“Where are we going?”
“New York first,” says Stefan. “Then to the old country. You’re tired, Sam. Finish your drink and sleep.”
He hands me headphones. I listen to falling rain and forest whispers. I look into the night, imagine how cold it is in the black beyond the wing. I think of my father, so many years gone. I am older than he ever was. He is down there, interned in darkness. I close my eyes and am subsumed by the night.
The plane banks. We drop beneath a low sheet of clouds and land in Islip, Long Island. The Atlantic is rough, gray green, the surf breaking hard on the beach. Alex hands me a coffee and a sliced orange. The plane door opens. Stefan’s assistant, Chloe, a brisk woman with tied-back red hair, whom I met two years ago at Stefan’s Malibu house, steps in juggling three smartphones, the financial papers, and a book on climate change. She is followed by Roberto, a soft-voiced young man from Argentina via the London School of Economics, whose role I have never discerned. He wears a blue suit and a muted tie. His black hair is parted to the side. He eyes me as if I were a stowaway, smiles, and says something to Stefan, who goes to the cockpit door and taps the pilot on the shoulder. Drizzle speckles the windshield. Gray light seeps through the cabin. Stefan returns to his seat. Roberto hurries to the cockpit and closes the door. The engines whir. Chloe buckles in beside me.
“Been a while, Sam,” she says. “Glad you’re on the trip. Roberto can be tedious on long jaunts, and Stefan, well, you know, man of many moods.” She laughs and lets her hair down. It falls past her shoulders, fierce and untamed, like a storm. She scrolls on a smartphone. “Trump’s on another Twitter binge. Market’s been up and down all day. What a fucking country.”
“Where are we going?”
“Brussels,” she says. “Hurry-up meeting with a banker from Berlin, an investor from Vienna, and a casino owner from Montenegro. They’re . . .”
“A deal,” says Stefan, sitting across from us with an espresso in one hand, cognac in the other. “There are problems. The guy from Berlin is okay, but the Vienna man—his name is Viktor—is a bit of a schlub. You know this word, schlub? Anyway, it’s complicated, but the plan is to move money, most of it legal, through Berlin and Vienna and then to Montenegro. The money will then go in other directions, and hopefully, more money will come back. Chloe can explain, if you want. By the way, Sam, I’m telling these men you’re my silent adviser. They don’t like cops—nothing personal, but you know. Viktor is already nervous. He dreams of financial police.”
“What about—”
“Don’t worry, Sam, it’s all arranged. You will meet the person you need.”
Chloe touches my arm, nods, yes.
We break through cloud cover. I see the last of the ocean. The sky blooms blue. Alex hands me an espresso and a scone. Chloe slides me the Financial Times. I read about Mark Zuckerberg and peddled data and how nothing of your own is ever your own anymore. We are pixels in the designs of others. I turn to the culture pages to a review on Paul Schrader’s film First Reformed, about a self-doubting priest, a planet spoiled, and the faint hope of resurrection. I push the papers aside. Chloe, her head turned toward me, is sleeping. Her skin is polished and white. As a child, she must have burned easily. Sharp chin, full lips, no lines around her green-hazel eyes. She is still young—not as young as she looks, but natural and perfectly attuned to Stefan’s erratic demands.
The plane is warm. Stefan is sleeping. I feel ripples of wind beneath us, slight dips and rises. The sky ahead is turning to dusk and, farther on, night, as if we had tricked time and were flying into a painting. Lights glow and multiply below. My ears pop, and I feel our descent. Alex brings hot towels.
We are awake but quiet as we touch down in Brussels. A van drives us to a small terminal. Our passports are stamped, and a gray-haired man in a cap and funeral suit leads us to a Mercedes and drives us to a hotel near the center. Europe. Pillars and carved angels, fluted gold, yellow, and magenta, apostles and whores, lovers kissing near fountains beneath the disappearing moon. It’s good to be back. Stefan hands me a key card. “Sleep and shower,” he says. “Maybe walk around the city. Meet us on the second floor for dinner. Seven. There’s a restaurant at the end of a hall.”
My room looks over a church. Early morning light, slick cobblestones. A man carrying bread, boys with knapsacks, a smoking policeman. I undress, shower, and climb into bed. I feel weightless, gone. I sleep until 5:00 p.m. The window is dark. I shave, text Ortiz, and put on my only good suit—a charcoal-gray Armani I bought a year ago with a couple of big overtime checks—a pale-blue shirt, and a tie. I step to the window and see my reflection. I feel as if I almost belong in this drama of Stefan’s making.
I take the elevator to the second floor. I hear soft voices and step through the door. Chloe is in a short, purple dress, her hair bobby-pinned and bunned. Stefan wears a dark-blue suit, white shirt, no tie. He’s talking to men in the corner—brandy and laughter, except for one, a nervous, stout man with thinning blond hair, who must be Viktor from Vienna. Stefan is at ease around men with money. I have seen him operate before. He moves about them like a blade, discerning, gaining confidences, twisting in a joke usually involving a priest or a hapless diplomat. Chloe leads them to a table. She and I—Roberto is not around—sit a few tables over, watching.
