Bingo!
I handed the binoculars to Foley and gave him directions. He nodded and took a look.
“Stankevich!” he exclaimed.
“Gesundheit,” I replied.
Foley didn’t thank me. He withdrew a small camera from his other coat pocket. He screwed a telephoto lens into place, aimed, focused, and clicked off half a dozen shots at a slow shutter speed.
Below us, as the music swelled, the lady’s girlfriends, looking like angels in white, swirled around and raised her from the grave. Foley said, “When he was the number three KGB goon in Afghanistan, his name was Boris Stankevich. C’mon, let’s go.”
“Now?”
“Now.” Foley stood and motioned me to do the same. “Wherever he’s going, we’re following, and I don’t want to be stuck here when it’s over.”
“Damn, the show’s just getting interesting.”
The angels had tossed one of the guys into the lake and were after another one. I reluctantly stood and started down the aisle, tromping on toes, drawing curses in guttural Russian. Sure, I wanted to follow Kharchenko. But I wanted to stick around until the end, or at least until I figured out which one was Giselle.
20
The mansion was done in the 1920s Mediterranean Revival style. It sat at the end of a brick circular drive trimmed with blooming hibiscus and bottlebrush trees. The walls were pink stucco, the roof mission tiles. You entered an interior courtyard through a loggia flanked by twisted columns. The floor was glazed ceramic tile, the exterior walls adorned with terra-cotta ornaments. There were wrought-iron grilles and wood brackets and casement windows shaded by pink-and-white awnings. There were arches everywhere, some flat, some pointed, some with Moorish elaborations. A second-floor balcony lined with balustrades overlooked the bay.
I had been here before.
There had been a party that night, too.
Only that time, I had been invited.
Foley and I had followed Kharchenko’s taxi from the theater. Once on the causeway, I knew where he was headed. I just didn’t know there’d be a crowd.
Matsuo Yagamata was playing host to his usual collection of political and social animals, some artist and writer types, plus a Russian cultural delegation and the cast and crew of the Bolshoi Ballet. The dancers would be along later. But Kharchenko was here now.
We pulled into the drive behind a line of limos and Mercedeses with an occasional Lexus thrown in. Not a Lada in sight. Foley’s government-owned Plymouth drew a look from the valet. For once, I was glad I had dressed up. Nobody stopped us; nobody asked to see an invitation. We entered the courtyard, passed through a segmental arch wide enough to accommodate a herd of buffalo, and came to the pool deck. Once, a thousand years ago or so, Yagamata had stood there and showed off an egg filled with a golden choo-choo train.
The scene on the patio reminded me of a famous party on a balmy February evening just down the street from here. I wasn’t there. I hadn’t been born yet. That night, arriving guests were searched by men with rifles. Miami’s politicians and social elite drank champagne and ate canapes, figuring it was just another Valentine’s Day party. The celebration was more meaningful, however, to the host. While the festivities were in full swing on Palm Island, seven members of Bugs Moran’s gang were gunned down at a garage in Chicago. Newspapermen later speculated that the party was intended to celebrate that event, since Bugs Moran was a bitter rival of the party host, Al Capone.
I wondered what Yagamata was celebrating tonight.
A gentle breeze wafted across the patio, flickering the torches. A string quartet strummed quiet music, guests milling about, oohing and aahing at the sheer delight of being here. Bars were set up every twenty yards or so to save on the shoe leather. In the center of the patio was a buffet table no longer than an average NFL punt.
“Stick with the zakuski, the appetizers,” Foley ordered. How clever. Yagamata, the perfect host, was serving a Russian feast. We loaded our plates with red and black caviar, sturgeon, cucumber-and-tomato salad, and pickled mushrooms. A server handed me a tiny silver pot covered with melted cheese.
“ Griby v’smetanye,” Foley said. “Mushrooms and onions in sour cream.”
I washed everything down with a double shot glass of ice-cold Moskovskaya vodka, then did it all again. The training table was never like this. Finally, I went back for blinis with sour cream and caviar.
By the time most of the guests had arrived, I was pleasantly stuffed from the food and warmed by the vodka. Foley hadn’t touched a drop of the liquor. We kept scanning the crowd. Half a dozen Russian officials in baggy suits were lined up at the buffet table, loading their plates as if it was their first meal in a week. Maybe it was.
“Think these guys are happy to be in the West?” Foley asked. “You can’t buy a decent sausage in all of Russia, but look at this. Sometimes you civilians don’t appreciate what we’ve got.”
“Don’t start waving the flag,” I responded, “without acknowledging that this isn’t America. This isn’t real. This isn’t the housewife stretching the food budget with peanut butter for dinner. This isn’t cocaine dealing a few blocks from the White House.”
Foley gave me a nasty look. “Let’s cut the bullshit and go to work. Time to earn our supper.” He nodded in the direction of the quartet. Matsuo Yagamata was working the crowd, moving slowly but steadily, granting each guest a precious twenty seconds or an even briefer hello-how-are-you-so-pleased-to-see-you-again. He wore an elegant tuxedo and smiled graciously at each stop on his way to the buffet table. Over the violins, I could hear him laugh politely at some remark as he gestured with a champagne glass and speared smoked salmon hors d’oeuvres from passing trays.
Foley used the cocktail party shuffle to edge between a woman in a white gown and Yagamata, who caught sight of him, then me. Our host registered surprise, then smiled evenly.
“What an enchanting development to see my government friend and my lawyer friend,” he announced loudly, his eyebrows raised. The woman in the white gown shot us a hostile look.
“Hello, Matsuo,” Foley said. “How’s tricks?”
“Tricks? You and your slang. Should we speak Japanese, so I can have the upper hand?”
“I didn’t come to banter. We need to talk business.”
“At a reception? And violate our protocol? The Russians would be offended.” He shot a look around the patio, and so did I, but I didn’t see Kharchenko anywhere. “Come now, Mr. Foley. Let us teach our new trading partners how to enjoy the spoils of true market economy, or at least, the part that a few can savor.” His voice was tinged with sarcasm as he clamped a hand on Foley’s shoulder, looked around as if afraid of eavesdroppers, and spoke in a stage whisper: “In Russia, the workers used to say of the nomenklatura, ‘They preach water-”‘
‘“And drink wine,’” I said, remembering our conversation on Yagamata’s boat.
“Precisely. Could not the same be said of American and Japanese politicians? Mr. Foley, you cannot abolish class distinction with either communism or capitalism.” With that, Yagamata drained his champagne glass and signaled a passing waiter for another.
“Under any system, Matsuo, you would be in it for yourself,” Foley said.
The laughter rattled in Yagamata’s throat. “And who would not be? In the old Soviet Union, was there ever a butcher, a doctor, or a shopkeeper not tainted by gryazny, the pursuit of profit? Was there ever a Party Secretary who did not relish his seaside dacha, his access to pleasures of the West? There is a Russian epithet that expresses the people’s disgust with their officials.” Yagamata thought a moment and said something in halting Russian that made Foley smile. It was not a pretty sight.