As soon as they were up in their suite, Vivian undressed, swiped the back of her knees with Tabu, toed into a pair of high-heeled mules, and put on a full-length, pale green silk charmeuse robe. She tied its sash firmly. “Why don’t you go shave again?” she suggested offhandedly.
Nikolai went into the bathroom, stripped down to nothing, and softened his twelve-hour beard with a steaming facecloth. He heard the slick friction of Vivian moving about in the sitting-room. He considered the power she held over him. Hadn’t she intentionally let him stand there watching her get out of her clothes? Hadn’t she purposely put on those high heels before anything else? Surely her suggestion that he shave hadn’t been an afterthought. He, her man, was like an electric something that she could turn on and off. He lathered his jaws, gazed in the mirror at himself smiling at himself, and knew he wouldn’t have it any other way.
When he was done and went out to her he found her seated at the desk. She’d removed the shade from the desk lamp for stronger, more direct light. Before her on the surface of the desk lay two automatic pistols, with silencers, holsters, and other accessories. Nikolai had known she’d brought them along, had tried to reason her out of it and had thought he might have until he saw her unpack them and put them in her dresser drawer beneath a layer of lingerie.
The lighter pistol was hers. A .380 Beretta. Archer had brought it for her a while back because she’d mentioned that she’d feel a bit easier having a firearm of some sort in the flat. She’d quickly learned it and come to feel possessive toward it, and on edgy occasions before sleep she’d check to make sure it was in its place, sharing the shallow drawer of her nightstand with a jar of handcream, satin eyeshades, the telly remote control, and a few pieces of chewy butterscotch toffee that had gone hard and stale. What she particularly liked about the Beretta was its grip, which felt perfect for her hand. Plus the fact that it took a thirteen-round staggered magazine. At various times she took her pistol down to Devon to get in practice; Nikolai had watched her, dead serious, plug away at tin cans set in a row on a fence. He had also come across some paper targets that she’d shot up and kept as a record of her improved accuracy. Scribbled in the upper right corners of the targets were notations such as “30 yards rapid fire Sept. 30.” Several recent targets showed all her shots had torn through near the center in practically the same spot. There was no doubt in Nikolai’s mind that she knew how to shoot. His only question was when, if ever, she would put that ability to use.
The other pistol was Nikolai’s. He’d received it as a stocking stuffer from Vivian last Christmas. A Sig Saur P-226. The sales clerk at Purdy’s, where Vivian had bought it, had first suggested a Browning .45, but Vivian had fired that type of pistol a few times with Archer and found it unmanageable. It was enough to make a mercenary soldier flinch, and its recoil was so excessive that half the time it got fired at the sky. No, she didn’t deny the Browning .45 had stopping power, she told the clerk, but wasn’t hitting bloody essential to stopping? The Sig P-226, however, seemed just right for Nikolai. A 9mm Parabellum, it held fifteen rounds in its magazine, had good heft to it.
The first time Nikolai fired the Sig was in the snow down in Devon. A bright afternoon with the sun glaring off everything, so that Nikolai had difficulty just seeing the quarter-pound-size caviar tin Vivian placed on a fence post for a target. About the size of a human heart, she’d remarked. He’d never mentioned how he’d won trophies back in his Komsomol days. As he took his stance and aim he could sense her doubt that he’d come within a yard of hitting the tin. He’d show her. He was also motivated by wanting to get this shooting stuff over with. It wasn’t compatible with love. Besides, his feet were cold and he hadn’t yet had lunch. The first shot he squeezed off sent the tin flying. To prove that hadn’t been luck his second shot made it leap and skitter across the snow. Vivian had tried not to appear impressed, praised only the merits of the pistol. He’d handed her the Sig and hurried into the house.
Now there she was with both weapons and a carton of Belgian chocolate.
“Why do that now?” Nikolai asked.
“I’ve been putting it off,” she replied absently, with a huge hunk of extra-bitter chocolate in her mouth, making her cheek appear swollen.
