The Final Fabergé

by Thomas Swan

  “Is it possible you have a friend who imports food? I’m quite serious, someone who brings frozen chicken or fruit to Petersburg.”

  “You want something special to eat?”

  “No. The companies that import food or, I suppose, nearly any commodity, must have protection against the crime bosses who want to break into their monopolies. You understand?”

  Yakov said that he did. “But chickens? No,” and he laughed, shaking his head. “I know someone. He is Kinsky. He has a business with his son and brings food for pets into the city.”

  “That’s bloody damned good. Lots of pets in Petersburg.”

  “We had a cat, when my wife, Valentina, was alive. It made me sneeze. But it was my wife’s family who knew Kinsky.” Yakov sighed. “Now he lives in a fine apartment and I see him in a big car. I am not sure he will remember me. Sometimes money helps them forget their old friends. The same where you live, Jack?”

  Oxby nodded. “The same everywhere. Get Kinsky on the phone. Explain that we need what you call krysha. Ask for the name of the people who take care of his company.”

  Yakov searched and found the number and then, to his surprise, was put directly through to Kinsky. They spoke for several minutes, Yakov calling his old friend Misha, obviously delighted that he had been remembered. Yakov nodded as he wrote out the information. “Spahseebah, spahseebah.” He thanked Misha the obligatory half dozen times, his head bobbing, then finally put down the phone and turned to Oxby with a victorious grin.

  “I have the information,” he said, pointing to his notes.

  “Call them and tell them we have an urgent problem . . . ask if they can come here today.”

  Yakov learned quickly that a professional crime organization can be superbly efficient, yet numbingly impersonal. A meeting was set for two o’clock that afternoon. Yakov was told to expect a phone call shortly before that hour. No names were given.

  Oxby proceeded to refine his action plan, placing special emphasis on assignments he felt Yakov could handle without close supervision. First, he wanted Yakov to explore the bureaucratic jungle inside the offices of the deputy commander for personnel, Naval Forces, Baltic Fleet Operation. He was to locate and make copies of the files for Vasily Karsalov. Vasily Karsalov had also mentioned a man named Akimov. No first name, just another player in the poker game. Still, worth checking.

  “Karsalov was exiled to Uzbekistan for a murder he said he did not commit,” Oxby said. “There could be a problem with that. Most criminals go to prison screaming their innocence. See what you can find in the Military Tribunal offices. They’ll throw plenty of red tape at you, but you might be lucky.”

  “I could write a volume on red tape. It is, after all the color of the Soviet flag and I worked under that stifling system for more than half my life.”

  “I want a list of every Leonid Baletsky and Viktor Lysenko in Petersburg. I particularly want to meet Leonid Baletsky again. Normally, I would start with a phone directory, but there isn’t one. Where do you suggest I begin?”

  “Our Central Telephone Exchange has every name and you can try with them. It will cost money.”

  “Not surprising,” Oxby said. “While you are searching the naval records, I’ll go to the exchange.”

  Until noon when the two men nibbled on fruit and cheese, Yakov worked the phone, preparing the way for his visit to the naval personnel files. Oxby wrote a brief letter to Christopher Forbes.

  St. Petersburg

  13 June

  Dear Kip:

  As I don’t wish to have this letter exposed to prying eyes, I shall not cable or fax it, relying on what I am told is a dependable private mail service via Helsinki. The past fortnight has not lacked for excitement. Nor, exactly, have I been glued to one spot. Details must come at a time when I can personally share them with you. For now I shall pass on the following. Subject to finding one or two corroborating pieces of evidence, I am confident that Fabergé produced an Imperial egg that has heretofore been excluded from the official records. I cannot say with certainty that the egg was commissioned by Rasputin, though circumstantial evidence suggests that it was. I believe we will have answers to all these imponderables once I have located the egg. In that regard, I shall keep you advised of my progress.

  With sincere respects,

  J. Oxby

  At five minutes to one the phone rang. Yakov answered, listened for a moment, then put down the phone.

