A man in Canada claimed to be the tsarevitch. A man in Finland did, too. One who had been imprisoned in a gulag in Siberia had a really good story. Dozens of wannabe Alexis Nicholaevich Romanovs sneaked into the news on a regular basis.
Some claimed there was no legitimate heir. But a yearning grew up in the hearts of many Russians, after the fall of Communism, for the old days and the old ways, and the stories of the pretenders continued.
Did Constantin Zhukovsky know something about the death of the Romanovs? If he did, what in the world did it have to do with the death of his daughter, and her burial in his grave? Did he have some link to a survivor of the carnage at Ekaterinburg?
Nina called Ginger, then Paul to tell him what she had found out, and what she now suspected. Why were the bones of Constantin Zhukovsky stolen? Because someone-Christina? Alex? Sergey?-someone thought Constantin Zhukovsky’s heritage was suspect, or useful, and needed the bones to prove it.
Paul had to keep it brief on his cell phone. He was heading north along the coast, in hot pursuit of his suspect.
Up the angular silhouette of California they flew, Paul, in his treasured red Mustang, tailing Alex Zhukovsky. Paul knew his car wasn’t ideal for blending in, but figured he could make up for his conspicuousness with his skill. He didn’t know what to make of what Nina told him about executions nearly a hundred years before. He tossed the information in with the rest of the wet, involuted salad of facts in his mind.
Dusk brought out the commuters with their cruise controls. The self-absorbed faces all around Paul didn’t seem to notice the sand dunes, the glimpses of the Pacific on his left, the seductive air. Zhukovsky, a couple of cars ahead, driving a white Cadillac Coupe de Ville, wove relentlessly through the traffic.
In addition to her unusually moving lecture about the Romanovs, Nina had said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone with a guiltier conscience than Alex Zhukovsky. He lied on the stand, and, you know what? I think he feels bad about it. Watch him tonight, Paul.” So of course, after a quick drink at Alfredo’s, the professor headed out of town for points unknown. Paul did have his portable cooler with a quart of orange Gatorade so he wouldn’t perish, but he hadn’t had time to find Wish. So he listened to Diana Krall’s new jazz CD, opened the windows, and tried to enjoy the ride.
At Santa Cruz, Zhukovsky turned onto Highway 17, which meant a trip over the mountains toward San Jose and the San Francisco peninsula. Paul called Nina again on his cell phone and reported in, asking if she needed him to bring home anything from Alaska, in case Zhukovsky kept going, but Nina just said to stay with him. They took the curves fast, but Zhukovsky never made any elusive maneuvers, he just drove grimly on.
Paul merged through one of those exchanges concocted by a psycho highway engineer, ending up eventually on Highway 85. He then turned onto 280 north, in the midst of the great nondescript metropolis of San Jose, and began feeling an itching deep in his pineal gland, or whatever that thing was deep in his head that sometimes told him he was being watched. A brand-new Infiniti passed on the right, and the driver, a round-headed guy with a blond brush cut wearing dark-tinted driving glasses, gave him a hard stare.
Paul steered straight but his heart lurched from lane to lane. He had seen that round head before, in a back row of Courtroom 2. The guy had been leaning back with his eyes half closed as Paul passed him, just before the Wyatt trial opened. He had also seen him every day in court, and seen him get up and leave suddenly after Susan Misumi’s testimony, and again today after Alex’s. He had thought the guy was a reporter.
Very interesting. And…
He had seen this same car on Highway 1 and again on 17. The Infiniti pulled ahead, mean and matte, a black light-sucker. A rich gangsta car, Paul thought, and this thought got stronger as he watched it pull back into the left lane, one car behind Zhukovsky.
So now Paul was the tail on a tail. Excellent development. Endless possibilities.
The shadow-caravan whipped past tech heaven along Sand Hill Road and the rural wealth hidden alongside Woodside Road, continuing up and around the dry hillsides, rushing along at eighty miles an hour toward the city by the bay.
