“Remember my non-negotiable condition. No arguments. That is the salary. When the bank account is opened, you will receive automatic payments every month. So don’t delay. And don’t delay finding a house.”
In spite of the seemingly unemotional and business-like goodbye, his visit has left a deep mark on both of them. The absence of any sexual approaches by Al Barmaka during the three days was a relief for Lara, who still cannot tolerate physical intimacy with anyone. More importantly, it made her believe that perhaps it is possible to kill the past. The awkwardness of the memory of their three-month sexual relationship (which seemed to haunt Lara a lot more than him) notwithstanding, the time they spent together was meaningful and consequential in ways that would take each of them a while to understand.
Al Barmaka boarded his plane carrying with him two revelations. First, the phenomenon of friendship beyond family and beyond business. And second, as a bachelor who’s fought to stay that way, the phenomenon of a romantic relationship with a woman whom he has not bought for sex. In the frantic pace of his everyday life, focused on business and multi-million dollar deals, with the little time that could be spared devoted to family and political obligations, he had missed out on both.
He has also made two decisions. First, he would stop the practice of retaining concubines. He’d send the Chinese girl back home, and stop the search for a manager to replace Sumaya. He is thirty-five years old, tired, and finally ready to settle down. Just as Lara managed to return home, he’d return too, and finally do the right thing within his family culture. He’d find someone and get married within the next few months. Enough of the wandering outside of the boundaries, he tells himself, and is surprised that instead of fighting the prospect of coming home, he is relieved by it.
The second decision he’s made is that he won’t wait for the final settlement of the Palm villa’s status to open the shelter. Contrary to what he told Lara, ‘uncomplicating’ things in Dubai is not that simple, especially when it comes to seizing a foreign owner’s private property. He can succeed in tying things up in court for years, to make sure that the Ayvazians don’t get access to it. But outright confiscation, even with a legal basis, is far more complicated. So he will cover the costs of the shelter from his personal funds. Over time, if he manages to have the villa appropriated, he’ll reimburse himself. If not, he’ll write it off.
Although Al Barmaka is amazed at how profoundly this visit has affected him, the revelations and his decisions feel like they were meant to be, and their time had come. The changes that they augur for his life are fundamental, but they are also changes that he feels he can accept without any hesitation or regret. It is almost as if everything was ripe for these changes to occur, and the last few days simply gave them a nudge.
Lara tries to get back into her routine. Anna is a priority, given the appearance of her photograph. In fact, things have become even more complicated. During one of her lunch breaks in the back room, she puts on her eyeglasses to read a newspaper. They are not the thick-rimmed glasses in the photo, but Lucy walks in and sees her with them on. She looks surprised, but tries to hide her surprise, or so it seems to Anna. Anna claims that she kept looking at her all afternoon. Random, passing glances, but pointed and purposeful at the same time.
Before leaving Yerevan, Laurian meets one more time with Anna and Lara. It was a beautiful day, and they walk around the Swan Lake in central Yerevan, spend some time watching Arno Babajanyan’s statue, the musician’s flying hands and fingers casting their long shadow over the large stone piano, then they sit on a bench soaking up the sun.
Laurian tries to convince Anna to quit her job.
“Don’t even wait until you find another job,” he tells her. “If you’re really that worried about Lucy, get out of there. I’m not saying this to scare you more, but for your peace of mind. Don’t worry about money. I’ll cover you until you get a new job.”
Anna shakes her head. She cannot accept money from Laurian, and she’s not sure how long it will take to find a new job.
“I’ll start looking for a new job right away,” she says. But both Laurian and Lara know that given her hours, it will be difficult to look while working at the store. Laurian does not press her any further.
He leaves them and walks back to his hotel to pick up his car and drive to Vardahovit.
Yuri is stunned when he sees the photographs that his informant hands him. He kicks himself for not starting the surveillance much earlier. It cost him very little to have someone follow Lara and document everyone that she met with. He always considered her to be an important loose end in their search for Ayvazian’s operations. He stares at the first day’s crop of twenty photographs with amazement. He usually doesn’t have much use for the Internet, but he turns on his laptop and Googles a name. After half an hour, he chooses four pictures out of the bunch and goes straight to Carla.