  “It is our krysha,” Yakov said, not knowing how else to identify the group that had called. “They are here. First they will inspect our building, and call to tell us to unlock the door.”

  “A good sign,” Oxby said.

  Ten minutes later the phone rang again, this time to announce that they were at the door to Yakov’s apartment.

  “They are here,” Yakov said. He pulled away the chain and turned the heavy bolt in the door. He opened it and three men entered the apartment. The last one closed the door and inspected the chain and locks.

  Two of the men, including the lock inspector, wore light summer shirts and dark blue jeans. They were in their early twenties and powerfully built. They had short-cropped hair, and expressions of complete indifference. One was swarthy, his face marked with small scars over one eye, the other had fair skin with yellow hair and blue eyes, and was, eerily, the more intimidating of the pair. Oxby studied both and made an imperceptible nod of approval. He watched their heads move in little jerks, their expressions blank, their eyes gathering in the details of the room and the rooms beyond. They disappeared, moving on to complete their examination of Yakov’s apartment.

  “Are you Ilyushin?” The man who asked the questions was well dressed, wearing a suit, tie with cuff links that glittered, and holding a cellular telephone in his hand, one he had used minutes before to announce his presence. He was young, thirty perhaps, and his face was only slightly more animated than the young byki who had come with him.

  Yakov acknowledged that he was. “What is your name?”

  “Ivan,” the leader said, and handed a card to Yakov and one to Oxby.

  Ivan wanted to know about Yakov’s neighbors, about electric lines and fuse boxes and windows and where the telephone wires entered the building and came into the apartment. There were more questions, several minutes’ worth. The two muscle men returned. One stood at the door, the other took his position alongside Ivan.

  “Ivan knows my friend Misha Kinsky.”

  “Good,” Oxby said. “Ask him if his men will be on duty around the clock, and how many men will there be.”

  Yakov relayed the question. “Ivan asks how long will they be needed and how much will you pay.”

  Time and money, Oxby mused, always time and money. “God save me if it takes more than a week. Explain to Ivan that I’ve never hired protection in Petersburg, London, or anywhere else. How much does he want?”

  Questions and answers went back and forth for as long as it took to resolve all the issues. As part of the give-and-take, Oxby learned that Ivan was part of a collection of small businesses that were engaged in the mixing and delivery of concrete, trucking, moving and storage, and, as Oxby decoded Yakov’s translation of Ivan’s descriptions, insurance. Ivan called himself an insurance manager. He sold insurance, but there were no written policies and no schedule of claims benefits. But there were premiums (fees), payable in advance. It was a hard currency business. English pounds or American dollars. The insurance that Ivan would provide for Oxby, Yakov, and Yakov’s apartment would be put in force with the payment of six thousand dollars. That would buy a week’s insurance. This translated to four men on duty at all times, each with a phone.

  Ivan explained, “If you want a man to go with you when you are away from the apartment, that will reduce the number of men surrounding the apartment to three. If you both are away with one of the men, the number guarding the apartment shrinks to two.”

  “Can Ivan supply more men if we need them?” Oxby asked.

  Yakov translat
ed and Ivan smiled as he answered. “Yes, of course. For additional money.”

  The how much and how to make arrangements ended the negotiations. Oxby counted out the money. Half in pounds, half in dollars. He asked Yakov to repeat his instructions so as to avoid any misunderstanding. Yakov pointed to his watch and said that the insurance was in effect as of 3:00 P.M. on June 13 and would remain in force until 3:00 P.M. on June 20.

  Chapter 26

  While Yakov’s apartment was converted into a fortress, there became, by mid-afternoon, a vastly improved feeling of security about the little place. A Mercedes station wagon was parked across from the building and inside it was a young bull who sat hunched forward with his thick arms curled around the steering wheel. He watched the traffic and the walkers, and paid particular attention to loiterers. He was connected to his three associates by phone and whenever man, woman, or child entered the apartment, he flashed the information. It was a boring job, one that served as entry-level into a career where, with a bare-bones education, he could become a well-paid operative by wearing a pistol and having no qualms about using it.