Nikolai stood behind her and watched her break down and clean the Beretta. His love with a lethal thing in her hands, he thought, those same hands that …
Some primitive source within him sent a shiver from his tailbone to the base of his skull. It drove him to the refuge of the nearby chair. He sat across its soft lap, his legs angled over its fat stuffed arm. He shouldn’t resent Vivian’s concern with the pistols, he told himself. What harm in her wanting to feel more a part of what was going on? Observing her from that mental vantage was more comfortable for him. She was so engrossed in her task that she wouldn’t take a moment to retie the sash of the robe. The robe slid off her left shoulder. She retrieved it. But the second time it slid off she just let it have its way.
Other parts of her had at various moments amazed Nikolai. This time it was her left shoulder. The raw light was starkly defining it. He was, of course, familiar with its external conformation, thought of it as one of a pair of perfect shoulders, and he knew well from having traveled it so often the fine texture of her skin there. However, it seemed to him unfair and frustrating to be so limited. Would that he were able to feel and know her all the way to her bones. What of the fibers and sinews, the special tissues of her, the bouquets of nerve ends and capillaries? He would, if it were possible, race about inside her with her blood. At certain times more than others it was easier for him to imagine that he was experiencing her experiences. When he was quietly within her, not moving in and out but remaining in, held in, he could sometimes transcend his self and his separateness and feel he was as much being filled as filling. But it was such a transitory sensation, usually lasting no longer than a few breaths.
“I’ll bet you’ve never broken down your Sig,” she said, returning him to a wider angle of thought. “You really should, you know. Never know when you might need to depend on such a friend. Do you want me to clean it for you?”
“No.”
“I already have.” She held up one of the stubby silencers and squinted into it. “I’ve also loaded three spare clips for you.”
“Thanks.” Nikolai decided he’d come down to a level as practical as the one she was on. He got up and went into the bedroom. The maid had already prepared the bed for the night. A gold-foil-wrapped Teuscher chocolate mint had been placed on each pillow. Sweet dreams might have been the intention, but wasn’t the hotel aware that there was more caffeine in chocolate than in coffee? Nikolai yanked the top sheet down and off onto the floor at the foot. He lay face up on the bed. He didn’t realize how his mind was racing until he closed his eyes. The image that kept recurring was the figure 17 with six zeros after it. How would he view his world then? Changed? Merely the imminence of wealth had him looking at it somewhat differently. The anticipation was sort of the same he’d felt as a boy when Grandfather Maksim was getting out the pails and Irina was packing a lunch for the next day when they would go berry picking. If Grandfather Maksim were to materialize right now in this room, Nikolai thought, he would dance around the bed. He would tug at his beard, merrily bob his head from side to side, take a deep breath as though inhaling pure joy, and dance until the perspiration was dropping from his earlobes. Not until the very last, a day or so before dying, had the spark gone from Grandfather Maksim’s eyes. Chances were it had come back as soon as he’d passed over, because that was how Nikolai saw him now.
And what of Irina? Nikolai hadn’t heard from her since that night in Prague in the crystal works when she’d tried to put him in his place. Was she so self-conscious of having been wrong then that she was now silent and hiding? Didn’t she know he would forgive her anything? If she were alive now, Nikolai imagined, he would whisk her off to London, defect her, set her up in one of those creamy clean town-houses on Chester Terrace,
and put in a standing order with Pulbrook & Gould to always have huge bouquets fresh in every room. He and she would sit in a glider in her garden and remark to one another how lovely life was. He would observe her hands and see peace in them and perhaps she would read aloud those letters from her anonymous lover and tell Nikolai about him and allow their sentimentality to spill back over the past. His father wouldn’t be there, just not be there ever. Irina would have a car and driver. She would dress expensively, feel youthful, and be discriminating with her passion.
Seventeen million dollars.
