“Your old friend must have made some stipulations,” Vivian said.
That brought to Nikolai’s mind the photograph of Alma Pihl that Grandfather Maksim had included in the cellar cache. Alma Pihl, Fabergé designer and Grandfather Maksim’s grand passion. It wasn’t until Nikolai had become an adult and himself ignited that he was able to translate the erotic qualities of Grandfather Maksim’s tone whenever he’d spoken of Alma Pihl. The hesitations to review pleasures, the throaty grunts of reminiscence—all such things were, retrospectively, obvious clues. So now it seemed to Nikolai that by the Alma Pihl photograph Grandfather Maksim was communicating his presentiment that when the time came for Nikolai to put this precious trove to use, a passionate love would be involved and Nikolai shouldn’t hesitate. Was that not a stipulation? He told Vivian: “The only condition was that I do with them whatever I want.”
“And what,” Vivian asked, “do you intend?” She felt she knew but needed to hear.
“For you to have them.”
Her reaction was important to Nikolai. It would be telling, he thought. Worse would be if she went through the charade she used when Archer gave her expensive ugly things, refused and reluctantly gave in to having no recourse other than to suffer accepting and selling. If that was what she did she’d be putting him no higher than Archer’s level, Nikolai reasoned. He’d be disappointed and would kick himself for having overrated his standing with her. On the other hand, if she just accepted, plainly, happily accepted, it would be a positive admission.
Vivian remained silent. She seemed to be equivocating. Actually, she was prolonging her sense of occasion, the sweet fragility of the moment. She extended an imaginary line between her eyes and Nikolai’s eyes and told him seriously: “I’ll sell them, you know.”
“That’s the idea—solvency.”
“Fair warning.”
“Consider me warned.”
She rose from the sofa. “Archer,” she said without looking at him, “either put your hands over your eyes or at least try to refrain from playing with yourself.” She went to Nikolai as though magnetized, her mouth right to his mouth, her body clamped against his and struggling to get closer. A long kiss of the sort that feeds and gathers on its lack of shame. When they broke from it they had to step back abruptly, betraying their bodies.
“No one has ever given me anything so valuable,” she declared ambiguously. She began pacing to the far edge of the rug and back, symptomatic of her happiness. Her cat, Ninja, appeared and began paralleling her moves. Nikolai sat. His legs had been kissed out from under him and his arousal was showing. Simultaneously, like a mass outweighed, Archer got up and went to the table that held the Fabergé objects. He looked them over. “If they’re authentic Fabergé they’re worth a small fortune,” he said.
Nikolai took silent exception to the word “small,” although he realized that coming from Archer it was relatively true.
“Of course they’re authentic Fabergé,” Vivian contended without missing a step, and then, hardly missing a syllable, “How much would you say they’re worth?”
Archer made an uncertain face.
“Venture a guess.”
Nikolai didn’t want to.
Archer guessed their neighborhood was somewhere around three hundred thousand.
“Lovely neighborhood,” quipped Vivian.
“That’s assuming, of course, that they’re right,” Archer said. “Do they have provenance?”
“Oh, fuck it, Archer, you sound like a flitty French antique dealer. What better provenance than Nick? His grandfather was with Fabergé.”
News to Archer.
Nikolai was almost sure now that Vivian had the pieces together, knew that his “old friend” and Grandfather Maksim were one and the same. Still, this wasn’t the time to bring it up. There were enough emotions ricocheting around.
“The most expert eyes have been fooled at one time or another,” Archer said. “Forging Fabergé has been a popular and profitable pursuit for the past thirty years. Have you a loupe?” he asked Nikolai.
Vivian told him there was one in the top drawer of her secretaire. Archer found it there and began examining the objects, judging the quality of the work, the punches of the Fabergé imprints, the initials of the various workmasters, the symbols indicating seventy-two-zolotnik (eighteen-karat) gold.
Meanwhile, Vivian went partially through a stack of Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction catalogues and pulled out the recent ones of sales at which some Fabergé objects had been featured. Paging through the catalogues, she noticed how few items of this importance had been offered and when they were how impressive had been their prices. “At least three hundred thousand,” she happily reported. Among her papers she found a calendar of forthcoming auctions. Neither Christie’s nor Sotheby’s had a Russian one scheduled until late October. She needed to make a sale sooner, like tomorrow. That meant she would have to throw herself on the mercies of a dealer.