“I saw this man in a restaurant in Ashtarak a few weeks ago,” he says pointing at Laurian. He was there with another man. I knew I had seen him before somewhere, and when I entered the room I got this eerie feeling that they recognized me. But I could not remember where I had seen him. When I saw this picture, I remembered that I had seen him in Arshaluys newspaper. He had given an interview about events in the Middle East or something like that. His name is Edward Laurian. He is a Swiss investigative journalist of some international fame. There are thousands of Google entries under his name, with a lot more pictures, the news stories he has written and some interviews. In one of his interviews, he talks about his house in Vardahovit. Do you know where that is?”
Carla just looks at him, waiting for him to explain. She does not like being asked rhetorical questions. She’s also thinking, this better be important, because she is not amused by the way in which Yuri barged in and started talking.
“That’s just twenty minutes from Sevajayr, where your father and my brother were killed. Now, look at this lovely girl sitting at the other end of the bench. She is none other than Lara Galian, whose father, as we know, also found his demise in Sevajayr. She’s not only stunning, but must also be very smart for managing her escape from Dubai.”
Yuri now has Carla’s attention. She takes the picture from his hand and looks at the three people sitting on the bench at Swan Lake.
“Do you have close-ups of their faces?”
“That’s what the other three pictures are.” Yuri drops them on the coffee table. He wants to tell her who the girl in the middle is, but he waits.
Carla picks Lara’s close-up photo first and stares at it for a long time. She can now clearly see what all the fuss is about. Either her father or Viktor, or most probably both, surely raped her, she thinks. She fantasizes about sleeping with her herself. What an incredible turn of events would that be? Right in front of the picture of Martashen hanging in her study.
Then she studies Laurian.
“He is a Diaspora Armenian?”
“Yes. According to one of his interviews, his ancestors are from Nakhijevan.”
She studies Laurian’s face carefully, while the basics replay in her mind: Swiss investigative journalist, with a home in Vardahovit, twenty minutes from Sevajayr. Laurian’s face is slightly tilted to the left, and he looks like he is talking. She picks up the picture of the three on the bench again, then back to the close-up of Laurian, and she figures that he is talking to the girl in the middle. She starts with the top of his head, isolating each segment as she studies it—hairline, forehead, eyebrows, eyes, bags under the eyes, nose, cheeks, lips, mouth, chin.
She then picks the third picture.
“Who’s she?”
“And that, I was saving for last,” says Yuri. “That one works at one of your stores. The one off Abovian. Some trio, wouldn’t you say?”
Carla studies the third face. Something about it troubles her. Her mind makes a quick scan of all the women she’s met recently, but nothing comes up.
Then, almost on a whim, she asks: “Do you still have the
picture of the wife of that snitch of yours?”
“I think so,” says Yuri checking his wallet. “Here it is. The one on the bench is much better looking.”
Carla covers the eyes and forehead in the old picture and studies her nose and chin. She looks at the close-up, doing the same. She then looks at the eyes in the old picture, trying to disregard the thick rims of the eyeglasses. Then she covers everything on the close-up except the eyes. She turns to Yuri.
“I’d give it eighty-twenty odds that they’re the same girl,” she says. “Show this close-up to your snitch, and he’ll tell you for sure one way or another.” Then she starts looking at Lara’s picture again.
Yuri cannot decide which is more shocking—finding Hov’s wife at the store or Carla’s incredible skills of observation. She had seen the old picture of Anna only once, for just a minute or two. How could she make the connection, almost ten days later? A chill runs down Yuri’s spine. What else is Carla observing?
“On second thought,” says Carla, “I don’t like the looks of this. I’d keep the snitch away from his wife and away from the Galian girl. You keep your distance too. Until we figure out who the Swiss really is, it would be stupid to go after either. We have enough on our plate.”
