The Final Fabergé

by Thomas Swan

  “I have all the diaries and a box of photographs. I will send them to you. His other belongings were put in safekeeping.”

  “My mother. Did you learn about her?”

  “I wish I had a better answer. But, no. We read about her in your father’s diaries, and in Sasha Akimov’s letters. I’ve asked Yakov Ilyushin to try and locate her.”

  “Sasha gave me her address. I gave the information to a friend in Brighton Beach who has a Web site and communicates by e-mail with his contacts in many Russian cities. So far he hasn’t found anyone who knows my mother.” He grinned sheepishly. “It is time for the prodigal son to go home.”

  “I’ll put you in touch with Yakov. He’ll treat you like a son.”

  “I had planned to go over on business. Now it will be a personal visit.”

  “You and Deryabin have several issues to settle.”

  “Oh? What are they?”

  “First is his joint venture proposal. He’ll want to push ahead on it.”

  “I put nearly a half million dollars’ worth of cars in Port Newark and planned to ship them to St. Petersburg as soon as I was paid. That deal is dead.”

  “The cars?”

  “We’ll take them back.” Mike shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “What are the other issues?”

  “The Fabergé egg. It belongs to you.”

  “I said before that if my father was stupid enough to gamble it away, it doesn’t belong to me.”

  “But it does, Mike. There were five men playing cards that night. They’re all dead except Deryabin. Doesn’t that say something?”

  “It says Deryabin’s a son of a bitch, but it doesn’t prove I own the egg.”

  “There may be no law that says you do. But there’s an unwritten law of equity I like to invoke in situations like this.”

  Oxby approached Mike. “Look at me,” he said firmly. “Forget the poker game, though you can be sure your father was cheated. The egg belongs in your family.”

  “What do I do about it?”

  “First, let’s clear up the other issues I believe you must deal with. Foremost is the fact that your father paid a terrible penalty for a crime he didn’t commit.”

  “You’re absolutely certain of your facts?”

  “While your father was in the navy he was also running a business with Artur Prekhner. I explained how Deryabin became involved and how he pinned Prekhner’s murder on your father.”

  Mike pointed toward the Manhattan skyline. “He’s over there, isn’t he?”

  “In the Hilton Hotel with Trivimi Laar. And with the woman who I suspect shot Sasha Akimov in your office.”

  “That’s a nasty combination.”

  “I would agree that Deryabin is as bad as they come. It takes a twisted mind to meet face-to-face with the son of the man he destroyed.”

  “I asked before. What can I do?”

  “You told Alex that you have an appointment with him tomorrow morning in your office. Is that still on?”

  “Yes. Ten o’clock.”

  “I’d like for you to meet him outside of your office. In the open. In one of the parks, for example. Got an idea, Alex?”

  “Mike said he put some cars in Port Newark. I’m familiar with that operation. How about meeting over there? It’s anything but a park, but it’s wide open.”

  “What do you think, Mike?” Oxby asked.

  “Hell of a big place to have a meeting,” Mike said. “Be hot, too.”

  “What about security and locked gates, that sort of thing?”

  Tobias said, “There are gates and guards, and customs police patrol it, but we know the right people. That won’t be a problem.”

  “All right, let’s do it. What’s a good time, Alex?”

  “It’s busy in the morning. I suggest mid- or late afternoon.”

  “Four o’clock. That agreeable?”

  Mike said, “Who tells Deryabin?”

  “You do it. You can tell Deryabin you’ve got the cars he ordered and this would be his chance to see them before you ship them over.”

  Deryabin had been looking at every timepiece in sight throughout the afternoon and evening. When nine o’clock came and went, he was certain he would not hear from Oxby and any hopes of a call from Mike Carson also expired. But at ten past nine, the phone rang.

  Trivimi Laar answered it. Deryabin went hurriedly to listen on the bedroom extension.

  “It is good to hear from you, Michael,” Trivimi said. “Has everything gone well since I saw you?”