“Even many of Fabergé’s contemporaries imitated him,” Archer said while squinting through the loupe at one of the bonbonnières. “Hahn did, for example, and so did Kochli and Britzen. Much of their work was fine enough to pass and needed only to have the Fabergé mark and one of the workmasters’ initials punched onto it to increase its value.”
“I wasn’t aware you were so up on Fabergé,” Nikolai said.
“I’ve owned quite a few pieces,” Archer said, and admitted lightly, “Also got taken a number of times. Nothing like stumbles to make one cautious of steps.”
“I can’t wait until October,” Vivian put in, which indicated where her thoughts were. She had resumed her pacing.
Archer was doing his best to dampen things, Nikolai decided. But then …
“Without a doubt these are right,” Archer said, tossing the loupe in the air and snappily catching it as though celebrating the fact. “And if my opinion holds, I know a fellow who will take the lot off your hands and pay as much as or more than you’d ever get at auction.”
“A dealer?” Vivian asked, not keen on that.
“Private collector,” Archer replied. “Absolutely bonkers about Fabergé but knows his stuff. I’ll ring him up.”
CHAPTER
14
THE NEXT MORNING AT NINE.
Nikolai arrived at his office on Kensington Church Street to find that since Tuesday there had been eight calls from Churcher, who evidently refused to accept that Nikolai was away on business. It was typical enough of Churcher to disbelieve, Nikolai thought, but eight calls in three days was odd. Something important must have come up, or anyway something Churcher considered important.
Nikolai contemplated his telephone. This did not feel as if it wanted to be one of his Churcher days, he decided. There was too much of the good of last night in him, and Churcher would surely spoil it. Nikolai couldn’t keep his eyes from covering over, from refusing to register now, preferring instead to review fresh memory. It was as if his eyes wanted to roll back in their sockets. Had he died? Why did people have such a thought when living was at its best? He blinked to force his eyes to acknowledge now in the form of the telephone. Conscientiousness and Churcher were only a sequence of seven tones away. Perhaps if he had a glass of hot tea first—
As though responding to the suggestion, the phone chirped. Nikolai was certain it would be Churcher. It was Churcher’s snooty secretary asking if Nikolai would pop around as soon as it was convenient. Nikolai was tempted to tell her to hang on while he consulted his agenda, and then tell her his first open hour was next Tuesday late afternoon, say around four. “I’ll be there in a half hour,” he said.
“Fine,” she said and clicked off.
Nikolai had counted on a half hour being too soon for Churcher. The only reason he’d said a half hour was to sound cooperative. Now no time for a tea. No time for a call to Vivian to enjoy hearing her sleepiness, her natural throaty voice even throatier. And taxis would be at a premium at this hour. Nikolai took in two deep breaths and
adjusted the knot of his tie to help get himself in a Churcher state.
When he stepped out onto the street an available taxi was coming along as if ordered for him. He thought how Vivian wouldn’t admit it was a coincidence, but rather claim she’d called upon the taxi angels for help, and had been heard. She had angels for everything. They were specialists who might or might not come to her aid, depending on something as vague as whether or not they happened to be paying attention. Nikolai remembered Vivian once even attributing to angels the location of a convenient loo when she’d been caught having to go badly while out shopping New Bond. Some woman, Nikolai thought, smiling to himself as the taxi made business London whiz by. The reasons he loved her kept multiplying.
He arrived at 11 Harrowhouse and was announced to Churcher a minute early. The receptionist on the main floor said, “You may go up,” as though granting permission to heaven. She gave Nikolai an initialed slip of paper that allowed him to get off the elevator on four. There, Churcher’s secretary had her thinnest-lipped expression waiting for him. “Mr.Churcher will receive you in his office.”
“Now?”
“Immediately.”
Nikolai went down the hall and in. “Privyet!” he said amicably. Usually, Churcher would come right back at him with “Privyet!”—Greetings!—but not today. He just nodded once. He was seated behind his desk, painfully solemn, like a man with a bone stuck in his throat trying not to cough. “Sit,” he said.
Nikolai wondered if he should also bark.
“You know Pulver.”
“Yes.”
