by Greg Smith
Alex was amazed at the old man’s acute perception. And his wit. He found the old man’s penchant for distorting American adages amusing.
Nadia had appeared with more of the coffee that never seemed to run out. Alex regarded the dark-haired woman, thought she looked more feminine than usual.
“Would you like to come with us, Nadia?” he asked, though uncertain what he’d do with two technosaurs.
Nadia politely excused herself. She had readings scheduled. Chores to complete.
As Alex went upstairs to get ready for their venture out, Griggor considered which version of the Muskolovs’ demise he would relate to the tall stranger.
• • • • •
CHAPTER 41
Step never expected Aleks’s purge to take more than a few weeks. Let alone eight months.
He didn’t mind the separation at first. Then, for a time, it had been unbearable. There were days when it felt as though part of him was missing. His new job proved to be an effective distraction. He was soon working twelve- and fourteen-hour days. Working weekends and holidays, as well. All of which helped fill the void his family had once occupied. As the weeks became months, he fell into a routine that consumed twenty-four hours of every day, seven days of every week. He soon didn’t have time to miss his twin brother.
His new employer, WJS & Associates, was a firm in Lower Manhattan with a solid reputation for managing, and preserving, some of New York City’s oldest money. Winston Jarvis Stanton III (the WJS in WJS & Associates) had interviewed, and hired, Step himself. The business owner was genuinely pleased with his newest employee’s intense work ethic, his keen ability to evaluate stocks, analyze profit and loss statements, gauge the market. He was further pleased to learn that Step was a superb computer programmer. By his second month on the job, WJS’s novice employee had completed a proprietary software program for tracking and managing the firm’s accounts that was far superior to than anything Wins Stanton had seen in his thirty-plus years in the business.
The wealthy businessman became uncharacteristically fond of his guileless new employee. Step was refreshingly candid. Straightforward. Certainly not the scheming bootlicker so many of Wins’ other subordinates were. The tall man quickly became the elderly broker’s protégé, unintentionally assumed a position akin to the son Wins had never had. Though indifferent to the remarks and attitudes of jealous coworkers, Step found it awkward being Wins Stanton’s confidant. A position he hadn’t voluntarily sought.
His status as the boss’s favorite, however, lasted only until the day Step married Wins’ daughter.
Constance Francis Stanton had grown up the only child of affluent parents in the wealthy city of White Plains in New York’s Westchester County. Both her parents were arrogant, narcissistic, exceptionally proud of their WASP roots. Their very names exuded WASP snootiness. Winston Jarvis Stanton III. Gwendoline Barrett Ellsworth. Wins and Gwensy, as they were known within their clique of close friends. They relished their monied entitlement, their exorbitant lifestyle.
As a young girl, Connie attended private boarding schools, was sequestered from her parents for much of her childhood. She was rebellious from the onset, causing much dissention when at home, which only compelled her parents to send her away for the discipline she so obviously needed, but that their lifestyle didn’t accommodate. Which, in turn, made her more resentful and rebellious. It was a vicious cycle of abandonment by affluence.
She was smoking by age eleven. Had her first sexual encounter shortly afterward. Was promiscuous throughout her teens. At fifteen, she’d had her first lesbian experience. At sixteen, she’d had an abortion. At seventeen, she’d become familiar with rehab. Somehow, the Stantons managed to keep the more lurid details of their daughter’s life secret. Though rumors abounded, those in their social circle believed Connie had had “a long bout with viral meningitis,” not an abortion. That she was “touring Europe,” not in rehab.
At the age of twenty-one, Connie married Dustin Upshaw Houghington II, a long-time childhood friend and the grandson of one of Wins Stanton’s best clients. Their families had spent many summers together in the Hamptons.
Despite her knowledge of her fiancé’s as-yet-veiled homosexuality, Connie and Dustin were married in a glamorous affair that was covered by the social editors of all the major New York newspapers. They honeymooned in Antigua, where Connie treated her husband to a threesome after picking up a sexy local girl in the hotel bar on the second night of their stay. Dustin spent the entire evening feigning interest in the encounter. He didn’t feign anything two nights later. When Connie brought a male bartender into their bedroom.