Yuri hates instructions that seem whimsical and arbitrary. He can appreciate the risk that Laurian poses as a friend, or even as just an acquaintance, of the girls, but Carla’s style of first telling him to show the picture to Hov and then ordering him not to frays his nerves. She may have sharp skills of observation, and she may have observed many of his own thoughts, but she is an inexperienced, horny woman and she is ordering him around, changing her mind and her instructions at will, without even a second thought, as if turning the wheel of a car right then left just because she can.
The merits of her reasoning do not matter to Yuri at that point. He doesn’t want to take orders from her any longer.
Yuri decides to turn Ari first. Hov is less important and can wait. He invites Ari to an expensive restaurant on Amirian Street. He has reserved the last table to the right of the kitchen to have more privacy. This will be a serious talk. A lot will be determined tonight.
Ari arrives on time. Yuri has a bottle of vodka open, and has already ordered some appetizers—fried frog legs, imported from France, arugula salad with prosciutto and dried beef, and a plate of mixed cheeses. Yuri stands up to greet him. He has to put his best foot forward tonight and win over this crucial asset, who he knows is loyal to Carla.
Yuri has done his homework. He knows that Ari has worked for Ayvazian for over fifteen years, twice as long as he has. His main activities have been in Moscow and Yerevan. Anastasia has told him, based on a vague recollection, she suspects that Ari might have met Nicolai. She could not be any more specific than that. Nicolai remains an enigma for Yuri, but he hasn’t had the time to focus on him yet.
“We have a better chance than at anytime to make it really big,” he tells Ari, lifting his glass. “That is what this evening is all about.”
Ari smiles, and downs his vodka. Yuri refills the glass.
“Here’s to a new era,” he toasts.
The waiter brings the appetizers and divides each order between them. Ari devours the frog legs instantly, using his hands, sucking on them until nothing but the thin white bones are left on the plate.
“To a new era,” he says, lifting his glass. He wants an excuse for another shot of vodka.
Ari then attacks the prosciutto and dried beef, taking forkfuls of the arugula as well.
“They say it doesn’t matter how tall your grandfather was, you have to do your own growing,” says Yuri.
Ari has no response. He keeps eating.
“We used to have some pretty tall grandfathers,” continues Yuri. He is talking fast, as if worried he’ll lose Ari’s attention soon. “But now the Ayvazians are dead, and soon, thanks to you, LeFreak will be dead too. The arena is wide open for new leadership. It is our turn to grow tall.”
Ari listens, but he has no respect for Yuri. His thick hair, thin body, and manners that seem too soft to Ari, are objects of ridicule and mistrust. Ari is an old fashioned soldier—bold, big, muscular and bald. He is a killer, and the best in the field. He does not do nor trust ‘slick’. And Yuri is nothing but slick. But he listens, more carefully than Yuri realizes.
“The Ayvazian operations are in a mess,” continues Yuri. “I went to Dubai recently, and found that everything Sergei built there is in the hands of an old pimp, a woman, and is disintegrating fast. Moscow is lost to some guy that I’ve never heard of, even though I was based there for eight years. He just walked in and took over. LeFreak has made a mess of the Lori operation. And here we are, still working as if Ayvazian is running the show.”
“But an Ayvazian is running the show, isn’t she?”
“Is she? Let me ask you this, would Sergei have gathered us in a room and offered each of us one hundred thousand for the LeFreak job? Is it right that I get the same as you, when you’re doing the job? Is it fair that even Samson gets the same as you? Besides, would Sergei ever let us know what each of us was going to get?”
Ari lifts his head from the table and gives Yuri his first direct look. His eyebrows twitch and his eyes narrow, to focus better. “Go on,” he says.
“The point is, that right now Carla isn’t much better organized or qualified to run the sex business than LeFreak. The only difference is that she has experienced people around her, us, and LeFreak doesn’t. But if we follow her every order, what good is our experience?”