George Pulver was standing slightly behind Churcher’s high-backed chair with the staunch, opinionated air of an aide-de-camp. Pulver was head of the System’s Security Section, a position he’d held for eleven years. He wasn’t a figurehead—that is, he wasn’t an old school type who had been handed the job. Before joining the System he’d been Interpol and before that with the Yard. He was in his early fifties, too stout for tennis, not the type for golf, too impatient for bridge. Out of his gray, wrinkle-prone suit he might be taken for something like a crane operator. He had hyper-thyroid eyes, a cleft so deep in his chin it looked like an old wound, and very apparent upper and lower cheap bridge-work. Nikolai didn’t underestimate Pulver, believed the bottom line on him would be smart and mean.
“I’ve been trying to reach you all week,” Churcher said sternly.
“So I understand.”
“Doesn’t your office keep in touch with you or you with it?”
“When it’s essential.”
“Everything I say to you is essential, Borodin. Every word.”
Whatever was eating at Churcher had already corroded him quite a bit, Nikolai thought. He’d endured many of Churcher’s sour spells over the years but he’d never seen him this rankled.
“What were you doing in Moscow? Discussing another increase?” Churcher asked snidely.
Say nothing, Nikolai advised himself.
“You people are bloodsuckers. Enough is never enough.”
“How are the next sights shaping up?” Nikolai asked just to say something. He wished Churcher would offer tea as he usually did. He also wished Churcher would get to the point instead of bitching.
“Almazjuvelirexport,” Churcher said, badly mispronouncing it and letting it hang there for effect. “When you were last here with Minister Savich you will recall I brought to your attention that we believe Almaz … uh … fuck it all … your firm has for some while now been exceeding the agreed-upon limit of finished carats that it would market.”
“We assured you that was unfounded.”
“And I assured you we would not tolerate any more of it.”
“Whatever you say,” Nikolai shammed capitulation.
“Don’t get cheeky with me, Borodin,” Churcher snapped. He jabbed his index finger at Nikolai. “I can have your cushy London pillow yanked out from under your arse in a second.”
Nikolai doubted that. He took the threat impassively, sat there meeting Churcher’s hard fixed gaze. What the hell, Nikolai thought, why didn’t Churcher go for a smile, just let out a big broad one? When he reached Churcher’s age he’d be trying to get in as many smiles as he could. Why didn’t Churcher fart if he had to, loosen up, pull down his tie that was like a noose, yell out at his secretary to get off her behind and fetch tea? What was worth all this grimness?
Pulver showed Nikolai what.
From his jacket pocket he took out what is known in the diamond trade as a briefke: a special type of paper folded five times in such a manner that it serves as a packet for containing diamonds. This particular briefke was one of the larger, more substantial kinds, about five inches by three inches, lined with a slick, slightly blue paper. Pulver’s fleshy fingers were surprisingly agile in unfolding it. He placed it open on Churcher’s desk. Nikolai had to stand to see what was in it.
Churcher narrated: “Monday last, Pulver’s people intercepted an underhanded transaction in Geneva. I’m ashamed to say a dealer who had been a sightholder with us for some thirty years was on the receiving end. What you see here is some of the goods.” Churcher used the point of a letter opener to stir the mound of diamonds that lay within the briefke. “Identical stones, investment-quality, D-color, flawless one-caraters. Do you need to examine them to know they’re Aikhal goods?”
Nikolai didn’t. Only Aikhal diamonds had such frozen purity. “How much is here?” he asked.
“Eight hundred pieces. There were two other packets like this. Twenty-four hundred pieces altogether.”
Nikolai went for a blank expression.
“Our dealer,” Churcher continued, “probably paid cut-rate for them. Say sixteen a carat. Not for himself; he was middling it for an investor. No doubt the money was destined for a Swiss account. Doesn’t matter. What we’re interested in knowing is from whom our dealer bought these goods. The source.”
“Ask your dealer.”
“He died of a stroke. Anyway, lack of one. Went overboard and drowned in Lake Geneva.”
“Unfortunate.”
Churcher paused and took another tack. “Damn, Borodin,” he appealed, “why don’t you people just own up to having taken advantage and from now on live up to your bargain? It wouldn’t be mentioned again, I promise.”
“I have no knowledge that Almazjuvelirexport is involved,” Nikolai said.
Churcher put on his tortoise-rimmed glasses as if hoping the world would look improved through them. His hands were shaking.
“We’re on to you,” Pulver warned Nikolai.
