“Truth is for judges and juries. My job is to make the best possible case with whatever evidence I’ve got, and leave judgment day to somebody else.”
“Then why do you worry so much? Take what you have and present it to your judge and jury.”
“What I have stinks worse than two-week-old catfish.”
I immediately regretted the reference to rotting fish, but staring at octopus tentacles doubtless has a subliminal impact. I drained the rest of my champagne, which made my head rock gently with the tide. I am not used to midday doses of the bubbly. Especially combined with sun and a swaying boat.
“Besides,” I continued, “I lied.”
He looked puzzled.
“I can’t do it, leave judgment day to someone else,” I explained. “I have to know. It isn’t enough just to win or lose. Like the sign says in the courtroom, ‘We who labor here seek only the truth.’ My problem is I believe it. Not that the system searches for the truth. It doesn’t. It only seeks evidence, and that can be true or false; it doesn’t matter as long as it meets certain technical rules of admissibility. The truth can be excluded and the falsehoods can be admitted and polished to a fine gloss by smooth-talking lawyers. I’m looking for the literal truth. Who done it? And why? I can’t help it. I just have to know.”
“Regardless of the consequences?”
Now it was my turn to look puzzled.
“Isn’t it conceivable that your client knows better than you how his interests are best served?” Yagamata asked.
“It’s possible,” I said, warily, realizing he was playing lawyer, setting me up for another question.
“So that if you thwart his intentions out of some misguided belief that you are helping him, you could actually do him great harm.”
We were dancing around like a couple of boxers in the first round, feeling each other out. I said, “It’s also possible he’s being misled by others, and unless he levels with me, or I figure out on my own what’s going on, he could be doing himself great harm without knowing it.”
Yagamata’s eyes were hooded by the wire-rimmed sunglasses. “And who would do such a thing to your angelic client?”
His voice was tinged with sarcasm, the words filled with challenge. Would I call his bluff? He didn’t think so, and he was right. Yagamata had probably paid for the thick carpet my partners loved so much in their offices. He was also paying my client’s fees. I had no proof, nothing to go on, and he knew it. “I don’t know. That’s why I do my best to poke around in the shadows, to turn over rocks.”
“In my country,” Matsuo Yagamata said, “we have an expression. If you look under enough rocks, you will eventually find a snake.”
I was just this side of woozy but could still figure that one out. A warning in pleasant tones, but I got the message loud and clear. While I was thinking about it, a crewman in a white smock silently delivered another bottle of champagne and expertly popped the cork. He refilled our glasses without spilling a drop. I could take being rich if I didn’t have to lie, cheat, and steal to get there.
Okay, I figured, my head buzzing pleasantly. Why not listen to the rich guy and let Francisco Crespo take the fall? He seemed willing enough to do the time. Be smart for once, Jake old boy. Go for the champagne lunches and six-figure fees. Or be a schmuck and keep turning over rocks until you grab a rattlesnake by the tail. Which would it be?
I moved the champagne glass across the table, out of my reach, but still within temptation. I always preferred beer, anyway. “I noticed several Russian names on your payroll list.”
It was a question, and Yagamata knew it. It was also an answer to my own question. I thought I heard him sigh, but it might have been the wind. We were cruising at a stately ten knots, the cruiser ably cutting through the chop, headed for calmer waters.
“A lot of Russians have emigrated in the last few years,” I continued. “But Miami hasn’t gotten that many, and I was wondering…”
C’mon, Matsuo, I wanted to yell. Help me out here. Don’t make me subpoena you. I’d have to commit hara-kiri if my partners found out.
He probably considered telling me to go to hell. But after a moment, he settled back in his chair and said, “As you know, I collect Russian art. I did business there even in the days of Brezhnev. It is much easier now, of course, though knowing who to bribe is a little more complex.” He allowed himself a slender laugh. “I do not have the traditional Japanese antipathy for the Russians. They are a sad, yet beautiful people. Very warm, very spiritual. Lovers of high art, ballet, the finest music. Even Smorodinsky was a worldly man of culture.”
I must have been thinking about the brute on the slab in the morgue, because Yagamata smiled and said, “Don’t look so surprised. Americans believe that you have to live on Park Avenue and subscribe to the Metropolitan Opera to be cultured. In Russia, art has long been enjoyed and understood by the masses. Both Smorodinsky and his brother were well versed in native Russian art and had a passing familiarity with European painting. Vladimir was an intelligent man, who knew the lessons of history. There were many nights he and I walked along the River Neva debating the future of his beloved homeland. He was more than a valued employee. He became a friend.”
Vladimir? Whatever happened to I am not that close with my workers? “You brought Smorodinsky here from the Soviet Union? You collect Russians, too.”
A hundred yards off the stern, two dolphins jumped in unison, their question-mark silhouettes etched into the horizon. Yagamata’s look was impenetrable. He seemed to be deciding how much to tell me. “Vladimir began as a low-level operative for one of my business contacts in St. Petersburg, when it was still called Leningrad. He spoke English reasonably well and knew how to grease the wheels in the old bureaucracy to get things done. He was a resourceful man who helped me obtain certain, shall we say, hard-to-get items.”
“He was a thief, a smuggler?”
Yagamata very nearly smiled. If he found me amusing, maybe next time he’d send a limo for me, instead of two goons. “The Russians have a far kinder term. Fartsovshchiki, black marketeer. Religious icons, vestments, antique weaponry, a divan from Mikhailovsky Castle, silver bridle chains that may or may not have belonged to a czar, these were his specialties.”
“Still, he was a criminal. If Smorodinsky had a known propensity for violence, it could help Crespo’s defense.”
Yagamata gave me a quizzical look, as if the furthest thing from his mind was Francisco Crespo. “Criminal,” he said, rolling the word around his tongue, “is a relative term. In my country, and yours for that matter, a successful businessman who generously shares his wealth with underpaid public servants is considered a criminal. Yet, in certain Latin American countries, that is the accepted method-indeed the only method-of doing business. When there was still a Soviet Union, everyone looked for ways to circumvent a system no one but the party apparatchiki wanted. It was great sport to battle the government, to get the extra sausage or to steal state property from a factory. The Russians tell a wonderful political joke that is just as meaningful now as when the verkhushka, the Party elite, called the shots. What’s the difference between communism and capitalism?”
I played along and held up my hands.
“Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, and communism is the opposite.” He laughed at his own joke. “Mr. Lassiter, do you know much about art?”
“No, I don’t even know what I like.”
Yagamata nodded with approval. Maybe he preferred working with a clean slate.
“Japanese art is very simple, very clear. By Western standards, the depiction is unreal, highly idealized, and there is little perspective. If a painter always has his cherry blossoms in bloom, always facing the viewer, always in full color with no shading, the art is mere decoration.”
“And you find Russian art more complex and interesting.”
“ European art. Once Peter the Great came to the throne in the early 1700s, Russia left its Byzantine past behind. Its artists were greatly influenced by those in France, Italy, and Holland. The Russians know fine art and appreciate it. Have you ever been to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg?”