Yuri lets Ari mull that over. He refills their glasses, raises his to Ari and downs it. He starts to eat, while Ari, who has already finished his plate, waits for more food to come. His huge hands are on the table, his fingers almost twice as thick as Yuri’s.
“Which of her orders you’d rather not follow?”
“If you were running things, how would you plan and execute the LeFreak job?”
Ari shrugs.
“Okay, let me tell you how Sergei would have done it. Aside from what I already said about the money, Sergei would have taken care of Samson along with LeFreak.”
Ari’s eyebrows do a dance, rising half way up his forehead and falling back to the bridge of his nose.
“Don’t look surprised,” says Yuri. “Samson is a long-term liability to us. Once we pull this off, he’ll be looking around for a better deal. He changed sides once, right? Why not again? Besides, we know very little about him. Two years with LeFreak, but where was he before that? What was he doing in Moscow? He won’t talk about it. So Sergei would use his knowledge to plan the operation, but would make sure he goes away with LeFreak.”
“How?”
“If we go the sniper route, he’d tell you to take two shots. Shouldn’t be difficult, they are in the same room, they’ll probably be so taken by surprise by the first shot that you’ll have good fifteen-twenty seconds to pull the trigger on a second target. If LeFreak paces the room as Samson says, you choose your moment when he’s passing by Samson, and do one after the other within two or three seconds. Those would be Sergei’s instructions to you. And he’d pay you at least one-hundred-and-fifty thousand, if not more, and you definitely won’t have to wait a month for the second half of your payment.”
They bring the main course. Yuri has ordered the entrecote for both of them. It is a large steak, topped with grilled mushrooms and onions, and there’s a plate of fries for them to share. The timing is perfect, because Ari does not want to respond to Yuri quite yet, and he turns his full attention to his plate. Yuri notices that his eyebrows move up when he opens his mouth to take a bite, and twitch a little while he chews. The man could look quite comical, but if you know what he does for a living, it won’t be easy to see him as a comedian, no matter what his eyebrows do.
“I need to study this,” says Ari after a while. “First I need to see the room from that roof.”
“Of course. When you go up there, you can ask Samson where everyone
usually sits.”
“How will you get me one-fifty if this works?” asks Ari, ignoring Yuri’s last comment.
“I’ll give you half of my share,” says Yuri without hesitation.
“But she may not pay either of us, if she takes Samson’s death as something that went wrong.”
“She will, Ari. If LeFreak is dead, she will pay us. Besides, we’ll be saving her the extra hundred thousand that she was going to pay Samson. She’ll be happy, she’ll pay.”
Yuri’s next order of business is to have Hov come to Yerevan. He cannot take the time to drive up to Stepanavan again, which is a two hour drive each way, and does not have anyone he can trust to take Anna’s picture to him. Besides, he wants to be there to assess his reaction.
He plans to make Hov his first personal recruit. When he finally gets some money of his own, he’ll pay Hov’s salary himself, without telling Carla. Things are finally beginning to look up. LeFreak will be gone soon enough, hopefully with Samson, Ari and Hov will work for him, then he’ll claim Ano’s operation in Dubai, and the villa. After that, it will be time to figure out who Nicolai is and put him in his place.
It takes Hov a few days to secure a one-day leave to come to Yerevan, on the pretext of having to visit a sick relative. Yuri decides to meet him in the outskirts of town, in Proshyan. He will meet with him in his car and send him back right away. If this Anna is his wife, Yuri does not want the risk of having him linger in Yerevan.
He directs Hov to drive to the cemetery, where they have the best chance of being alone. There is a direct road from Ashtarak Highway, which, although it passes through the small town, is relatively quiet. Hov gets there a few minutes before Yuri, and parks his white Lada by the cemetery entrance. Yuri parks his black Mercedes SUV behind him, and signals him to come over. Hov gets in the passenger seat and, unlike at their last meeting, shakes Yuri’s hand.
“Thanks for driving all the way,” says Yuri. “I won’t keep you long. Do you know this person?” and he hands him the close-up of Anna’s face.
The Doves of Ohanavank Page 27