“My real name is Laurence Sverdloff Antonovich” he said. “In America, they called me Larry,” he said. “Somebody picked this ridiculous name when I went to grad school at Stanford. God, I loved California. Name stuck. Whatever, but then Artie’s not much better,” he said, smiling, making his charm work hard for him. “Have you heard from my cousin?”
I didn’t answer. I wanted this Larry to fill the silence, tell me something.
“I bloody worry about what he’ll do to find out who killed Valentina. Nothing matters to him anymore except that. I wish you were with him.”
“He wanted me here.”
“He thinks it’s all about London,” said Larry.
“Is it? You could go to New York,” I said.
“It would make things worse. People watch where I go.”
“What people?”
He didn’t answer the question, just said, “Tolya and me, we grew up together, his father and mine were brothers. Both dead now,” said Larry, picking up his own lighter from the table as he reached for a cigarette. I’m afraid I only use my old Zippo.” He lit up. “I’m scared for him, when we were kids all I wanted was to be like him, my cousin Tolya, my idol, this daring guy. He had every illicit book under his bed, he was very rock and roll and for real. I wanted to call myself Ringo, but my father threatened to send me to the military academy, he said, we named you for the great British actor, and you want to call yourself for a what? A Beatle? So I gave in. I didn’t have Tolya’s balls.”
“I asked who’s watching you.”
“People who I offend,” he said, and went on to recount how his father had been a director, like Tolya’s.
“How’d you make the money?”
“You assume I have money?”
“Come on.”
“I went to Stanford, my English was already pretty good, made some money in Silicon Valley,” he said. “I played the game in Moscow. Made more. Back to California. So I go all the way to America, which I love, to marry an English girl who’s a doctor and wants to come home to work in the National Health Service here.”
I tapped my fingers. I wanted the meat and this guy was giving me the empty bun.
“I married a socialist.” He laughed. “What comes around, eh? You know my grandfather went to high school with Trotsky,” he added. “Seems like they were always fighting because grandpa’s pop was in the fur biz. Sable.”
“You’re not here by accident, are you?” I said to Larry.
“No,” he said. “I knew you were coming to London, Tolya told me, and before he left, he called and said I should keep an eye on you. I’m sorry for all the cloak and dagger stuff, but my driver saw you leave Tolya’s and head this way and he called me. Apologies, Artie.”
“How come you’re telling me all this?”
“So you’ll trust me,” he said. “What are you looking at?”
Just behind Larry, a guy with the square jaw and sloping shoulders of a piece of Russian muscle was hovering. Wanting to get into Larry’s eye line, to signal him, tell him it was time to get out of here, I figured. I mentioned it. Larry turned around, then got up from his chair and put some money on the table.
He held up the newspaper. “You saw the story?” He gestured to a piece on Litvinenko. “The Brits are saying what everybody already knows, that this was an act of state terrorism. Now it’s official. I should go. Why don’t you ride with me, come have some lunch, if you want, or else my guy will take you back to London. His name is Pavel. He’s a good man, by the way.”
Half an hour later, we arrived at Larry Sverdloff’s house. There was a high black wrought-iron gate which opened as if somebody had been watching for us. Larry’s driver, Pavel, went through it, up a circular drive and parked in front of a long low-slung stone mansion. The sun had come out and it gave the stones a golden color.
We had come in the Merc-the Brits loved their cars, and gave them nicknames-with a Range Rover behind and in front. Through the narrow country lanes we had come like a military convoy. These Russians, Tolya, his cousin, others, used their drivers, their guys, like little armies. They used them as advance parties to protect them, spies to watch out for them, servants to do their bidding. Other things, too. Under his jacket, Pavel carried a gun.
I had a vision of them constantly in motion, driving around the countryside, through the London streets, the drivers reporting back to headquarters. England was a crowded little country, too many cars, too many drivers, too many cameras hanging from buildings and trees, like strange fruit.
From the front door of the house, a woman appeared. Larry greeted her in Russian, introduced me, we shook hands. Basha was her name, she said, and smiled. I saw in the way Larry Sverdloff talked to her, the way she used his first name, he played at being a benign laid-back guy. He was still in charge. The people who worked for him were modern-day serfs. Most were Russian. I was betting plenty of them were illegal. If they left him, where would they go?
Around the huge house were gardens planted thick with flowers, neon blue hydrangeas, purple iris, creamy roses. Ancient trees spread green shade over lawns. Beyond them I could see huge vistas of green, more trees, a lake glittering in the distance. I could see how jealous Tolya would have been. His cousin was a player with a castle and the courtiers to go with it.
“Shall we swim?” said Larry.
He lent me a suit, I changed in a pool house, and for a while we swam silently.
A powerful swimmer, Larry was clearly a guy who worked out, wiry, compact, big shoulders, no fat at all. Without agreeing, we raced the length of the pool and back, and I knew he expected to win. I let him win. A happy opponent was useful, though there was no reason to figure Larry Sverdloff for the opposition.
Afterwards, he tossed me a thick blue towel, and used another one to dry his hair. Basha, the housekeeper appeared with a tray of sandwiches and drinks. Larry took a can of Diet Coke, popped the top and drank it. Somewhere a bird tweeted in a tree.
“You think this is all nuts, somebody like me riding around in that tank of an SUV? Living in this place?” said Larry.
“Is it?”
“Fuck knows,” said Larry, smiling suddenly like a regular guy who found himself in an unexpected, almost ridiculous situation.
“You’ve seen a lot of Tolya the last few years?”
“Yes,” he said. “He never mentions me?”
“No.”
“He probably doesn’t want to involve you,” said Larry.
“What in?”
“His business. My business.”
“He told you that?” I took a beer.
“He doesn’t have to. He talks about you a lot, I know how he feels.”
“What’s his business?”
“Whatever he can get.”
I drank from the bottle. “What’s that mean?” I said.
“Look, when we were kids in Moscow, he could always get books, or jeans, or go up to Tallinn to a flea market and come back with Pierre Cardin sunglasses. He would wear those sunglasses and imagine he was somewhere else. The glasses invested him with his own kind of power. They were magic glasses, he always told me. I believed him. ”
“And now?”
“He thinks he’s still a rock and roll hero except now his music is the money.”
“So?”
“He shoots his mouth off,” Larry said. “People think he’s a wild man.”
“Do you?”
“What?”
“Think he’s a loose cannon?”
Larry looked up. Clouds, ominous fat purple clouds scrambled across the sky and thunder rumbled through the humid afternoon. I followed his gaze, and saw him glance in the direction of the house.
“Ten years ago I was living in a nice little suburban place outside Palo Alto,” he said.
“Yeah, so what made you give it up, I mean other than your wife wanted to live in England?”