Denser housing appeared to the left and right of the scenic highway, the temperature dropped twenty degrees, and the blue sky dimmed as Paul entered San Francisco’s outer reaches. Zhukovsky appeared to know the way. He swerved left onto Nineteenth Avenue, keeping a steady pace. They passed Stonestown and San Francisco State University in the usual heavy traffic punctuated by red lights at each and every corner, and entered the Sunset District. Paul could swear the Infiniti driver had not realized Paul was three cars back. Luckily the black car had strange taillights, easy to pick out.
Paul didn’t watch for Zhukovsky anymore. The Infiniti driver would do that for him.
The black tree limbs in Golden Gate Park coiled over them like hanging snakes as they cut through. They forked left again onto Twenty-fifth Avenue and rode over a few city hills, past slightly decrepit rows of forties town houses to the lights of Geary Avenue in the Outer Richmond district.
The Infiniti nudged into a minuscule space between two narrow driveways. Paul had to pass it, but the roundhead was busy backing up, no problem.
Paul turned left and saw a big church across Geary with an enormous gold onion dome, an Orthodox cathedral, a beauty. It was a landmark he had passed on his way to the ocean many times.
He circled the block and located Zhukovsky’s Caddy, but found no sign of him. He parked and walked cautiously back toward Geary, digital camera hanging from his wrist, open and ready to shoot. A couple of girls with dyed black hair wearing tiny plaid kilts walked by arm in arm, laughing. Fog misted the neon signs. This part of town had so many Russian emigrants he could see as much Cyrillic lettering as Roman on the bakeries and coffee places, but the Russians must have been home cooking their dinners because few people were out.
Nobody loitered outside in front of the cathedral, and the big golden doors were locked. Paul zipped his leather jacket and put the camera in a pocket. He started walking the perimeter and passed several gates, all locked. There were more, smaller onion-domed wings, each with its own entry, each locked. The left side of the cathedral connected to a walled school yard.
As Paul turned the corner toward the back of the church, never leaving the shadows, he saw the Infiniti driver lurking against the back fence, and moved smoothly back and out of range.
He flipped open his phone, noting the time was only seven-thirty, and told Nina he had a plethora of riches-several leads, all interesting, to follow when Zhukovsky came out.
“What’s he doing in there?” she asked, very reasonably.
“I don’t know.”
“He’s not hiding. You’re sure…”
“He went straight there. But there’s no service.”
“It’s a Russian Orthodox church?”
“Yeah. More exactly, the denomination is the Russian Church of America. This place has been around a long time. It’s called Holy Virgin Cathedral.”
“So he’s seeing a priest,” Nina said as if to herself. “Feeling guilty about all those lies he told us today. The man who is following-any ideas?”
“You ready for a guess? I think he’s Russian. I think he might possibly be Christina’s old boyfriend, Sergey Krilov. Fits the description of somebody I heard was at the convention. He’s been watching the trial. Hang on.” The front door of the church opened. A priest came out, elderly, black beard, black robes, looking both ways. Paul shrank into his hidey-hole and flipped off the phone. The priest disappeared and then came back, gesturing with his hand toward someone inside.
Zhukovsky came out. The priest took both his hands in his own and shook them gently, nodded his head a few times, then went back inside and shut the doors. The priest had a funny walk, which reminded Paul of an R. Crumb truckin’ cartoon, stomach and legs leading the way.
Zhukovsky went to the light and waited for the green, and Paul caught a glimpse of blond
hair down the street. He punched buttons on his phone.
“Where’d you go?” Nina said.
“Zhukovsky’s leaving. The Infiniti driver’s staying put, but watching. The priest is back in the church. Who do I follow?”
“The Infiniti,” she said instantly, and Paul thought, good girl.
“Right.” He shut down the phone cover and watched Zhukovsky crossing, the Infiniti driver just a gleam down the street, not moving. Zhukovsky climbed into his car and drove off.
The Infiniti driver waited a minute or two, then came out and moved back toward the church, hands in the pockets of his denim jacket, head down. He paused at the main entry, tried the door-locked tight. Pulling out a pack of cigarettes, he lit up and took a contemplative puff. His pants were too tight, shoes too pointed, hair too groomed-in a thousand ways he made clear that he was foreign. Straight outta Moskva, Paul thought.
