by Thomas Swan
“I don’t want to discuss it.” He stared at Trivimi, the smile missing. “Understood?”
“No, I don’t understand. You agreed the market was ripe for a sale. There’s new interest in Fabergé and particularly in the Imperial eggs. I think you should sell it.”
“It’s not your fucking decision,” Deryabin said angrily.
“You’re still afraid of it, aren’t you?”
Deryabin drew heavily on the cigarette, then shook his head. “That’s my affair. Not yours.”
Trivimi sat in the chair next to Deryabin. He shook his head slowly. “I don’t agree. It might be my affair also. You claim you’ve told me everything about the egg. Perhaps I’ve forgotten something, Oleshka.” He had spoken softly and called Deryabin by his familiar name. “Tell me again.”
Deryabin crossed his arms over his chest. He drew on the cigarette and with his eyes fixed on a point beyond the Estonian, he began. “Fabergé made Imperial eggs under commission from the Czars. Easter gifts for the Czarina or the Czar’s mother. Grigori Rasputin asked Fabergé to make one. As a gift for Alexandra, it is supposed. The mad monk had money. I don’t know how it happened, but Mikhail Karsalov’s grandfather got the egg at the time Rasputin was murdered.”
“I remember you telling me this, but what proof do you have that the egg is authentic? It’s possible that it’s a forgery. ”
“The crossed anchors and scepter marks of Fabergé are on it,” Deryabin replied. “So is the date and the initials of the designer.”
“Then the card game and you won it from Vasily Karsalov. Except you didn’t actually win it. You stole it.”
Deryabin bristled. “We swore a blood oath to keep the confidence of what we have told each other.”
“I have told no one about the egg. I have kept my side of the bargain.”
Deryabin caught Trivimi’s eyes. “And so have I.”
“But now you want to do business with Vasily Karsalov’s son?”
“If Akimov spread his lies, there is a problem. But if Viktor is correct, Akimov had ten minutes or less with Mikhail before he was shot. First he would talk of old times, of Mikhail’s mother, of Petersburg and how it has changed. All that before he would begin to spread his lies.”
“Tell me again about the card game.”
“There were five. Vasily Karsalov, Sasha Akimov, Artur Prekhner, and Leonid Baletsky. Of course, I was the fifth.”
Trivimi studied his hands. “You were playing draw poker, I believe it is called. And you won the Imperial egg with four queens.”
Deryabin nodded. “I have told you that several times.”
The Estonian smiled. “Four queens? Very strong. And no wild cards the way the Americans play.”
“I told you there were no wild cards. Why do you bring it up?”
“Because you held four queens, and Vasily held four jacks. Without wild cards, the odds are incredibly high.”
“It was damned unusual. I have always said that.”
“But when Vasily got up from the table to get his precious Imperial egg, you only held three queens. Is that so?”
Deryabin bit on his lips. “I told you that.”
“And in the cards that had not been dealt, you found the fourth queen?”
“Why are you digging this up again? I’ve told the story before, and I don’t have to go over it again for no reason.”
“Oh, there is a reason, Oleshka.”
“What fucking good reason do you have?”
“I want it all in front of us one more time. You won Vasily Karsalov’s Imperial egg by cheating. That was thirty-five years ago and you’ve done nothing with it. Never shown it to the museum, never let anyone see it in your office. And, of course, you’ve never sold it.”
“What are you getting at?” Deryabin asked.
“I’m getting at why you felt it was so terrible for Akimov to go to New York and tell Mikhail that his father lost a Fabergé Imperial egg to you in a card game. Is that a reason to have him killed?”
Deryabin screamed his response, “I told you the bastard Sasha would tell lies about me.”
“What lies, Oleshka? What lies would be so terrible that you wanted him killed?”
“I don’t know which ones . . .” Deryabin seemed at a loss to explain. “But whatever he might say could destroy my plans to bring Mikhail Karsalov into our new venture.”
“But not because of the Imperial egg. Even if Sasha told Mikhail you cheated to win the Imperial egg, you would have a chance to explain.”
