argument, Dimitri stormed out and went home confused and angry, and before he knew it he had slapped Irena in the face. Then he cried. He also cried the next time it happened, though not any of the times after that. Irena took to telling herself, Dimitri does not hit me. He loves me. It is his beer. His beer hits me.

  Irena loved her husband. She knew that the real Dimitri was in there somewhere. Irena had miscarried three times over the past five years, and Dimitri had not handled the incidents well. Irena knew that her husband was taking their failure to have children as his failure: yet another of Dimitri’s forestalled visions. The fault, of course, if that was the correct word to use, resided in Irena’s nervous body. But then, Dimitri had chosen her for his wife, so perhaps it was for this reason that he took the blame onto himself. How else to explain his irrationality and his sullenness after each of the miscarriages? Irena worried for him. He was under so much pressure. If only the pressure could just lift a little, maybe the old Dimitri would return. She had faith. She prayed daily for his return.

  After dinner, Irena convinced Dimitri to take a walk with her along the boardwalk. First, he bought a baseball cap from a souvenir shop, pulling it down low over his face. Dimitri had ordered too many beers at dinner, and his feet shuffled somewhat. But the air seemed to revive him. Studying him closely ever since he had arrived at the hotel and again through dinner, Irena knew that the secrets he was withholding from her were something new, something different from the usual pressures that had become so commonplace over the past several years. What alarmed Irena the most was that Dimitri was not asking about Leonard. His brother had been admitted to the hospital the day before with chest pains, yet the topic didn’t seem to find any space in Dimitri’s mind. Other thoughts were crowding it out. They could not be good thoughts.

  The breeze was coming in briskly off the water. The night was cool and briny. Irena hooked her arm in Dimitri’s elbow and set her head lightly against his shoulder as they walked. She hummed a made-up tune in the slow rhythm of their steps. A volleyball game was under way on the sand, the ball barely visible in the night air, just a faint little moon arcing through the air. Laughter carried over from the sand, and Irena became sad. Spring and summer had not proven to be nearly as good a time for business as Dimitri and Leonard had once predicted. People wanted to remain outdoors, not come inside to hit the Ping-Pong balls. The sound of laughter on the beach was not always something that lifted her husband’s spirits.

  Dimitri and Irena took a seat on a bench, facing the water. Dimitri was still lost in his private thoughts.

  “Wait here,” Irena said, and she backtracked over to a pizza place and bought a pair of coffees. When she returned, Dimitri was on his cell phone. Irena slowed and then stopped altogether some twenty feet from the bench.

  Dimitri’s voice was harsh and more than a little slurred.

  “No! This is what I am trying to tell you! It is no longer enough money, no way. I am thinking of you, too. Do you understand? You are also being cheated. This deal must be renegotiated, Aleksey. I am telling you, everything has changed.”

  Irena’s heart sank. Aleksey Titov. Of course. It was always Aleksey Titov, the man who owned her husband and her brother-in-law. Aleksey Titov was in the business of owning people. Once upon a time, Irena had prayed for Aleksey Titov’s soul, but no longer. If God wanted to work with Aleksey Titov, that was his business. But the man was destroying Irena and Dimitri’s happiness. He was an evil man with a heart of coal who rejoiced in the miseries of others. That was the mark of evil. There was no more to be said on the matter.

  Irena inched closer to the bench. Dimitri had risen to his feet. He was still facing the water.

  “No, you must listen to me, Aleksey. You will understand when you see what I saw. A man making love with a woman is a small potato. But a man like this? Excuse my opinion, Aleksey, but two thousand dollars for me is ridiculous. You do not know who this man is. But I know. It is all different now. Your client does not have this man by the balls. I have your client by the balls. You see? I have this file, Aleksey. I am putting it on the flash drive, where it is safe. And I tell you, no stupid two thousand dollars will do. Not now. Not for this!”

  The anger in his voice was beginning to spike. Irena worried that Dimitri would turn around and see her standing there listening in on his side of the conversation. Dimitri continued.

  “Aleksey, I risked my life to go back into that house to get my equipment. This crazy man, he could have come back. So, now you listen to me. I am not just a person to push around here. I need you to understand this. This is too big. I am dying in that fucking taxicab. I am dying in that fucking hole that my brother and I should have never climbed into. That is all over now. When I tell you who is this man, Aleksey, you will see. You will have your client by the balls. But what I am saying is that right now I have you by the balls.”

  Irena started. No! Oh Lord. Please, no. Do not say such words. Not to Aleksey Titov. Please. No.

  But people did not call Dimitri Bulakov stupid for nothing.

  Dimitri was yelling now. “You tell him this! One. Million. Dollars! Nothing less! It comes from him or it comes from the man hi
mself, I do not care which it is. You and I will get this money, Aleksey, and you and I will shake hands and drink a toast, and we will go home and make love to our wives. It will all be good.”

  Dimitri turned his head abruptly and saw Irena standing there holding two cups of coffee. To Irena’s surprise, he did not scowl at her.

  “I am hanging up now,” Dimitri said into the phone. “You will thank me when you hear who this man is. We will laugh, and we will all be rich.”

  Dimitri flipped the phone closed. Behind him, the ocean and the sky had become an identical midnight blue. Indistinguishable.

  Irena’s knees were shaking. “Dimitri. Please do not play around with Aleksey Titov. He is dangerous.”

  Dimitri started toward her. “I have something he wants.”

  “Give it to him!” The cry choked in her throat.

  Dimitri reached her and lifted one of the coffees from her. The glow of neon lights from the amusement park rides were playing over his face. He looked like a mad clown.

  “I have Aleksey Titov by the balls, Irena. This is our chance!”

  The shaking moved its way through the rest of Irena’s frail body. Coffee splashed onto her wrist.

  “Oh, no. Dimitri. Do not say that. Please. Do not do this thing.”

  All through the weekend, the drumbeat grew louder: the vice president needed to make a clear accounting of his activities while he’d been serving as New York’s attorney general. On Saturday, traditionally a slow news day, a new story had emerged concerning the renovation of a severely fire-damaged theater in Ithaca and possible links between Chris Wyeth and the contractor who had been awarded the project. A sweetheart deal involving one of Wyeth’s financial supporters. The Republicans smelled blood, and on the Sunday talk shows the thirstiest of them showed off their gleaming incisors.