Paul followed him to the Infiniti and saw him safely inside, then skulked rapidly back to the Mustang.
Which had two slashed tires, a bashed-in passenger-side window, a stolen CD player, which still must have been hoarding the precious new CD, a gaping glove compartment, and a short note in Cyrillic scrawled on a Post-it, stuck to the dashboard. Paul had a pretty good idea what it said.
He ran back. The Russian was just turning back onto Twenty-fifth. His windows were open, and a singer crooned. He had good taste in music. He liked Diana Krall, too.
17
Wednesday 9/24
FATHER GIORGI HEAVED HIMSELF UP FROM HIS PRAYERS IN HIS TINY room. He had knelt like this at his bed every morning for his whole life, and he wasn’t going to let a stiff knee stop him. Limping, he went into his lavatory. He washed his face and combed his hair and beard. The small mirror above the washstand revealed new creases in his forehead, and a haunted look that all his prayers to Lord Jesus Christ this morning had failed to dispel.
He pulled his robe over his head, attached his belt with the keys and pouch, and walked into the hall. He felt privileged to live right next door to a saint, at least, the room of a saint. Saint John Maximovich had lived and died behind the brown door he was passing. Bishop Vasily, Father Giorgi’s superior, had been a member of the committee examining the miracles claimed, and there were many. He had told Father Giorgi that when the saint’s tomb was opened in 1994, twenty-eight years after his death, the saint’s body had not decomposed, though it had turned a deep mahogany color.
With such a holy neighbor, Father Giorgi had no trouble recalling his mission and the Church’s mission. The saint’s cell with its iron bed was now a place of pilgrimage. Or it should be. Few of the faithful actually came, and fewer still were coming to the Sunday Divine Liturgy every year. For so long it had only been elderly women. But then, the change. Freedom had come in Russia. The Church could again freely bear witness to Christ, and a new wave of emigration began arriving in California.
But the newcomers, young and poor, couldn’t afford San Francisco, and those who could might come to a Eucharist or a Paschal, but at heart many weren’t really good Christians-the Communists had instilled the poison of doubt so strenuously that heartfelt, straightforward faith couldn’t get a purchase.
Even the Church could not be faithful to itself. The Church here had basically cut itself off from its mother. Saint John was not recognized in Russia, because the American Church had been responsible for his canonization.
Such a shame. A saint in the house, but doubt, doubt poisoning the Church as it poisoned Russia.
Father Giorgi moved down the nave of the cathedral, greeting a few old people who had come in early to pray in the side chapels, fingering his pouch with the dollar bills inside, thinking about these sad things. The deacons had already lit the beeswax candles and the oil lamps under the ikons. He breathed deeply of the incense smoke, frowned as he noted one of the women wore pants. Kneeling, before God, dressed like a man!
He had been born in America, in Minnesota, but this did not mean he subscribed to the ultraliberality of the American church. His training had been at a strict theological seminary in St. Petersburg, and he had been happy there. He knew what to do and when to do it, loved the liturgies, loved the absolute and ancient nature of the rules of living he had vowed to follow.
But in America-this national church had lost all bearings and fallen into the heresy of ecumenism. He was constantly at odds with authority figures here. They found him stodgy, strange. No telling how long he would last. He just didn’t fit in.
Blasphemy is easy when you’re so far from your mother, he reflected, lighting a candle that had sputtered out, which was not to say that the Mother Church was without stain. What did she do with her God-given opportunities during the nineties? She sold tobacco and alcohol received as “humanitarian aid”! She slept with Yeltsin for money!
As he did every morning, Father Giorgi opened the heavy entry doors and stepped out. Several of the faithful, familiar with his routine, awaited him on the steps. Patiently, he took their hands and blessed them, but finished quickly and went to the corner light, where he could resume his thoughts in peace.
In the decade since the awful finds at Ekaterinburg, when the photos of the skeletons of the tsar and his family were shown even on American television, Father Giorgi realized that a great hero of the Church had died in the person of Nicholas II. Others felt the same way. He had even heard talk of sainthood for the family. The tsar and his family had appeared on an ikon of New Martyrs circulated around the world.