“I hired Akimov when he left the navy. His pension was a laugh and he needed work, so I took him on. But he thinks I was unfair to him, that I cut him off for no reason. He would tell Mikhail anything to get revenge over me.”
“He was an old friend. It was a mistake to turn him out. And a mistake to send the twins to kill him.”
“I don’t make mistakes!” Deryabin roared. “The lying bastard would say anything against me. He was acting like a crazy old man.”
The Estonian moved his chair so that he was squarely in front of Deryabin. He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke his words were hushed.
“There is something in this Akimov matter that is puzzling.” A bemused look covered the Estonian’s face “The Fabergé egg? An expensive bauble and frankly, I don’t give a damn how you came to own it.” The Estonian wrapped his long fingers around Deryabin’s arm. “But, remember, Oleshka, there is trust between us.” He squeezed the arm gently. “Tell me about these ‘lies’ that you were afraid Akimov would say about you.”
Deryabin glared and pulled away from the Estonian. “Damn your fucking trust. I told you Akimov was losing his senses. He was inventing wild stories about me.”
“He came to me, Akimov did, after you told him he no longer had a job. He was angry because you made him go back to his paltry pension. He said there was bad blood between you and Vasily Karsalov.”
Deryabin flinched and glared wildly at Trivimi. “What bad blood was he talking about?”
Trivimi shook his head and shrugged. “He never found the words.”
“Sniveling bastard never found the courage. Besides, what of it? He’ll soon be dead.”
“What was he going to tell me, Oleshka?” Trivimi hardened his tone. “Tell me what Akimov has on you.”
“Not a fucking thing, you Estonian bastard.”
“Not as bad as Russian bastards. That’s what you are.”
“Leave! Get your stinking ass out of here!” Deryabin was on his feet, pointing fiercely at the door. “Go!”
“I’m going nowhere until we talk this through.”
Deryabin grabbed the phone and began jabbing numbers, but the Estonian pulled the phone away from him. He said calmly into the phone, “Everything is all right.” Then he clicked off.
Deryabin glowered. “You’re pushing too far.”
“Not far enough,” Trivimi said firmly. “It’s time you come clean with me.”
Deryabin’s face was flushed, and his eyes darted from the Estonian to the ceiling to the door. He put a match to another cigarette while fussing with the one still smoldering in the ashtray. He swept up a red felt marking pen from the table and went hurriedly past the drawings of the proposed Koleso showroom to the long, white writing surface. In block letters two inches high he wrote a name: Artur Prekhner.
He turned and faced the Estonian.
“Prekhner and Vasily were old school friends. They started a business while Vasily was at the naval base in Tallinn, and Prekhner was a clerk in the commissary in Petersburg. That’s where I met him. It was a small operation, just the two of them. Part of each shipment never got to Tallinn, but ended up in a warehouse in Pushkin. Then they shipped the meat and liquor to the black market in the Petersburg region. I hadn’t seen Prekhner in over a year, then, in September of 1972, I met him at a wedding party for a mutual friend. He asked if I could meet with him two nights later, said he was having a problem and wanted my advice.”
De
ryabin drew hungrily on his cigarette. He inhaled deeply, then swallowed as if to keep all the smoke inside him. When he spoke, little gray wisps escaped from his mouth.
“We met for dinner, then he asked me to go with him to his office. It was his apartment but he worked out of it. He told me he was having trouble with Karsalov, that he was drinking heavily again. I gave him my ideas and thought that was that. Then a young couple came to the apartment.”
Deryabin looked across at the Estonian. “It was a complete surprise. There was vodka and good whiskey and food you couldn’t get anywhere unless you had a top government position or were a goddamned ballet star. For a couple of hours, I didn’t mind being there. There was strange music, I remember, and a sweet odor. You might think the lights would be small and dim, but they were bright and different colors; yellow and orange and purple.
“The couple danced and kissed, then they undressed each other, sitting on a blanket in the middle of the floor. Then they began screwing. Prekhner joined them. Three of them were screwing each other. Man and woman, man and man. Then a second girl came. She had big tits and a solid ass and said I could do anything I wanted with her. She liked to fuck. We did. I was smoking marijuana. Had never done that, so I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t feel differently, not until they showed me how to take cocaine. That was a big change. I wanted the feeling to last forever.