“Human nature, huh?” says Chloe. “You must know a lot about that, Sam. The way we feed off one another. Confidences and insecurities. Nothing brings them out like money.” She nods. “Look at Viktor, fidgeting. The big man next to him is the Berlin banker, and the other one is the gangster—of course, Stefan calls him a casino owner—from Montenegro. I love his beard, don’t you? Like a pelt.” She smiles, checks a smartphone, and turns to her white wine and pheasant. I glance at Stefan, sitting in candlelight in a window over the street, looking over it as if the city had been passed to him by a sly old-world descendant.
Dinner ends, and the Berlin banker, Klaus, who looks like conductor Kurt Masur, and Viktor retreat to a corner and smoke a cigar. Stefan and the Montenegrin walk to a window. They are speaking Serbian. Chloe leans close to me and translates. They talk of the former Yugoslavia and Tito, the partisan-turned-dictator who once held it all together while riding horses and hunting deer on the presidential estate in Belgrade.
“It was always a false country,” says the Montenegrin.
“It was our home,” says Stefan. “We did many things well. We got along. Croat. Muslim. Serb.”
“Yes, but you knew it wasn’t to be. We were a stepchild of a country. Didn’t really fit, did we? All those pieces.”
“You got out okay.”
“I don’t complain,” says the Montenegrin. “I stay on the coast. Quiet as—how do they say?—a clam. You have done well, too, although I don’t exactly know what it is you do anymore. You are a mystery, my friend. Like your grandfather. How many years is Goran gone now? He was the fox of them all. Do you ever go back to see your mother’s grave?”
“I do not want to see it. It’s not in a cemetery. It’s in a place below our house, near a stream. That time is long over.”
“Be glad of it. I worry about the Russians though. You see what they’re doing in America. The Russians eat but are always hungry. They tried to take me over in my own country, my own casino.”
“This deal will help you,” says Stefan.
“Viktor concerns me. He doesn’t have the heart for this. Look at him. He looks like he got on the wrong train.”
“He’ll come around. Klaus is reassuring him.”
“A German and an Austrian. That’s not a good pairing.”
They laugh, drinking wine and smoking cigarettes the Montenegrin rolls.
“Your fingers are still nimble, Silva,” says Stefan, winking at him as if they are in a game. “They are like insects.”
I look over the street, listening to Stefan and the men around me, thinking of Sunday trai
n rides as a boy, from Newport to Hartford to New York and back, and how I felt rich racing along the coast, following the contours of boys before me and listening to my mother speak of writers and dead men in warehouses and how to make a highball or tip a doorman and, on one trip, which startled both of us, how to touch a woman. Tender but never shy. I take my wine and stand at a window in the corner. A man hurries toward a church. A bakery truck rattles past. A couple gets out of a taxi, laughing and falling drunk in the street, rolling and kissing near the gutter. It’s nearly dawn. Stefan appears and puts his arm around me.
“You never look tired,” I say.
“I’m a vampire. Night is my time.”
“It’s nearly light.”
“A nice scene, don’t you think?”
“Is the deal done?”
“Viktor was an ass, but yes.”
“The guy from Montenegro looks happy.”
“Silva is never happy. But this will make him content. For a while.”
“Things worked out for you.”
“Tonight. Not always. Look around. Isn’t it perfect? This place, this city. Look at that street. Imagine where it leads.” He presses his face closer to the glass. “Life is these moments, Sam. Not the ones you wait for. They never come.”
We are quiet. The German, the Montenegrin, and Viktor leave. Chloe scrolls on her phone. A woman moves toward us in the window’s reflection. Stefan and I turn. He puts his hand on my shoulder and whispers, “This is the one you need to see.” He slides his hand away and wanders toward Chloe.
“I think you know me, Mr. Sam,” she says.
“Zhanna Smirnov.”
“That is a sometime name.”
“You were with Levon the night he left the police station, after we questioned him. I saw you in the back of the car.”
“Poor Levon. He was like child.”
She is tan, silver-black hair cut above the shoulders, blue eyes looking at me, making calculations. She’s wearing a black dress and pearls as if returning from a night out, perhaps from a castle in the hills, or a hidden corridor in a museum. Her bracelet is latticed gold; two diamonds peek from a ring. Her voice has a slight huskiness and flows with its own intentions. There must be czars in her bloodline. One can tell, or she’s a damn good actress—a spy, too, maybe, like Mickey Orlov. She lifts a gold case from her sequined clutch, takes a cigarette, and lights it. She nods, and we sit by the window.
“How do you know Stefan?” I say.
“I don’t know him. People I know do. But he is charming. I like.”
“Money people.”
She laughs.
“All kinds of people,” she says. “And you?”
“He helped me on something a long time ago.”
“It seems he is helping you again, no? You must watch those who help too much.”
She blows an arrow of smoke and looks at me.
“Did you know Katrina Ivanovna?” I say.
“The whole world knew Katrina Ivanovna. Once.”
“But . . .”
“I am her aunt. Her mother is my sister.”
She registers my reaction.
“Not what you were thinking,” she says.
“I don’t know what to think.”