  Mike assured the Estonian that, indeed, all had gone well, and that he had a message for Oleg Deryabin. “Please explain that something urgent has come up and I can’t meet until the afternoon.”

  “What time?”

  “At four. But we will not meet in my office. I have gathered the cars you ordered and I want you to see them.”

  “A pleasant surprise,” Trivimi said. “Where are they?”

  “The cars are in New Jersey, in Port Newark. It’s a short drive and shouldn’t take more than forty minutes from your hotel. I will send instructions.”

  Then Mike rang off, saying he looked forward to meeting Trivimi again.

  Deryabin returned to the sitting room at the very moment Galina unlocked the door and joined the two men.

  “Where have you been?” Deryabin demanded, his tone sharp and challenging.

  Galina went to the cart and put a pastry and fruit on a plate. Without turning to face him, she answered, “I went for a Sunday drive. Someone told me it’s an old American custom.”

  Chapter 44

  It was ten miles, as the crow flies, from midtown Manhattan to Port Newark, New Jersey. By car, the distance increased but not by much. The port was located on the western shore of Newark Bay, which in turn was connected to Upper New York Bay by the Kill Van Kull, a narrow stretch of water through which the big ships passed as they came from or went out to the Atlantic Ocean. The docks and the huge warehouses were in the center of a fifteen-square-mile region packed solid with a variety of industry, commerce, trade, and transportation. To the west, and separated by the New Jersey Turnpike, was Newark International Airport. North and south of the port area were specialty chemical plants and petroleum production factories, plus soccer-field-size yards filled with small mountains of squashed automobiles, or giant-size construction equipment. The odors in the air changed with the wind and factory schedules; from the acrid and pungent to fragrant concoctions of spices and sweet-scented disinfectants. Heavy trucks spewed up lung-blackening streams of diesel exhaust.

  Cargo of every kind came through the port each year. Of note were a half million vehicles, shipped in specially designed ocean freighters, some rising twelve stories above the water-line. Most were passenger cars with names like Volvo, SAAB, Hyundai. After each vehicle was driven off the ship, it was inspected, logged in, and parked at a predetermined space in what was known as the Field. No grass grew on the Field, for it was a gigantic expanse of asphalt with a cross-hatching of white painted lines.

  Most of the vehicles were factory-fresh and from Scandinavia or Seoul and came in their traveling clothes; hood, roof, and trunk covered with a protective skin of white, tough plastic. Newly minted Americanproduced cars were in the same protective cover, and marshaled in sections of the Field set aside for exports.

  There were nearly ten thousand new cars and miscellaneous vehicles on the Field, their combined value easily exceeding a quarter of a billion dollars. Yet not one of the cars was locked. Immense as it was, the Field had but two gates. One was for the long car carriers that moved out every few minutes with their heavy burden, the other for car dealers or individuals who came to ship or receive a car from overseas. The gates were guarded by a combination of the New York–New Jersey Waterfront Commission and private security forces. During hours of operation, usually from 8:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M., the Field was patrolled by armed members of the U.S. Customs Service.

  In a designated section of the Field, several hun
dred feet away from what was known as the Doremus Avenue Gate, were an assortment of vehicles waiting to be exported. Here were privately owned cars being shipped abroad for use by families on extended personal visits or business assignments. Also, there were small groups of vehicles being shipped by entrepreneurs and independent automobile dealers. Mike Carson fit the latter category, and the fifteen cars he had assembled for shipment to St. Petersburg were gathered here.

  Mike chose nine Cadillacs, four Oldsmobiles, and two Pontiacs. Each car had stickers on the front windows and a bright yellow tag dangling from the rearview mirror. One of the stickers read Bremerhaven, and beneath the name of the port, a printed message rendered with a bright red Day-Glo pen: “Do not load pending authorization of Carson Motors, Inc.” On the passenger seat was the car’s manual and two sets of keys.