“I looked for Prekhner and he was gone. It was a small apartment, a few tiny rooms. But I couldn’t find him. I guessed that he’d gone for more food and I paid no attention whether he was there or not. The high I was on didn’t last long and when it went away I got sick. But sober, too. Then, Prekhner was back, like he’d never gone away.”
Deryabin rubbed his mouth. “I got out and went back to the navy base.”
The Estonian had listened, amused by Deryabin’s embarrassment as he recounted his long-ago experience. “Why do you tell me about Artur Prekhner and his orgy?”
“You say there are no secrets between us?”
Trivimi Laar nodded. “No secrets.”
“I once described to you the way Prekhner died. A knife here, in the neck.” Deryabin planted his hand on his own neck.
Trivimi said, “You told me that during an argument, when Karsalov was drunk, he stabbed Prekhner.”
“It’s true there was an argument and a knife. But I am the one who put the knife into Prekhner.”
“You?” Trivimi said, uncertain and surprised.
“A week after his party, Prekhner was waiting for me at the entrance to the General Staff building. We got into his car. He handed me a photograph album. I had no recollection of doing what I saw in the pictures.”
“Blackmail? What did he want?”
“Prekhner knew that I was being trained for an assignment in the First Directorate and wanted my help on a wild scheme he had put together. He made it very simple. Either I cooperate, or he would send photographs to my superiors. He said he could send one a week for three months.”
“And so you—”
“I told him I would need time to think over what he had said. Two days later I called him and said I was going to go along with him, but I wanted to talk about the details. There were so many, I couldn’t remember all of them. Then, I set my own trap.” Deryabin’s smile lengthened. “I suggested to Prekhner that we meet in his apartment. He liked the idea, even joked about having his young friends join us. It was essential that Vasily be present. When he arrived I gave him a bottle of vodka. I didn’t have to encourage him to drink it. In an hour he was drunk and I put him in the bedroom and told him to sleep it off. To be sure he slept, I gave him a sedative.”
The Estonian listened intently, never taking his eyes off Deryabin.
Deryabin said, “I took my own knife and pistol, but found a heavier knife in the kitchen. I hid it in my sleeve.”
Trivimi leaned forward in his chair. “He never suspected?”
“No. I told him that his scheme had too many complications. He insisted he had worked through the plan and got rid of extra details. I told him he was wrong, baiting him to argue back. He did. Then I tore his plan apart and said he’d have to make changes. It made him furious. After another minute we were shouting at each other. It was exactly what I was hoping for. I wanted his neighbors to hear a loud argument come from his apartment. It was eleven o’clock and I figured they had come home from wherever they had been.”
Deryabin stepped to the table and picked up a cigarette and jabbed the air with it as he continued. “We were standing a few feet from each other in the middle of the room. I slipped the knife from my sleeve and when he saw it in my hand it was as if he turned to stone. I remember that the only feeling I had was whether his blood would get on my clothes. I struck him twice. The first was in his chest. I aimed the second thrust lower, at his heart.”
Trivimi had not budged, his gaze still riveted on Deryabin’s face. “Had you done that before?”
Deryabin said he had not, but said that during officer’s training he had been taught to strike twice. The first to inflict pain and neutralize the opponent, the second to kill. Then he explained, as dispassionately as if he were describing the fundamentals of rowing a boat, how when the heart stopped beating, the blood stopped flowing.
“Prekhner fell against a chair and when I pulled it away he rolled onto the floor. Then I went into the bedroom for Vasily. I carried him out and put him next to Prekhner’s body. I put the knife in his hand and closed his fingers over the handle. I bloodied his arms and shirt. Then I went to the bathroom and cleaned the blood off my shirt and hands.”
“Did you find the photographs and the negatives?” Trivimi asked.
Deryabin was relieved to have told the story, and finally lit the cigarette he had been holding.