  Another member of the team was in the back of the building, on foot, and carrying a sort of rake that he occasionally used to sweep a weed-filled patch of grass. At night, his post became the cab of a pickup truck that carried a small arsenal of rifles and handguns. Two others roved through the neighborhood. They took turns going into Yakov’s building and climbing up to the top floor where they had a hoodedcrow’s view of the street below.

  One of the rovers, the head man of the day shift, was the one with the intimidating eyes and straw-colored hair. Each time he inspected the interior of the building, he would stop to visit briefly with Oxby and Yakov. His pale blue eyes rarely blinked, and he would flex his thick shoulders in a rolling motion, as if were trying to shrug off a buildup of nervous energy. High up on his chest, to the side of his thick neck, was a scar that was the result of a gunfight during which he had taken three bullets, small perhaps, but honest-to-god bullets nonetheless. Two had been removed, one still lay deep beneath the scar. For this he had earned the name Poolya, or Bullet.

  Oxby had placed a call at nine o’clock New York time to Alexander Tobias. They were friends as well as professionally acquainted, having worked cases in both New York and London when they chased after faked da Vinci manuscripts and a crazy pharmacist who had made a nasty habit of destroying Cézanne’s self-portraits. He was told that Tobias had gone off for a long weekend to his camp in the Adirondack Mountains. His exact whereabouts and phone number could not be given to anyone except, and under extreme circumstances, the mayor of New York.

  “He said that?” Oxby asked.

  “No, but it would be like him,” the officer who answered the phone said with a little chuckle. “You have a choice if you want to get a message to him before he gets back. Voice mail, e-mail, or fax. Got a preference?”

  “This is Jack Oxby, Detective Chief Inspector with Scotland Yard. Does that get me any preference?”

  “Sorry, Inspector. Alex left a short list of people we can give his phone number to and your name isn’t on it.”

  “Give me the voice mail number,” Oxby said.

  Oxby thought of Alex Tobias in his lakeside cabin on Big Moose Lake. He had promised to take Oxby there, and under the circumstances, there was no other place on earth he would rather be at that moment. Oxby dialed the number with the hope that Alex would call for his messages before deciding to take an extra few days to empty Big Moose of all its small-mouth bass.

  “Alexander, this is Jack Oxby. I know you’re on the lake, and they won’t give me your number, so I shall trust to your disciplined spirit to call in and hear what I’ve got to say.

  “I’m on leave from the Yard, sorting out my personal fortunes and future, and not incidentally, currently involved in a fascinating assignment that has suddenly and absurdly turned completely around. To sum it up, I’ve fallen into a great deal more danger than I’d bargained for. So much so, that I’ve engaged several bodyguards to put, as they say so quaintly over here, a ‘roof ’ over my head. Never thought I’d be in league with the Russian mafiya, but I am, and with mixed emotions, quite happily, too.”

  Then, briefly and precisely, Oxby told Tobias about the assignment he’d received from Christopher Forbes and about St. Petersburg and Tashkent, and Yakov, and the deepening mystery surrounding Rasputin’s Imperial egg. “Initially I didn’t believe the rumor about such an egg. Now I think it’s quite possible. Of course I also didn’t believe that murder would be committed over such an erudite rumor.

  “I’ve a special favor to ask, Alex. You told me once you would like to know more about Fabergé’s work, so here’s your chance. Make a date to visit with Christopher Forbes. He’s there on Fifth Avenue where you can see their Fabergé collection. He likes to be called Kip and, knowing both of you, I think you’ll get along splendidly.

  “When you see Kip, give him my best regards. While you’re at it, you might also plan a visit with Gerard Hill. He’s Sotheby’s expert in charge of Russian icons and decorative arts. You might ask him what he knows about the Rasputin egg. He’ll likely laugh you out of the building, or, God knows, show you a file an inch thick.

  “Oh, and a final thought. What do you know about that section of New York where so many Russians flocked to over the years? Can’t think of it right now. But I know there are some old-timers who went there after the revolution and may have passed on stories about Rasputin. It’s a long shot, but you might have a piece of luck.