Only a fifth of what the ultimate total would be. Five times seventeen was eighty-five. Eighty-five million. He would have to come up with four more buyers as cooperative as Nagel. That would take some doing. Nikolai disliked all the guile and wangling at this level of the diamond business. It seemed to him that the reputation the business had for being traditionally honest was used to cover the hustle of the dealers ever ready to outsmart one another. No matter. First this transaction with Nagel, then four others equally discreet, Nikolai thought. As long as he and Vivian were there in Antwerp, they might as well stay on and get it over with. Every day wouldn’t be like today. It would take a week, more likely two. They’d be climbing the walls by then, especially Vivian. Her opinion of Antwerp had already descended. She’d chosen to mention how that afternoon when she’d passed an old man with an old dog seated in a doorway both had growled at her.
The telephone chirped.
Nikolai picked up, expecting it would be Archer. No one else knew where they were.
It was Nagel. He apologized for intruding on Nikolai’s privacy.
“How did you locate me?” Nikolai asked.
“It wasn’t all that difficult.”
“I changed hotels,” Nikolai offered.
“So the concierge at the Excelsior informed me.”
Nikoali had never been near the Excelsior. He felt embarrassingly transparent.
“Anyway,” Nagel told him, “there were only so many hotels where you could be, considering the requirements of your taste.”
Now flattery. “What can I do for you?”
“Perhaps an important favor.”
He wants out of the deal, Nikolai thought. They’d shaken on it. It was a done deal. No outs.
“After you left my office,” Nagel said, “I had a telephone conversation with my client.”
“And?”
“In describing the fine quality of your goods I evidently got a bit carried away, and, well, you know how a rich American can be when he gets it into his head that he absolutely must own something. My client is now pressing me to obtain more than the thousand pieces for him. When I told him that might not be possible, he got upset.”
“Merely upset?”
“To the extent that our transaction may be in jeopardy.”
“So he walks.” A shrug in his tone.
“I don’t want to lose him.”
Neither did Nikolai, really. If this deal fell through it would mean today was wasted. No seventeen million head start. He’d have to scratch around Antwerp tomorrow still looking for a first buyer. “What is it you want me to do?”
“Do better than a thousand pieces.”
“How many better?”
“Judging from my client’s frame of mind I’d say as many as you can come up with. Within reason, of course.”
Here for the grabbing was the solution to what he’d been lying there concerned about, Nikolai thought. A chance to turn over the entire lot in one fell swoop. The only reason for not doing that was how visible five thousand carats of Aikhal would be hitting the open market all at once. With Nagel and his American investor it wouldn’t be the open market. So in that regard a thousand carats might as well be five thousand. What was more, Nagel believed these diamonds were from Botswana. That seemed incredible. With their uniform color and cut they were so obviously Aikhal goods. Apparently Nagel had “bad eyes,” which wasn’t to say his vision was clinically impaired, but rather that he was one of those who couldn’t tell the source of one diamond from the next. Many dealers couldn’t but claimed they could, because the ability was an accepted measure of knowledge in the trade. It was true that diamonds from, say, Sierra Leone had certain characteristics which set them apart from others, and a dealer with “good eyes” could see that. In this instance, however, Nagel was about four thousand miles off. That was the convincer for Nikolai, along with the prospect of wrapping up everything tomorrow and getting out of Antwerp, getting on with the better life. He told Nagel: “Any amount above the initial thousand pieces would have to be at the full going rate.”
Nagel protested.
Nikolai stood firm. Eighteen thousand a carat.
“It seems you have your knee on my neck,” Nagel said, capitulating.
“Eighteen then?”
“Done.”
“Done.”
“But you haven’t yet said how many more pieces you’ll be bringing to the deal. I must let my client know tonight.”
“A few short of five thousand.”
“Five? That should satisfy the bastard.”
CHAPTER
22
PROMPTLY AT TWO THE NEXT AFTERNOON, NIKOLAI AND Vivian were at Nagel’s office. Nagel was surprised that Vivian had come along. He was polite, but his cordiality was forced and it was evident he disapproved of her being there. Nikolai chalked that up to the chauvinistic streak which still ran wide through the diamond business, especially at the upper levels. The System, for example, had never allowed a woman on its board of directors, and none of its top executives was female. Typical was the sardonic remark that women were the recipients of diamonds and that was concession enough.
