He was hacking again as I made my way to the darkened staircase. There were three steps to a landing. I felt along a wall, found a light switch, and flipped it on. A bulb of maybe twenty watts went on overhead, and a slow ticking started. There was graffiti scrawled on the wall, Manuel boasting about his conquest of Rosa. I listened to the wail of a radio, one of the Spanish-language music stations. Somewhere overhead, two children were squabbling with an astonishing command of four-letter words. The light went out. It must have been on a thirty-second timer. By then, you should have completed your business. I climbed the stairs to the second floor, pushed another button, and was granted another half-minute of light. I climbed more stairs, finally emerging through a splintered door on the third floor. Here there was the smell of disintegrating plaster and steaming cabbage. Voices, two men, two women, who may have been playing cards. I headed toward a door at the end of the corridor.
I knocked three times before getting a response. It sounded like a question, the voice deep and melodious, the words foreign.
“My name is Jake Lassiter. I’m here to see Nikolai.”
Nothing.
“It’s about Yagamata.”
“Do you work for him?” The words flowed easily and seemed to carry, like an actor on stage.
“No.”
“Whom do you work for?”
I didn’t know whom.
After a moment, I said to the door: “No one.” It sounded like a lie, even to me.
“Did Yagamata send you?”
“No. Eva-Lisa sent me. It’s about your brother. It’s about Vladimir.”
I heard a bolt slide, a chilly sound like the action on a Mauser thirty-ought-six. The door opened with a squeal, and I was looking into the face of an olive-skinned man in his early thirties. Nikolai Smorodinsky looked nothing like the corpse I had seen in the morgue. Unlike his brother, he had prominent cheekbones, a black mustache, and long, almost feminine eyelashes. He wore a black linen shirt open at the collar and regarded me suspiciously with piercing dark eyes. He had a strong neck and was wiry beneath the oversize shirt.
“Please come in.” He extended an arm in a graceful motion to smooth my entry and held the door for me. He didn’t move back to let me in. I had to scoot in sideways, and as I did, the arm that had welcomed me so graciously swung around hard, driving a fist deep into my stomach. It was a right hook, and a helluva sucker punch. My gut was relaxed when it hit. I doubled over, gagging, and he grabbed a handful of my shaggy hair and yanked me to the floor. Then he spun behind me, dropped a knee into the small of my back, and pinned one of my arms against my spine in a half nelson. He had one hand against the back of my head and was using it to grind my nose into a hardwood floor that stank of oil.
“Who are you?” He yanked my wrist higher, locking the half nelson even tighter. He was strong. “What’s happened to my brother?”
I had a feeling that the truth could break my arm. “Let me go. I’ll tell you everything.”
“Where is he? Why hasn’t he contacted me?”
I was kissing the greasy floor and my shoulder was just about to pop out of its socket. Through the pain, I pictured Vladimir Smorodinsky on a cold metal tray.
“He’s dead,” I said, my teeth scraping the wooden slats, a trickle of blood oozing from my lip.
After a moment, Nikolai released the pressure on my arm, took the knee out of my back, and stood. I rolled over and rubbed the back of my shoulder.
“Are you certain of what you say?” he asked.
I remembered the young assistant M.E. tugging out Vladimir’s intestines, hand over hand. “I’m sure.’’
He let out a sigh and buried his head in his hands. “I knew. I just knew.” Then he looked back at me, his eyes asking the question.
“I’m a lawyer. I represented the man accused of killing your brother. But my client didn’t do it. Yagamata had your brother killed, and I think you know why.”
Nikolai studied me but didn’t say a word. “Yagamata said something to me after your brother was killed, something about Vladimir being a patriot true to his principles. Too much so. That’s what he said, that your brother was too much the patriot.” Nikolai was nodding, taking in every word. “Vladimir was trying to stop Yagamata, wasn’t he?”
Nikolai extended a hand, offering to pull me up. I’d had enough of his neighborly gestures. I got to my feet all by my lonesome. He gestured toward an opening. The kitchen. A narrow passageway with an ancient stove, a waist-high refrigerator, and against a wall, a wooden table with three chairs. I sank into one of the chairs. There was blood on my face, and my shoulder throbbed.
Nikolai stood over me. He didn’t answer my question. “My brother loved the Hermitage,” he said finally. “Have you ever seen it?”
“I’ve never been to Russia,” I admitted.
“The Winter Palace of the Czars, more than a thousand rooms in just one of the buildings, all filled with irreplaceable art. Think of the magnitude of it.”
I remembered what Yagamata had told me. Three million artifacts. How do they even keep track of it all? Or was that his point?
“The czars could build great monuments,” Nikolai said, “but could not feed the peasants. Not much different from the communists or our new democrats, eh?”
“The art,” I said, licking my torn lip. “That’s why Vladimir was killed. When he figured out what really was going on, who was getting the money, how much of your national heritage was being stolen, he wanted to stop it, and so did-”
I never heard the footsteps in the hall. The voice came from behind me. “As usual, Lassiter, you’re half right.”
I whirled around, nearly falling out of the chair. Standing there in his gray suit and white shirt, black tie knotted at the neck, was Robert Foley. He looked like a man who would rather be anyplace else. “But it’s the other half,” Foley said, “that’ll get you killed.”
N ikolai looked up, stunned. “Mr. Foley, what are you-”
“Shouldn’t leave your door open, kid. Who knows what’ll come in. Goblins, spooks, half-assed lawyers.” Foley glared at me. “You tell him yet? Or should I?”
“He told me.” Nikolai answered for me. “But, deep in my heart, I already knew. We had a system. Vladimir could get messages to me through an Aeroflot pilot who flew to New York. Every other Sunday, he would-”
“Not talking about your brother, kid.” Foley’s voice had softened. Behind his rimless glasses, his eyes were tired and sad. He grabbed a wooden chair, swung it around, and straddled it backward, placing his forearms on the chair’s back. He looked like a cowboy in a gray suit. “We tap Yagamata’s phone. Hell, all his phones. We scan his cellulars, bug his home, his office, his boat. The son of a bitch is under twenty-four-hour surveillance. Yesterday, I’m in Washington, the Miami bureau picks up a call from Miami Beach to Yagamata’s home. A male voice: ‘The Finnish bunny has flown the coop.’ And Yagamata says, ‘What a shame to lose a bunny with such pretty fur.’ The caller asks, ‘Lose?’ And Yagamata says, ‘Lose like a cherry blossom in the snow.’”
Nikolai’s voice echoed his disbelief. “They killed Eva-Lisa?” He slumped into a chair.
Foley said, “In Miami, my people thought it was just another bullshit code about the artwork. Some agent just out of training even asked what artist painted bunny rabbit pictures. It took the better part of the day for the tape to be transcribed and faxed to me in D.C. By then, I was at a reception at the Polish embassy. Nobody in D.C. understood the importance of the transmission, either, or they would have gotten me out of there. I get home late and call the night desk. It’s an old habit, and they read me the fax. I’m yelling to get somebody to the girl’s apartment on the Beach. They do, and there’s no sign of her. Another crew heads up to Lake Worth, but it was too late.” He opened his palms on the table in a gesture of helplessness. He did not look at me. “I’m sorry. As soon as I heard, I caught the next flight to Miami.”