Back in the States, the newlyweds moved to New Haven, where Connie partied uncontrollably for the three years her husband attended Yale law school. Before the socialites could embark on the lifestyle of the rich-though-not-so-famous Connie had envisioned, however, Dustin emerged from the closet. He moved out with Connie, in with Garrett.
Connie had returned to New York City swaddled in the scandal. But she was Teflon Connie Stanton. She’d made a career of defusing potentially disgraceful situations.
“So it turns out the husband my parents picked for me is a fag. Who cares?” she told anyone who would listen. “I tried to keep him on our team, but he wants to play for them. They can have him. It’s not like he’s packing a big bat or anything!”
Connie and Step met one summer evening at a fund-raiser Wins was hosting. In the Stanton’s elitist crowd, their status, in general, and that of Wins, in particular, was incumbent upon his maintaining a certain decorum of philanthropy. Rich people liked to invest their money with other rich people who gave their own money away freely. At least, for appearances sake. It was one of the rules of the affluent, a co-worker at WJS had whispered to Step when the topic of the fund-raising event was broached in a meeting.
As a junior partner, Step was compelled to attend a smattering of such social events. Connie was in attendance to placate her parents. And to maintain access to her significant trust funds.
The two had converged on a Champaign table. Connie to snare her third glass of bubbly. Step to wash down an hors d’oeuvre. When they simultaneously reached for the same glass, Step graciously deferred to the beautiful blond. Allowed her to take possession while he chose an alternate glass. Peering over the rim as she sipped her drink, the blond’s striking blue eyes surveyed the tall, handsome owner of the hand that had relinquished its claim on the beverage she was savoring.
“Connie Stanton,” she said with a demure curtsy.
She’d spoken just as Step tipped his glass to his lips. The effervescence of the bubbly unexpectedly tickled his nose. Step snorted.
“It’s a pleasure to eat you,” he mumbled to the beautiful blond, dabbing the sparkly from his upper lip with a napkin.
Amused by the tall, handsome man, Connie laughed boisterously.
“Are you speaking to me…or the canapé?” she teased, leaning close and whispering loudly, “I can’t speak for the canapé, but as for me, I’m sure that pleasure would be all mine.”
Step blushed, felt prickly panic rise up the back of his neck. Barely able to make eye contact with the beautiful blond, he tried desperately to escape his predicament.
“No, no, no. What I meant to say is, ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’”
“Well,” Connie countered. “I guess that was just a Freudian slip…of the tongue. So to speak.”
She laughed, grabbed Step’s arm, pulled him close, whispered conspiratorially.
“Take me away from here, my tall, dark, handsome mystery man.”
They abandoned the fund-raiser, escaped to a quiet bar nearby. Where formal introductions could be made.
“Yes, Wins and Gwensy’s daughter,” she admitted, rolling her eyes.
“I have nothing but the utmost respect for your father. He’s an astute market analyst with a wealth of business acumen.”
Connie wasn’t as impressed w
ith her father’s success as her mystery man appeared to be.
“Wins hires people who are smarter than he is, but don’t know it. They make him more successful than he could ever be on his own. You make him the success he is.”
“Well, somebody has to be the mastermind behind it all,” Step kidded, uncharacteristically. “Actually, I think I’m using him as much as he uses me. In a sense, it’s a symbiotic relationship. Mutual exploitation.”
“Ooh. I love it when you talk all sexy like that,” Connie purred.
She took him home to her apartment in Manhattan that night, made him deliver on his verbal gaffe.
Step was immediately infatuated with his boss’s daughter, pursued her like a puppy chasing a butterfly. Though he felt she was out of his league, he couldn’t help himself. He’d been smitten. Seduced. Bedeviled.
Introverted by nature, he’d never been the womanizer his brother Aleks was. Women, however, found the tall, athletic Step attractive, were mildly delighted by his self-consciousness. He was the proverbial deep-running-silent-water type. The beautiful blond found him similarly appealing. She was intrigued by the handsome, bungling man. In an amusing sort of way.
