Jerome mock bows. ‘How good of you to drop by!’ Rudi never sees Jerome’s irony, leaving it to me to feel offended for him. ‘Yes, thank you. I am rather pleased with my production. How did the meeting with our public guardian friend at the City Hall go?’
‘Gregorski’s cool. He’ll send someone over to pick up the Delacroix here the morning after.’
Right then, it felt wrong. ‘Why aren’t you meeting the buyers directly this time?’
Rudi lifted his hand like the Pope. ‘Helsinki’s a long way to go, babe... Why not let them come here? It’s a sign we’re moving up. It also means I don’t have to risk my neck at the border... Oh, Kitten, I missed you last night...’ There was a silliness to Rudi’s grin. A landslipped cocaine silliness. A bad sign. He tried to grab my breasts, but I didn’t let myself be grabbed, and Rudi fell onto the sofa laughing. ‘Tell her, Jerome!’
‘Tell her what?’ Jerome came through with plates and a knife for the pizza.
‘Gregorski’s on the level.’
Jerome frowned. ‘If he’s not, and chooses to sell us up the river, we will be royally butt-fucked from here to Windsor.’
Rudi’s smile shrivelled up like a burning page. ‘Jesus Christ, what’s the matter with you two today? The sun’s shining, in two weeks — and forty-eight hours — we’re going to be two hundred thousand dollars richer, and here you two are looking like you’ve had to sell your mother to a body-donor pedlar! The point is for Mr High-and-fucking-Mighty Gregorski, if we’re not on the level, he is the butt-fucked. He’s not dealing with tadpoles any more. I have muscle in this city. I have muscle outside this city. I have muscle.’
‘Oh, St Ciaran Above, nobody’s disputing that—’ began Jerome, making the mistake of sounding martyred.
Rudi’s eyes began to shine. ‘Dead, damned, fucking right nobody is disputing that! Kirsch is not disputing that! Shirliker and his associates are not disputing that! Arturo Fucking Kopeck is not disputing that! You know who Arturo Kopeck is? Only the biggest — fucking — crack dealer east of Berlin and west of the Urals! So why are my own partners disputing the notion that I have more muscle that Boris fucking Frankenstein?’
Jerome’s owl gaze. ‘Nobody’s disputing that. Are we, Margarita?’
My poor, dear, baby. Bad cocaine. ‘No, Rudi. Nobody’s doing any disputing.’
Rudi seemed to suddenly forget what we’d been talking about. ‘Any tabasco sauce, Jerome? That dumb Georgian bitch forgot to put any on. Big tits, gives a good blowjob, but dippy as horseshit. Remind me to sack her before she gets too far behind on her rent.’
‘I’ll get the tabasco,’ I said, smiling at Rudi’s little joke, ‘and shall I make you some nice strong coffee?’
He didn’t bawl ‘no’ so that meant ‘yes’.
We ate in silence until half the pizza was gone.
‘There’s one last little touch,’ said Rudi, ‘that I’ve decided to introduce for the next pick-up.’
‘Do tell,’ said Jerome.
‘Margarita here meets us and the other cleaners at the staff entrance, instead of waiting for me in the gallery.’
‘I don’t see why,’ I said.
‘That is precisely why I am the brains of this operation. You never see why, and I always do. Listen. You come and meet us. The girls go off to their allotted galleries separately. We go to the Delacroix Gallery. As usual, we make the switch, wax the floors, take it back to the staff entrance, and out through security. And what precisely is the difference?’
Jerome picked prawns out of congealing cheese. ‘You’ve been accompanied the whole time by Winter Palace personnel. Are there any anchovies hiding down here?’
‘And therefore placing me even more above suspicion than usual!’ Rudi swished his wine around the glass. ‘These little details are the Rudi Touch. This is why my outfit thrives the way it does. This is why Gregorski selected me for this cleaning contract, why he wanted me for this operation: not Kirsch, not Chekhov, not the Koenighovs, but me. Now. Any questions?’
Jerome shook his head nonchalantly. His part was over now. A pleasant life he must have, playing around all day with his oil paints, waiting for the money to appear in his bank account. His own bank account.
‘Rudi, my darling,’ I began...
‘What do you want?’
‘I was wondering, when, exactly, we were thinking of...’
‘...of what?’
‘You know, what we’ve been discussing...’
Rudi’s emotions are so visible. He doesn’t try to hide anything from me. That’s one reason I love him. He slammed his plate down and the pizza skidded off.
‘Oh Jesus wept! Not again! Don’t get old on me again, Margarita! I will not have you getting old and weird and wrinkled on me again! Fuck, you make me feel like it’s my grandmother I’m shagging sometimes!’
I love Rudi, but I hate him too when his eyes shine like that. It’s the bad cocaine. ‘What are we getting all this money for if we’re never going to use it?’
‘Is it a car you want? Is it a coat you want? Are you in debt to somebody again? Tell me who’s been lending you money! Who? WHO!’
‘No, nobody, nobody! It’s—’ I looked at Jerome, who, sighing, withdrew into his studio, taking his coffee.
‘—it’s you I want, my love. It’s our life in Switzerland that I want.’
‘A golden goose is living on our roof and shitting eggs down our chimney, here, Margarita! Don’t kill it! Gather the golden eggs!’
‘I’m the one who gets screwed every week for these golden eggs.’
‘We all have to make sacrifices.’
‘I don’t know how much longer I’m prepared to keep making mine. Surely we have enough money in the account now for us to not need to—’
‘We haven’t. I had to bribe the customs people a small fortune last time. Then of course I have to give Gregorski his whopping cut. He set the whole thing up, remember.’
‘I never get the chance to forget Gregorski, in his armoured Mercedes-Benz. Please, darling. Just tell me. How much money do we have?’
‘It’s your period, isn’t it. Admit it. It’s your period. Jesus. They bleed for seven days but they still don’t die.’
‘How much?’
‘Quite a lot. But not enough.’
‘How much is quite a lot? Just tell me!’
‘Margarita, if you can’t calm down and discuss this like an intelligent adult I’m going to have to terminate this interview.’
‘I am calm. I’m asking a simple question. Rudi? How much money do we have from the sale of our five priceless works of art sold so far? Please?’
‘In US dollars? Six figures.’
‘Tell me!’
Rudi switched tack. ‘I manage the finances! It’s your job to get us in and keep us covered! You think you can do what I do better, do you? DO YOU?’
It’s the cocaine, and the pressure. I stayed calm, and started the pout. Margarita Latunsky plays men like a master violinist. When I want something from a woman I get angry. When I want something from a man I pout. ‘No, darling, it’s just that the Head Curator paws me week after week and I can’t see an end to it and I love you so much—’ I feigned the watery eyes.
Rudi snarled and looked around like he needed something to sink his teeth into. ‘You want out? You want to go up to a man like Gregorski and say, “Oh, by the way, I don’t fancy this line of work any more, thanks for all the stolen artwork revenue but I’m off now, I’ll send you a postcard”? Get real, woman! He’d eat you for fucking breakfast.’