Nikolai had mentioned this attitude to Vivian, thinking she might prefer not to be where she wasn’t wanted.
She, while artfully smudging powdery brown eye shadow on her left lid, had told him: “If you think for one second I’m going to let you traipse around alone carrying many millions in diamonds, think again.” She let that sink in for the time it took her to outline her lips with a tiny pointed brush and fill them in vibrant pink straight from the tube. Then she added: “There are more places than not in this world where they’ll cut off your whole lower arm to steal a cheap wristwatch, and from what I gather, Antwerp is not exactly hallowed territory.”
Nikolai knew then it would be futile to try to dissuade her. He didn’t say anything when she put her Beretta in her purse, nor did he resist when she held up his shoulder holster with his Sig in it for him to put on. He checked in the mirror to make sure the pistol wasn’t apparent beneath his suit jacket. If there’d been even the suggestion of a bulge he would have refused to wear it.
Now in Nagel’s office he felt the hardness of the Sig against his side below his armpit and was rather glad he had it on. It was as though the pistol had assumed a certain responsibility. Nikolai was now also glad that Vivian had come along. Having her witness his closing this deal certainly wasn’t going to hurt his stock. It was an event, something they’d recall any number of times in the future. Be sure to take in the details so they could be played back later, he told himself. He glanced at Vivian sitting there in her neat blue linen suit. She was squinting across the desk at Nagel. No doubt trying to focus on his irises. He probably thought she was myopic. As long as she didn’t whip out her magnifying monocle.
“Well, let’s get to it,” Nagel said, limbering his fingers.
“Did you speak to your client?”
“Of course.”
Nagel appeared impatient, Nikolai thought. Perhaps that was his normal behavior whenever he got this close to profit. Nikolai snapped open his attaché case and took out the diamonds. He had them in ten separate oversize briefkes, five hundred pieces in each briefke, except for the one marked on the outside with a red x, which was nine pieces short. He placed the briefkes on the desk.
Nagel unfolded them and examined their contents. He stirred the layers of diamonds with a finger and
cursorily scanned them through his loupe. As he finished with each lot he put it aside, without comment.
Finally, he was done with all ten. He sat back and locked eyes with Nikolai.
Nikolai didn’t like that look. It had a smug, adversarial quality to it. “Satisfied?” Nikolai asked. Now he was the impatient one.
“Yes.”
“Phone your client.”
Nagel reached to the telephone and pressed one of its intercom signals.
At once the door on the left swung open.
In came George Pulver, head of the System’s Security Section. And two of his men with their right hands partially inserted beneath their jackets, ready to draw pistols.
“I told you we’d nail you,” Pulver said.
The reasons this was happening began coming together in Nikolai’s mind, like the instantaneous reassembling of something that had been shattered. Nagel was a large part of it. He hated Nagel for it and wanted Nagel to see his hate, but the gray man was up now, standing at the window with his back to the room, as though what was happening in it was too distasteful for him. Nikolai had the urge to reach over and bash him on the head. Because of Pulver’s two men he thought better of it.
“I’ll take these, thank you,” Pulver said, picking up the ten briefkes.
“They’re not yours to take,” Nikolai snapped.
“Just for evidence, Borodin. I’ll be giving you a memo for them.”
Nikolai glanced at Vivian. She appeared calm, as though she were no more than an interested observer. However, Nikolai knew her eyes and saw in them a mixture of futility and fury. He recognized it as the same emotion she’d revealed that day recently in the stream in Devon when she’d lost that huge trout. She had no idea who Pulver was. Probably she thought this was a holdup.
Pulver doubled a large rubber band around the briefkes and put them in his business case. He brought out a memorandum, the sort of receiptlike form used in the diamond trade when one dealer is receiving goods on consignment from another. “How many carats exactly?” he asked.
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