Nikolai wasn’t fazed. He was innocent, so why should he worry? He’d taken Savich’s stand on this matter. Savich would feel the same about it now as he had when Churcher had brought it up only a week ago. As for the dealer in Geneva, he was most likely a figment. The true thing, though, was the goods. There was no denying they were Aikhal. A lovely lot. Nikolai ran the tip of his finger through the pile of them. He appeared seriously thoughtful, about to make a revelation. “May I take a couple of these with me?” he asked. His tone implied they might be evidential.
“Surely,” Churcher replied.
What Nikolai had in mind was ear studs for Vivian. Her lobes deserved eighteen-thousand-dollar glints. Possibly Churcher would, in the literal course of everyday business, forget Nikolai had taken them, just two.
Churcher separated a random pair from the lot. He instructed Pulver: “Have him sign for them.”
An hour later Nikolai was waiting on the street outside 46 Bruton, a typical older private residence that had gone commercial. He’d left the taxi at Regent Street and walked the rest of the way because he was early and wanted to find a luncheonette for anything that might do for breakfast. Now he felt he would have been better off if he’d stayed hungry. The two frosting-topped crullers he’d bolted down at a standup counter were a balking lump refusing to be processed. They stuck around the lower exit of his esophagus as though angry at having been eaten and letting that be known by squirting up ac
id.
Had he time to find someplace to buy a roll of antacid tablets or possibly a few gurgles of Perrier? His watch told him he might, but when he looked up and down that short street and didn’t see a store of any kind, he decided to stay there and persevere. What mental distraction would help? Offered up was that lot of diamonds Churcher and Pulver had been so peeved about. Nikolai had misgivings about the attitude he’d displayed in that morning’s meeting. He’d been a bit cavalier toward Churcher’s concern. Better he should have come off as the solicitous Russian partner and just let Churcher huff and thrash all he wanted. Truth be known, he felt a bit sorry for Churcher, Churcher’s having to maintain face while kissing ass. His need to hit out every so often was understandable.
What about those diamonds? There had to be something to them the way Churcher was again pressing the issue and Pulver with his police mentality was hovering like a hawk ready to swoop. There was no questioning that the diamonds were Aikhal goods. Their distinctive, fine colorlessness and perfect, identical cuts identified them. Then what of Churcher’s accusation that Almazjuvelirexport was selling more finish than it was supposed to? Nikolai always knew within a week the firm’s sales figures. The records were kept clear and tight with no chinks to slip amounts through, and if the firm had a secondary, covert policy going, certainly he’d be in on it. That left only the possibility that the diamonds were coming to market in some way other than the normal channels. How about directly from Aikhal? It would mean someone assigned to Aikhal was skimming from the yield and the production of finished goods without its being noticed. Hardly likely. Someone would have to be putting aside that batch of stones and to know a way of getting them through all of Aikhal’s complex security measures. It would mean having to steal out sizable batches at a time. Aikhal, remote as it was, prevented any steady flow of thievery. There just wasn’t enough coming and going. A stone or even a few were pilfered now and then, but nowhere near the amount needed for the accumulation of diamonds Pulver was supposed to have confiscated from a dealer in good standing, who, Nikolai gathered, had taken the long drink in Lake Geneva rather than face up to whatever charges and punishment the System believed suitable. It was an accepted fact in the trade that the System never called on the police, dealt with its own in its own ways. Nikolai imagined the errant dealer being pushed overboard, but then that wouldn’t have been done by any of Pulver’s people, he realized, at least not until they’d gotten the source of the diamonds out of him. Who, then, would have done the pushing? Perhaps, Nikolai thought, Savich was right about Churcher’s having invented this matter only to provide himself with a bitching point for future negotiations. As much as Nikolai respected Savich’s judgment, now that he was giving the thing a second thought, Savich’s assessment didn’t settle it for him. It just didn’t want to slip by the way it had last week and earlier that morning. Savich’s assessment seemed altogether too convenient, too palpable. There was accommodation to the way it fit. How could he tactfully bring that to Savich’s attention? He couldn’t come right out and tell the Minister of Foreign Trade that he’d misread a man, glossed over something that warranted being looked into. Nikolai believed that after six years he knew his Churcher. The man hadn’t been dramatizing today: He’d been honestly upset, and not without a reason more serious than the contrivance of a negotiating ploy. Also, something else about it was bothering Nikolai, something he couldn’t quite bring clear, something that was nudging at him from inside as if trying to remind him there was more to it that he should be conscious of. The link to it all. What was it?
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