“Please show me the rabbit again,” Yagamata said, quietly and politely.
It grew silent. I pictured them passing my little bunny around the table.
“An interesting piece from the House of Faberge, probably the work of Fedor Afanassiev or Henrik Wigstrom,” Yagamata said. “Not especially valuable. Perhaps inspired by an egg-shaped pendant worn by Catherine the Great and stored in the treasury of the Hermitage at the time Faberge’s artisans were at work there. So they could easily have been influenced-”
“Who gives a flying fuck! How did that shitbucket Crespo get his hands on it?”
No one spoke, and I imagined a series of shrugs. “See what I mean?” Foley continued. “We knew the Russians couldn’t keep records to save their ass. Completely incompetent. Give me the Germans, any day. Christ, they always knew where every bullet was stored. Great record keepers. But the Russians. Drunken, lazy bastards. It doesn’t matter if they’re commies or democrats or Rotarians. We expected inefficiency and pilferage at their end, not ours. It’s bad enough you guys are dipping into the trough, but now you got minimum-wage Marielito s running around with the crown jewels…”
Crespo’s not running anywhere, I thought.
“… Can you imagine the flak if Geraldo Rivera got hold of this? I gotta tell you, if word gets out, you guys are on your own. Common criminals. We wash our hands of the whole fucking lot of you.”
“A trinket, nothing more.” Yagamata again. “I have allowed various operatives to keep mementos of our successful activities.”
“Mementos!” Foley was screaming now. “ Evidence is more like it!”
“Why do you worry so much?” Yagamata asked, calmly. “We have other, more pressing concerns.”
“ El abogado, what about the lawyer?” Soto asked.
“He doesn’t know shit,” Foley said. “I told him the government is trying to help stop the theft of Russian artwork.”
I heard a laugh but couldn’t tell the source. “Isn’t that just like government everywhere?” Yagamata chortled. “A lie that is so close to the truth.”
“You have a problem with that?” Foley again.
“To the contrary,” Yagamata responded. “I applaud every aspect of your Operation Riptide. Until recently, I believed myself to be a master of deceit. But I am-what do you call it here-a small fish…”
“Small fry,” Foley said.
“… compared to the cunning of civil service employees in polyester suits.”
“Matsuo, you’re being too modest,” Foley said. His voice faded. I had the impression he was walking around the room. “… fact remains that the lawyer knows too much, even if he doesn’t know what it means.” The voice grew stronger and I heard the shuffle of his oxfords against the tile floor. “I’m gonna leave the lawyer up to you, but let me make something clear. You have no sanction to terminate him…”
Terminate? Why did I think he wasn’t talking about firing me as a legal eagle?
“… none whatsoever.”
Maybe I should thank my new buddy Foley. Okay, maybe he had pointed a gun at my crotch. But now…
“Do you forbid it?” Yagamata sounded peeved.
“We sanction nothing. We forbid nothing.”
Thanks a lot, buddy.
Just then, a new voice startled me. “It would not be discreet.” That sweet voice with just a trace of an accent picked up at quince parties and from giggling friends at the St. Christopher School for Girls. “First the Russian, then Crespo, now the lawyer. Do you really believe this would escape the notice of the prosecutor and the grand jury?”
That’s my Lourdes. Arguing for my life because it would be imprudent to kill me. At the same time, I wondered if her reasoning was influenced just a bit by the memory of the slow rhythmic grinding of our loins. Spare the infidel, and fetch him to my chambers.
There was murmuring at the table that I took to be agreement. There were also the sounds of chairs moving and people stirring. I thought it might be an appropriate time to put some distance between myself and four characters who were deciding if my demise was more trouble than it was worth. I duck-walked back to the door without tearing ligaments or knocking over any typewriters. I made it to the catwalk and turned the corner to get out of view of the window.
Damn. Someone must have decided that a fifteen-foot stack of applesauce violated a housekeeping rule. The forklift and my makeshift ladder were gone. I could risk it and try to get down the stairs. Or I could-
“… Tomorrow, then,” Foley said.
They were coming out the door. In a moment, they would turn the corner and face me on the catwalk. I ducked under the railing, dropped my feet over the side and hung there, my hands gripping the cool steel, my feet swinging gently below me. I did not feel like Cathy Rigby.
“This Kharchenko,” Foley said, “can he be trusted?”
They were directly above me. The catwalk swayed slightly with each step.
“Completely,” Yagamata answered. “He is not as intelligent as Smorodinsky, but perhaps that is to our advantage. He follows orders without thinking about the consequences.”
No one was moving. My arms ached.
“When will he arrive?” Foley asked.
“Tomorrow from JFK. He is carrying a cardboard tube with a rather colorful poster of Temppeliaukio Square in Helsinki.”
“And?”
“Inside the poster is Matisse’s Girl with Tulips,” Yagamata said. “Even as we speak, he is on the train, the St. Petersburg Express. He will be in Helsinki in two hours.”
For some reason, I thought of Dr. Zhivago, and an old Russian steam engine belching smoke into a wintry night, red flags crackling in an icy wind.
“I’m only going to say this once, Matsuo. Any more slipups, the whole operation will be scuttled.”
Yagamata replied, but a factory whistle blasted twice, and I couldn’t make out his words. Between the blasts, I heard a name. “Sue Molaynen” maybe. Yagamata’s voice became stronger.
“She supervised the loading of the freighter in Helsinki last week and will pick him up at the airport here.”
“Freighter?” Foley sounded irritated.
“A Polish freighter under lease to one of my companies.”
“What are you doing, stealing the whole damn Hermitage?”
“In due time.” Yagamata laughed. “Perhaps a hundred years. For now, several trailer-size containers of objets d’art, the most we have ever transported. What did you think, Mr. Foley, that we are still carrying baubles inside Matryoshka dolls?”
“I don’t like it,” Foley said. “You take too many risks, and you exceed all authority.”
“Like all bureaucrats, you worry too much.”
My shoulders were on fire.
“I’m not kidding, the strictest inventory control on this shipment,” Foley said, sternly.
“Of course,” Yagamata said.
“I mean it.”
“Of course you do.”
“You are a real piece of work, Matsuo baby.”
“Thank you.”
“Boys,” Lourdes pleaded. “Please stop. We must work together. One misstep and-”
“ Ouch! ”
Her stiletto heel dug deep into the flesh between the thumb and forefinger of my right hand. Suddenly I was hanging only by my left hand, my body swaying as if in a breeze. For some reason I pictured a paratrooper caught in the trees, the enemy about to spray him with automatic weapons fire.
Commotion above me. “What the hell!” Foley shouted. Severo Soto was yelling at someone. He leaned down and looked at me. “ Maldito! ”
This time it was a man’s foot, and it hit hard, crunching the fingers of my left hand. And then I fell.
I missed the applesauce jars and landed on the fertilizer bags with a thud. I didn’t break, sprain, or twist anything. It was no worse than getting blindsided by the tight end. I just clambered down and started for the loading dock. I wasn’t running. There would be something scaredy-cat about that. But I wasn’t walking either. It was more like the stiff-legged jog we used coming out of the locker room for pregame introductions. Almost a swagger to the gait.