“May I borrow your stethoscope?” Bell asked as the doctor was leaving.
John D. Rockefeller walked in carrying a tray of milk and pryaniki, the Russian spice cookies of which Bell had grown fond.
“I’m surprised to see you dressed, Mr. Bell. I presumed I would venture out alone today.”
“I could use the fresh air.”
A Renault limousine was waiting with its curtains drawn. At Bell’s insistence, the Cossacks had been replaced by plainclothes police detectives on foot. Some trotted alongside, huffing and puffing, as they pulled onto the avenue. Others rode behind them in an identical Renault, Bell having convinced the cops that similar limousines would confuse a sniper.
He and Rockefeller sat in near darkness behind the curtains. Bell watched the streets through a split in the cloth, wondering whether a sense of shared danger might incline the reticent Rockefeller to open up further to him. He tested the waters with a joke.
“I guess we can’t blame the assassin for slandering Standard Oil if he shoots at the president.”
“He wasn’t shooting at me,” said Rockefeller. “He was shooting at you.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“You are the one with his arm in a sling, not I.”
“Isn’t it possible he hit me when he missed you?”
“The first report you filed when you came to work for me stated that he has missed his shot on rare occasions. And never by much. He was shooting at you.”
“Sounds like you no longer need a bodyguard.”
“Don’t worry, your job is not at risk. Baku is teeming with angry people primed to kill for every imaginable reason. I’m glad to have you with us.”
“Are you free to tell me who we are calling on?”
“In confidence. Please bear in mind this is not to be repeated. We are meeting a representative of the Shah of Persia.”
“Has Mr. Matters gone ahead?”
“Mr. Matters has other business.”
“May I ask—?”
Rockefeller’s eyes cut through the dimly lit passenger cabin like locomotive headlamps. “You have many questions today, Mr. Bell.”
“Getting shot makes me curious about what to expect next. I was about to ask whether you are meeting this representative as Commercial Envoy Stone or as the president of Standard Oil.”
“I am the retired president,” Rockefeller shot back.
“I keep forgetting,” said Bell.
That drew a stony silence. But minutes later, Rockefeller dropped his voice to a half whisper and confided, “I cannot answer your question, because I have not yet decided. I keep hearing a proverb in Baku. Perhaps you’ve heard it, too. ‘In Persia no man believes another.’”
“They love insults,” said Bell. “Armenians are sharpers; Georgians are drunkards; Tatars simultaneously violent, unintelligent, and kindly; Germans dull, Cossacks vicious, Russians petty. All agree that Persians are liars. Which shouldn’t come as a surprise after centuries of tyranny and misgovernment.”
Rockefeller favored Bell’s observation with a thin smile and the further confidence that the detective was angling for. “I don’t know yet whether I am dealing with liars. All I know is that I will begin as Envoy Stone. Whether I become Mr. Rockefeller will depend upon how much noise they make and how much dust they throw in the air.”
The Renault stopped at a side entrance to the Astoria, one of the lavish new hotels near City Hall. They slipped in quietly, skirted the lobby, guided by a hotel functionary, to a service elevator that took them to a penthouse kitchen. A Persian secretary greeted Rockefeller in flawless English. “It is my pleasure to report, sir, that no one has marked your arrival. We are prepared for the private meeting you requested.”
“You requested the meeting,” Rockefeller corrected him, politely but firmly. “I requested privacy.”
“Then we are both happy, sir.” The Persian was slim and lithe as a cat, and as graceful, with large eyes in a narrow face.
Rockefeller turned to Bell. “Wait here.”
“I have to inspect the room where you are going,” said Bell.
“It is perfectly safe,” said the secretary.
“I still want to see it,” said Bell.
“It is all right,” said Rockefeller, “I trust our hosts.”
Bell said, “If I cannot see where you are going, I must insist that I wait directly outside. At the door in the next room.”
“Insist?” The secretary’s eyebrows arched above a mocking smile.
Bell ignored him. To Rockefeller he said, “By the terms of our contract, our agreement is voided if, in my opinion, you place me in a position that I cannot protect you. Under those conditions, the severance fee is calculated on the time it will take me to return to New York. The purpose of that clause is to make you think twice about straying too far from my protection.”
“I recall,” said Rockefeller. He addressed the secretary, “Take us to the room where we are to meet. Mr. Bell will wait outside the door.”
They put him in the foyer, which was exactly where Isaac Bell wanted to be. He waited until he was alone, closed the outer door, pulled a rubber stop from his pocket, and wedged it under the door. Then he untangled the stethoscope he had borrowed from Dr. Alexey Irineivoich Virovets, inserted the ear tubes, and pressed the chest piece against the thinnest of the wooden panels.
The secretary was acting as translator for a Persian of very high rank, guessing by the secretary’s obsequious manner of speaking to him. Bell heard a round of elaborate greetings. Then Rockefeller got down to business.
“Tell His Excellency that I have a gift for the shah waiting in my hotel stables.”
This was translated and the answer translated back. “The shah is a great lover of horses.”
“Tell him that this gift for the shah has many horses.”
The translation back was a puzzled “How many horses?”
Rockefeller, clearly enjoying himself, said, “Tell him many, many, bright red and shiny brass.”
“Motors?”
“The finest autos that Cleveland builds,” answered Rockefeller. “They’ll ride circles around Rolls-Royce. Now, tell him, let’s get down to brass tacks — that expression means ‘business,’ young fellow. Tell him the pipe line will cost the shah not one penny. I will pay for every foot of pipe from Rasht to the Persian Gulf. And I will build the tanker piers and a breakwater to protect the harbor.”
The answer in Persian was long, and it took the translator a long time to craft a halting, vague reply.
“By the terms… of certain… understandings… In the name of the most merciful and compassionate God, His Majesty the shah… prefers… to secure, please God, the agreement of certain… neighbors.”
Isaac Bell gleaned from Rockefeller’s blunt reply that his “correspondents” had laid a lot of groundwork to get to this meeting with a personage who had the shah’s ear. The old man did not sound one bit surprised. Nor did he hesitate.
“Tell him to tell the shah that I am prepared to pay off the neighbor’s loan.”
After translation, there was a long silence. Finally, the Persian spoke. The secretary translated, “How much of it?”
“Every ruble.”
On their way out, they had emerged from the service elevator and were halfway along the edge of the lobby when Isaac Bell suddenly shouldered Rockefeller toward a corridor that entered from the side.
“What is it?” asked Rockefeller, resisting with his full weight. Pain shot through Bell’s wound.
“Keep walking. Turn your face toward me.”