  “Alex, I hope you don’t mind my rambling on like this. All these suggestions are long shots, as it’s one of those nothing-ventured sorts of things.

  “I’ll call when you’re back in the city. Early Tuesday morning, your time. Cheerio.”

  Chapter 27

  Clouds flowed in from the west and with them a light morning drizzle. Oleg Deryabin stood at the window in his office, a phone in his hand. Thin scabs had formed over the scratches on his cheek and the skin around the four neat rows was inflamed to a hot pink. Trivimi Laar was sitting in one of the chairs in front of the big desk, leaning forward, making notes. Deryabin held his phone, listening, and whoever he was listening to had monopolized the conversation for the last minute, far longer than Deryabin usually allowed an underling to speak without interruption. Deryabin was angry and perspiring. Then it was over and Deryabin clicked off the phone without an acknowledgment.

  “Fucking bastard.” He said it as if it was all he was going to say about the unsatisfactory conversation he had just held with the Russian-American lawyer who was representing Koleso in New York and who had submitted a purchase order for fifteen cars to Carson Motors. He pulled back his chair and sat in it. He stared across the desk to the Estonian, waving the phone. “You didn’t tell me that Mikhail wanted a deposit. Not some puny amount, but twenty percent of the total cost of the transaction. Do you know how much that is?”

  “I told you we must pay a heavy deposit. I didn’t tell you how much because I didn’t know how much Mikhail would ask for. If you will nudge that convenient memory of yours, you will recall that I said it would be substantial.”

  “Twenty percent is too goddamned substantial.”

  “Seventy thousand dollars,” Trivimi said evenly.

  “And you lecture that I spend too freely.”

  “I explained that if we make severe reductions in expenses, we can survive through October. From there, it will be week to week until we can turn matters around. There is still the debt, and before the end of the year, we must begin to pay down on it, or we’ll have a roomful of creditors screaming for everything you own. Including your home and every possession you haven’t sent out of the country. In that case, only a miracle will keep New Century alive.”

  Deryabin looked plaintively at Trivimi. “Is there enough to make the damned deposit?”

  “I’ve accounted for that. Don’t let it slip that convenient mind that Mikhail will demand the balance
before he ships the cars.”

  “Tell me more about Mikhail. What is he like, what kind of questions did he ask?”

  “He was businesslike, and he asked businesslike questions. He knows automobiles and how to sell them.” Trivimi gathered his papers. “I didn’t mention that there was a detective with him. A man named Tobias.”

  “We’ve got a fucking detective meddling in our business in Petersburg. Now there’s one in New York? What was he doing with Mikhail?”

  “You forget, Akimov was shot in Mikhail’s office. One of his employees was stabbed.”

  Deryabin’s eyes flashed. “I haven’t forgotten.”

  “The police would like to know who shot the writer, the one Galina shot to get his notebook.”

  “The strange writing in his notebook was not so strange after all. I have the translation. There is no mention of my name.”

  “I’d like to read it,” Trivimi said. “What else was in the notebook?”

  “Akimov talked to Mikhail about the old days, and about the celebration that took place when Mikhail was born, and how everyone made toasts to Kennedy’s assassination. Mikhail described the woman who shot Akimov, and except for the color of her hair, he described Galina perfectly. He told the reporter that Akimov would probably die.”

  “Did Akimov talk about the poker game, or the egg?”

  Deryabin shook his head. “Read it before you fall asleep tonight.” He pushed the typed translation across to the Estonian.

  Trivimi stared at the report, then put it in his pocket. He said, “During my meeting with Mikhail I never used your name. I referred to you only as chairman of New Century.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “The important fact that Mikhail has no idea who you are. I strongly believe that Akimov never mentioned your name.”

  “Are you certain of that?”

  “No. But remember that Akimov was an old man telling old stories and making toasts to Mikhail’s family. If he planned to tell Mikhail about you, he waited too long. You see, Oleshka? The circumstances are exactly as you want them. Mikhail Karsalov and his father never communicated with each other and now the father and Akimov are dead.”