“It’s like Russian doll for you, no? Many pieces.”
“That sounds about right.”
“What do you look for, Mr. Sam?”
“How she died.”
“I think overdose. She had many problems with drugs. They catch her finally.”
“You believe that?”
“It’s what I read. But where is body? Why did police lose her?”
“I’m sorry. We don’t know who’s behind it. That’s why I’m here.”
She glances to the window and back.
“Night is almost over,” she says.
“Do—”
“You need to find something of Katrina’s.”
“The diaries.”
“Little red books,” she says. “Should be interesting for whoever finds.”
“Why?”
“Many secrets in little books, maybe, maybe not.”
“You were in Los Angeles when she died.”
She blows smoke, crushes out her cigarette, looks at me hard.
“Katrina was not close to her mother. You know her mother? No. Maria Ivanovna. Very important in the right places in Russia. She is like—what is expression?—connected. Maria is connected. Oligarchs and money. She knows them. Moscow is happy and dangerous place for people with money. She understands them. They let her in. Maria always wanted to be in. Like Putin. But he was never out.” She looks at her diamond ring and back at me. “Katrina stopped talking to her long ago. After she found out.”
“Found out what?”
“You find, Mr. Sam. Maybe in little red books.”
“But you know.”
“It’s hard to know what one knows these days.”
“Why were you in Los Angeles?”
“Katrina called Maria one night. Crying. Maria said she was high. Talking like wild child. Like addict. Is that right, addict? Katrina was yelling into phone. Saying she would tell her story. The story of famous ballerina.” She lights another cigarette. “Did you ever see her dance? She was beautiful. I am her aunt, so I can say this. But everyone knew it was true. But dancers cannot dance forever, can they Mr. Sam? Maria told her not to tell her story. Katrina wouldn’t listen. She said she was going to meet a man who writes such books. I think this man wrote a book about Princess Diana. One of those writers. Maria called me and said go. ‘Go see her. Stop her.’”
“Why you?”
“Katrina was close to me. I was dancer too. For a little while. Not like her. Nobody was like her.” She closes her eyes, smiles, as if in a passing dream. “When I got to Los Angeles, I called her. She didn’t answer. I went to her apartment, but she wasn’t there or didn’t answer. I went back to the hotel and waited. Then . . .”
“You heard she was dead.”
“Yes, the next day, when police lost her body.”
“Someone stole it.”
“No matter, she is gone.”
“Do you know Mickey Orlov?”
“Mickey, Mikhail. He is like cat. Many lives. Was spy, now a producer. Many in Russia are like him.”
“He lives in Los Angeles.”
“He’s still Russian,” she says, tapping her heart. “Inside.”
“Did he know Katrina?”
“Mickey knows everybody. Katrina knew everybody. What you think? Maybe interesting relationship between Katrina and Mickey.”
“What kind?”
“You find out, Mr. Sam.”
A crack of orange runs across the horizon. Zhanna and I stare at the sky, saying nothing. She slides me a cigarette. It sits there. I touch it, hold it. Put it down. Pick it up. Smell the tobacco. I light it and feel that sudden detachment, that fleeting high, like the first drink, that I have always loved.
“You have quit?” Zhanna says.
“Until now.”
Chloe and Stefan are gone. A waiter brings espressos, but the room is ours alone.
“Do you think it was an overdose?” I say.
“Yes, but maybe . . .”
“Two men came to her apartment. Levon said Katrina was upset by them. He said they were Russian.”
“Many Russians in America these days. Too many, no? Mr. Trump likes Russians too much, I think.”
“Who were those men who visited her?”
“In my country, when you speak on phone, the men with no faces hear.”
“You think Katrina’s phone was tapped?”
“This is normal, no?”
“Other people are looking for the diaries?”
“What you think
?”
“KGB.”
“No more KGB. Is now FSB. But same.”
“What about Levon?”
“You know about Levon. You questioned him.”
“Did he overdose?”
She breathes in, begins to speak, falls silent. Starts again.
“His parents knew Maria Ivanovna from long time back. They called maybe year ago to see if Katrina could help Levon. Music world is very cruel. Maria passed on to me, and I told Katrina to meet this boy. He played beautifully. So sad. He played for her. You know this. Katrina said his playing calmed her, and he kept coming to her apartment. Playing longer and longer. She dancing around him. Imagine. How do you say, lost souls?”
“Like Gogol.”
“You read Russians, Mr. Sam?”
“A few over the years. Why were you with Levon that night at the police station?”
“When Katrina didn’t answer my calls, I called Levon.”
“Did he know about the diaries? What did he tell you?
“He was frightened. I took him to hotel. He told me about the two men. I asked him about Katrina’s red books. He said he knows nothing. I believe. He’s a boy. I asked him to play. He played in my room for an hour, never looking up. Like monk, I think. We ate, and he left. I told him to stay with me. He said no. I told him again. But he left. I should have made him stay.”
“Did he go to his parents?”
“I don’t know.”
“We can’t get a hold of them. They’re not home.”
“I think you will never know them.”
“Was he killed? A forced overdose.”
“He was a scared boy who knew nothing, but maybe, someone thinks he did.”
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