Connie Stanton was a woman who needed constant amusement.
Connie and Step became involved with each other for all the wrong reasons. They were an incongruent mismatch. Not in a physical sense, for they were an attractive couple. Stylish. Chic. But Connie was outgoing, vivacious. The life of every party. Step had always been a wallflower. Connie was high-maintenance. Step was practical. Connie was an attention whore. Step, a shadow dweller.
Whatever the obscure explanation, the couple found themselves drawn to one another. Soon after meeting, they were dating. Soon after dating, they were engaged. Despite Connie’s parents’ disapproved of Step as a proper suitor. Though Wins had been enamored by his protégé, who had all the skills and attributes required to be a successful broker, Stepan Bagdasarian lacked the one requirement so necessary for fitting into the Stanton’s world. A WASP pedigree.
All the more reason for their rebellious, free-spirited daughter to want to marry the man her mother referred to as “that bungling Bohemian.” Smugly pleased with the alliteration, Gwensy’s arrogance allowed her to remain ignorantly unaware of her misuse of the word she believed to mean “commoner.”
The wedding date was set. The Stantons obtained the services of a well-known wedding planner. And Connie vetoed every suggestion “Dorf” made.
“It’s Dolf, sweetie. Like Dolph Lundgren. But without the Lund. And without the Gren,” the willowy, effeminate planner explained, gesturing wildly. “And with an ‘f’ instead of a ‘ph.’”
“Do you know my ex-husband by any chance?” Connie asked, not bothering to mask her sarcasm.
“Did she say ‘ex’?” Dolf shot back, intentionally referring to Connie in the third person. “Hmm. If she’s implying he’s changed teams, I can see why.”
Dolf was smugly satisfied with his retort. Connie was impressed with his intuition. After that exchange, the planning went smoothly.
“Wait. What the fuck, Binyak. You’re getting married? But…I haven’t even met the guy!”
Aleks acted as though he was going to deliver a hard punch to Step’s upper arm, pulled back at the last second, tapped him on the shoulder with his fist. He was astounded by the bombshell his brother had just dropped.
“Wedding’s not until fall, Al. Maybe you’ll be out of puberty by then.”
Aleks held a hand over his heart, feigning amazement.
“Step made a joke. Ladies and germs, my brother has officially embarked on his stand-up career.”
He clapped faintly.
“Seriously, who is this girl? Do I know her?”
Aleks hadn’t even known Step was dating.
“She’s Wins’ daughter,” Step said.
“Ah. Trav’lin in ’igh so-sigh-eh-tee, is we?”
Aleks defaulted to his corny Cockney accent. Step tried to keep their conversation serious.
“I’m asking you to reserve judgement until you’ve gotten to know Connie. She’s nothing like her parents.”
“Course she ain’, ma’ey. She’s a righ’ ord’nary bird, she is.”
“Will you knock off that stupid accent, Al? What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell me sooner,” Aleks carped. “Before you got engaged. Before you set a date.”
Aleks was worried that a woman he’d never met had shanghaied his dream by kidnapping his twin brother. Luring Step into a marriage he wasn’t ready for. Condemning him to a life sentence in the family business. He was concerned Step would end up like the proverbial subservient son-in-law. Kowtowing to his overbearing father-in-law because he couldn’t provide for his spoiled, silver-spoon-fed wife without his job in the family business. All at the expense of his childhood aspiration of owning his own financial planning firm. With his twin brother, Aleks.
“So, our dream is what? Cancelled? Because you’re having a fling with some New York socialite?”
“It’s not like that, Al. C’mon. Connie and I are in love. Why can’t you just be happy for us?”
Aleks actually was happy Step had found a girl. But his natural instinct was to protect his twin brother. He knew how naïve Step could be. He didn’t believe some high society debutante would fall for him. Unless she was a scratch and dent special. A blem. There was something wrong with this Connie Stanton, he convinced himself. She was unsightly. Socially inept. A girl the parents would be happy to pawn off on some unsuspecting innocent like Step.