  Surrounding Mike’s fifteen cars was an eclectic collection of vehicles, including a ten-year-old white Lincoln Continental stretch limousine with a windshield sticker indicating it was on its way to Southampton. Next to the Lincoln were two Hummers, one black, the other dark blue. Strange-looking, even menacing with their low-slung profile and small windows, Hummers were the king of the recreational vehicles, designed for safari or a beach party and immediately convertible to military action. Appropriately enough, these two were the property of a Kuwaiti sheikh.

  There was an oddity about this field filled with so many automobiles. Or perhaps it was a contradiction. These were modern machines meant to move at high speed, and to those who walked the Field, the row upon row of stilled power was an incongruity. One could sense the bridled energy straining to burst free.

  Deryabin stirred first on Monday morning. The bed next to his was empty, the cover had been turned down but it had not been slept in.

  “Where are you, bitch?” he said, pinching out the words. “Galina!”

  He stormed into the sitting room, then flung open the bathroom door. He was alone. There was a blanket and pillow on the sofa. He took the pillow and punched it. He kept at it, hitting the pillow with the anger and frustration of a little boy. He threw the pillow to the floor, then picked up the phone and called room service and soon another cart of food appeared. This time he ate ravenously. He watched a morning television host go on about vacation travel. He flipped off the set, then tried to make sense out of the business pages of the New York Times. He heard the door open and close. It was Galina.

  She came into the room and the two stared at each other, neither speaking. She poured coffee and sat in the chair where her view was to the Upper West Side of the city. Deryabin watched her, frowning. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

  She didn’t look his way, but shook her head. “Nyeht.”

  “When did you go to bed? I didn’t hear you.”

  She ignored his question.

  He raised his voice a notch. “I asked when did you come to bed?”

  “Is it important? You were making so much noise I came here.”

  “I told you that if I was asleep to wake me.”

  “Why should I wake you?”

  “I wanted you.”

  “I didn’t want you, Oleg. That was our bargain. You want to fuck, get a whore. They have very good ones in New York.”

  “You slept here?”

  “On the sofa. It is comfortable. And quiet.”

  He poured more coffee and sat in the chair opposite from her. “You said you went for a drive yesterday. Where did you go?”

  “North of here. The Tappan Bridge, I think.”

  “Tappan Zee.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you go there?”

  “To get away.”

  “Away from here? From me?”

  “Don’t start a fight, Oleg. I was bored.”

  “You have a job.”

  “It’s not my job to sit in this room waiting for the phone to ring.”

  “You do what I tell you.”

  “I know what I have to do. And I’ll do it my way.”

  Mike Carson walked into his kitchen, a phone crooked to his ear, a mug in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other. He put more coffee in his mug and went back to the living room just as Patsy came through the door he had left open for her.

  “Hi, boss,” she said, and put a paper bag on the coffee table.

  Mike signaled to her with two fingers, talked another half minute on the phone, then clicked off. He took a sweet roll from the paper bag and bit into it. There was something ritualistic and familiar about the way Mike and Patsy joined each other, as if it happened exactly this way every morning. On every Monday morning at nine o’clock it did.

  “You’ve got a date with the Russians at eleven,” Patsy declared. “Everything copacetic?”

  “It’s been put off until four.”

  “Oh?” It was an utterance that conveyed assorted concerns and at least one question. “Somebody got a problem?”

  “Not exactly a problem. More like a strategy.”

  “Changing the time is a strategy?”

  He took another bite of the roll and sipped on his coffee. He wasn’t looking at her, trying, it was becoming obvious, to sort out his thoughts and explain what he was trying to say.

  “Two men were here last night. One you know, Alex Tobias. The other from London. Interesting guy named Jack Oxby. With Scotland Yard. ”

  “What did they want?”

  “Oxby’s been in Russia. Brought some news about my family.”

  “Good news, I hope?”

  “Some good, some bad. It’s been so long—” He caught himself. “They asked me to change the time of my meeting with the Russians.”

  “Any reason?”

  “I’ll tell you—but not now.”

  Patsy cocked her head and gave one of her I-know-something’s-up looks. “Anything I can do?”