Yes, they had been true to the Church, and martyred.
Many in this church would not agree. Oh, he had heard what the conservatives thought of him and his radical opinions, those without vision. On more than one occasion he had been asked to consider another career. Fortunately, he knew a few good people and he knew how to hold on to power, however little he wielded in this tiny universe.
His brand of bold idealism begged for attack in these cynical times, so he now operated quietly, missing Christina. If only she had not died-she had taken his credibility with her. He wanted so much to see the Church in America and the Church in Russia tied again, one undefeatable religious force in the world. He wanted a return to order and authority. Christina had believed in the same cause, or at least some of it. He would help her make contacts and gain support, and then, she would help him.
But the second phase had never come. So many dreams had died with her.
Maybe he should leave the church. In his darkest moments, he knew he probably didn’t belong here.
And now along came Alex. Could he be convinced to take up the cause? Could Giorgi convince him, or was this a futile, dangerous exercise that might get another person killed? He had broached the subject the night before, but Alex was not Christina. He didn’t have the same yearnings, and he felt no responsibility. He was American through and through, he had told Giorgi, not Russian. And he seemed to blame Giorgi for setting up the events that had led to her death, the decision to hire the odd-jobs man who had killed her.
Could he be convinced? Should he?
Without Alex, the movement would inevitably fail. Giorgi on his own, a small-town boy, an old priest, would never attract the right attention. Puzzling over these thoughts, Father Giorgi crossed the street, his hands behind his back. The car waiting for him honked. He ignored it. He was almost there, and he could sit in his daily refuge for a few minutes now and think about Alex and the confession he had made the night before.
Something had to be done. Was there hope in this confession, or only despair, and an ending? He looked up at the green and white sign, taking a deep sniff of the fragrant elixir he was about to drink.
Ahh. Starbucks.
A tall man with light hair who looked like he hadn’t slept the night before got into line behind him, and Father Giorgi’s heart sank. Was he-but the man greeted him in reassuring American English. “I wonder if I could talk with you for a few minutes.”
“I don’t want to be rude,” Father Giorgi said, “but c
an’t you come in later, at the church? I’m off duty at the moment.” He said to the girl at the counter, “A Grande Vanilla Soy Latte, please. And I’ll have, let’s see, one of those biscottis.”
“This can’t wait,” the man said. He looked rumpled but not dangerous. “Paul van Wagoner.” He held out his hand, and Father Giorgi shook it. Van Wagoner followed him to the tall counter where his coffee would be delivered.
“Would you be kind enough to tell me what this says?” van Wagoner said, thrusting something into Father Giorgi’s hand. It was a blue Post-it.
“Is this a bad joke?”
“Supposed to be funny, is it? I can’t read it. It was left in my car last night.”
“In your car?”
“What does it mean? ‘Kmo kobo’?”
“Not ‘kmo kobo.’ It says, ‘Kto kovo.’ It means, ah, something like, ‘We’ll see who will screw whom,’” Father Giorgi said uneasily. “Except cruder.”
“I see,” van Wagoner said, taking it back. He folded it carefully and put it in his pocket.
Father Giorgi’s coffee arrived and the man followed him to a table by the window.
“I’ve helped you. Now please, go away,” Father Giorgi said. He had a lot to think about.
“The note was left by a man who was watching you and Alex Zhukovsky at your church last night.”
The vanilla soy latte flew off the table as Father Giorgi’s hand jerked reflexively. Van Wagoner caught it neatly and set it back on the table.
“Who sent you?” Giorgi said. He looked at the license that was being held out toward him. “Who do you represent?” He looked at the man’s hands-not even a wedding ring, at his feet-expensive loafers, and into his eyes-where he saw something tough but not, at the moment, threatening.
“I’m here to prevent the breaking of some more Commandments,” the investigator said. “I think the sixth and the ninth have already been broken by Mr. Zhukovsky. I don’t have much time, and my car is in the shop, and I had to sleep in a noisy hotel room without so much as a toothbrush last night. So please bear with me if I’m a little brusque.”
Unlucky in Law Page 22