He’d forgotten a basic rule of physics. And attraction. That that was exactly what opposites did. They attracted.
• • • • •
CHAPTER 42
Monday, October 15: Day 34 post-9/11
The Jefferson Market Library was Griggor’s favorite building in the Village. Built in the 1840s, facing demolition more than a hundred years later, it had been preserved for reuse as a branch of the New York Public Library. It was just a ten-minute walk from Nadia’s.
The facility was fairly empty. Griggor’s library card allowed two-hours of free use at a computer workstation. Alex sat down at the PC desktop, a computer he detested, favoring his iMac or PowerBook G4. Nevertheless, he cracked his knuckles, waggled his fingers over the keyboard. Like a piano maestro about to launch into a master opus. Opened a Netscape Navigator search page.
Where to begin, he pondered. Something easy for starters.
His hands poised over the keys, the tattoo on his forearm peeked out from under the cuff of his shirt sleeve. He typed “Albanian flag.” Was soon looking at an image of the black, two-headed eagle on a red background.
“Aha,” Griggor remarked from his vantage point over Alex’s shoulder.
Alex explained to the old man how the search engines explored hundreds of databases in pursuit of matches to the key words the user typed in. About how the results linked to various web sites from all over the world. How the user then had to sift through those sites for further information.
“You just type in the topic you want to know about here. See what pops up. The search engines do all the work for you.”
Griggor watched as Alex typed “amnesia,” clicked on one of the results links. The site that popped up provided information on causes, types, treatment, a history of famous cases.
“Head trauma. This is cause for you, hey?” the old man needlessly pointed out as he read through the list.
Alex was more interested in learning about types of amnesia. Retrograde, the inability to recall prior memories. Anterograde, the inability to make new memories. He’d had symptoms of both. The anterograde, thankfully, had been temporary. No longer affected him.
“It says there are no medications to treat amnesia. That many forms of amnesia fix themselves.”
“Griggor tells you this already. Without computer, hey? Amnesia for you, it gets b
etter, Alex. You remember more each day, nu?”
Alex reviewed the most famous cases listed. Henry Molaison, a.k.a. Patient HM. Clive Wearing. Kent Cochran, a.k.a. Patient KC. While fascinating, their stories lent little useful information. None of it was going to help him find answers to his past.
He typed “Sergie Moskoluv,” got no results. Tried “Victor Moskoluv.” Still nothing.
“Nu, nu,” Griggor corrected. “Is Muskolov. M-U-s-k-o-l-O-v. Sergei, he is “e-i,’ not ‘i-e.’ Also Viktor is Roosa spelling. With ‘k,’ not ‘c’.”
Alex edited the names. Nothing came up for Sergei Muskolov. However, a series of links popped up for Viktor “with ‘k’ not ‘c’” Muskolov. He clicked on an article titled Bizarre Deaths of Russian Mobster and Son Mob-Related?
“Viktor Muskolov, 53, a.k.a. ‘The Omsk Boar,’ an alleged racketeer with ties to the Russian mafia, was found shot to death on the rooftop of a Manhattan building he owned on Wednesday, July 20. In a bizarre twist Viktor’s son Sergei, 22, fell to his death from the rooftop of the same building on the same day.
“Police are investigating the possibility that the Muskolovs’ deaths are mob-related.”
The article went on to describe Viktor’s career as an alleged mobster in America, highlighted several cases against him. Alex clicked on a link to Sergei’s obituary.
“Sergei Muskolov, 22, only child of the late Viktor Muskolov and Natasha Yolkin, fell to his death Wednesday, July 20, from the roof of a building his father owned. Viktor Muskolov was found shot to death on the roof of the same building on the same day.
“Viktor Muskolov was an alleged Russian mobster who spent many years in Russian gulags before immigrating to America. He had been indicted on several occasions for racketeering, hijacking, smuggling and other felonious charges, including assault and murder. He was never convicted or served time in any American prison.
“Sergei’s mother, Natasha Yolkin, is a former model from Ukraine.
“See related article: Bizarre Deaths of Russian Mobster and Son Mob-Related?”