  He shook his head and said there wasn’t. “Unless you want to get me another Danish . . .”

  It was getting hot. As in sizzling hot with the thermometer outside the Tobias kitchen reading 97 at 11:45 A.M. The air was heavy and there were no clouds, except for a few to the south that appeared threatening and that might bring a storm if they stayed on track. Alex Tobias saw the clouds. He had turned to the Weather Channel and had seen the satellite pictures. A fast-moving front coming from the southwest would hit the New York metropolitan area between 2:00 and 4:00 P.M. and would be “accompanied by rain, heavy at times with winds expected to gust to 40 miles per hour.” Then it would clear, but would remain hot and humid.

  “We don’t need a rainstorm, Jack.”

  “Know how to stop it?”

  Tobias smiled. “You’re right. Maybe we can make it work to our advantage.”

  “I’ll work on it,” Oxby said.

  An envelope with the Carson Motors logo printed on the front was delivered to Deryabin’s suite at 11:35. Inside was a map with the route from the hotel to Port Newark highlighted in yellow. Trivimi estimated that it would take thirty or forty minutes to make the drive. There was also a note:Mr. Deryabin:

  Enclosed you will find a map that will guide you to the location of your meeting this afternoon at 4:00 P.M. The guard at the Doremus Avenue entrance will show you where to park inside the gate. He will give you directions onto the large parking area where the cars you have ordered are located and where Mr. Carson will be waiting for you.

  The unsigned message was typed on company stationery with Michael Carson’s name printed near the top of the sheet. Trivimi handed the map and note to Deryabin, who looked quickly at both, then stared at the map for several long seconds. He held up the pieces of paper, and as he did, his eyes closed and his face twitched as if every part of him was about to unravel into a horrible rage.

  “It’s Oxby. He’s behind this.” Then he crumpled the papers into a ball and threw it across the room.

  Galina retrieved it and separated the pages. She studied the map, then gave it and the note to the Estonian. She went to the door and opened it.

  “Wher
e are you going?” Deryabin said.

  “To the lobby for something to eat.”

  “We’ve got food. All you want, right there.”

  “I want to eat alone.”

  Mike Carson went for a drive. Alone. He drove over the GW Bridge and continued on the Cross Bronx Expressway, over the Throgs Neck Bridge, and on to the Long Island Expressway. A left turn would take him to Roslyn and his new dealership, but without hesitation, he turned right and followed familiar highways and streets that eventually led him to a wide parkway that ended in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn. He was, in a manner of speaking, home.

  He parked and got from his car and began to walk. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and wiped the sweat from his neck with a handkerchief. How long had it been since he had walked on Brighton Beach Avenue? Old memories were difficult to bring into focus because they competed with new memories from the previous evening. The ones put there by Jack Oxby, who had met his father and seen him die. He had put Russia and his family out of his life. Or, thought he had. But it wasn’t so. There was the photograph of his father and mother and his grandfather. Now, the knowledge that he was the son of a man who paid a price for a crime he didn’t commit. The son of a mother he must discover and love.

  At the least he was confused. He was lonely and angry and he felt that he had lost the privilege to have selfish feelings.

  He passed the markets with their odors of fish and old food rotting in buckets set out at the curb. The clothes shop with jeans for the family and shoes for infants. Book stalls on the sidewalk and tables heaped with old magazines and paperbacks in Russian and Greek. He stopped in front of a nightclub that advertised exotic dancers including photographs of a bare-breasted showgirl fresh from her hit appearance in Minsk. He went inside and though it was the lunch hour, it was nearly empty. He sat at a table and ordered a bottle of soda and a salad. It was a room in greens and black with clusters of ceiling lights. At the far end was a small stage festooned with decorations left from last night’s anniversary party, the music stands and chairs disarranged as they had been left. A man, a patron or maybe a musician, got onto the stage and tapped life into the microphone. He sat at an electronic keyboard and began to play. He sang a Russian folk song, haunting and sad.