“Prekhner’s work area, his ‘office,’ was in his kitchen. There was a desk and typewriter, a telephone and a file cabinet. I found two sets of the photographs and the negatives in a desk drawer. I learned I wasn’t the first to be sucked into Prekhner’s blackmail business. There were other photographs and negatives. Enough fucking and sucking to fill twenty pornographic magazines.”
“Akimov suspected that you killed Prekhner? That’s why you wanted him eliminated?”
“I told you there were five of us in the card game.” He printed four more names on the board in the same big letters. He called out their names as he did.
“As I said, in addition to Prekhner, there was Sasha Akimov, Vasily Karsalov, Leonid Baletsky, and myself. These three,” he drew a line under Akimov, Karsalov, and Baletsky, “stayed together in the navy. First in Tallinn, then in Petersburg where they were transferred in 1970. They were all friends, including Prekhner.”
“I’ll ask again. Did Akimov suspect you killed Prekhner?”
“I didn’t think any of them knew about it. Then, a few months ago, Leonid Baletsky appeared out of the blue. He was waiting at the entrance to our building. I hadn’t seen him in all those years and didn’t recognize him. But he knew who I was. He told me that after he left the navy he lived in Moscow with his wife and son. Then his wife died and he moved back to Petersburg. He said he had read about New Century and me, and did I have a job for him. He said he had talked with Akimov. About the egg and the poker game. And about other things, too.”
Deryabin stared at Baletsky’s name. “He was nervous and couldn’t look me in the eye. He blurted out that he remembered the card game and that I had cheated Vasily out of the egg. I asked him why he didn’t call me on it right away. He said he didn’t know about it until recently. He said he wanted five hundred dollars and he would forget everything.”
“Baletsky threatened you?” Trivimi said.
“I asked who told him. He wouldn’t tell me. I asked if he knew if Vasily Karsalov was still alive. He thought he was, that he was still in Uzbekistan. I said that what he had learned about the card game was old history, that I had regretted the way I had won the egg and realized that I was not entitled to keep it. I
told him I had given the egg back to Vasily before he was brought to trial and sent away. He was surprised, but I think he believed me. Then I gave him money, a hundred dollars, I think.”
Deryabin gave the Estonian a knowing glance. “If he makes trouble for us, we can silence him for much less than five hundred dollars.”
“Perhaps I should pay him a visit?”
“Have him followed. We should keep track of him for a while.”
He stared at the names. He spoke in a whisper. “Sasha Akimov. I thought we’d become friends, but he deceived me. I made a mistake when I let him get away. But he won’t talk anymore.”
“And so they all knew what happened in the card game?”
“One of them knew, and spread it to the others. My guess is it was Akimov.”
“Do they know it was you and not Vasily who put a knife into Prekhner?”
“There’s no way for them to know. Except that Vasily claimed he was innocent and swore vehemently at his trial that he was passed out and could not have done it. He accused me, but because I had put together a good service record and had been chosen for an important position, the court was pressured by the KGB to ignore his testimony. Then they changed it to a charge of self-defense and gave Karsalov a lifetime assignment in Uzbekistan.”
Trivimi went to the board. “Prekhner is dead,” he said flatly, and drew a line through his name. “Akimov? He can’t talk, and he, too, will soon be dead.” He drew a line through Akimov’s name.
Next, he put a question mark after Vasily Karsalov’s name. “Is Vasily alive? If he is, where does he live?”
Deryabin said, “I will give you names and phone numbers of people who can get that information.”
“That leaves Baletsky,” Trivimi said. “I will personally learn what he knows.” He added a question mark after Baletsky’s name.
The Estonian returned to the table. He sat, bolt upright, his hands clasped tightly. He looked at Deryabin and waited for him to sit across from him. Then, with a measured voice, he spoke.
“I strongly believe that the Fabergé Imperial egg is at the heart of your relationship with each man whose name you wrote on the board. Certainly that is true with Karsalov. Because of him, you became involved with Prekhner. I pick Akimov as the one who knew about the card game and the final hand when you claimed the egg unfairly. While it may have taken many years, it was Akimov who told Baletsky what had happened.