Authors: Neil Russell
City of War (32 page)
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Babushkas and Black Granite
I opened Kim’s laptop again as Jake Praxis’s G5 began its takeoff roll. Her written introduction had been riveting, but I was still no closer to unraveling why she’d been killed. The subsequent slideshow contained twenty-eight items, beginning with the four photographs Marta had witnessed Kim’s taking at the Biltmore.
In the first two, Gaetano Bruzzi was clearly recognizable, as was his nephew, Dante. The third showed the man he was there to meet, but he was no one I had seen before. However, the Asians in his security detail didn’t look Japanese, Korean or ethnic Chinese. They were large-framed, with thick necks and light hair, characteristics I had seen more often in Siberia and Mongolia than farther east or south. Quite possibly, the unknown man was Russian.
The fourth photograph was the man in the jeans and leather jacket Marta had described getting off the elevator. She had been correct. He was an American. But his clothes and attitude were irrelevant. I knew him. Not well, but well enough. I said nothing, and Archer gave no indication of recognition. Marta, however, had missed something, or perhaps
simply neglected to mention it. The American was carrying an attaché case.
I went back to the first three photographs and looked at them closely. In the background of the one showing Dante, I found what I was looking for—a pair of tan leather suitcases held by two of the Asian security men. It seemed a safe assumption it wasn’t laundry. So at a minimum, the Biltmore meeting was an exchange. It didn’t take much of a leap to guess what was in the suitcases, and since the contents of the attaché had contributed to four deaths that I knew of, it probably wasn’t laundry either.
Continuing, the next two photographs were of a man in an artist’s studio at work on a large canvas. He was painting with his left hand while he held his palette in his right, and what was visible of his work looked like a battle scene from the era of the Light Brigade. In the first, the man’s back was to the camera, but in the second, he had turned in profile, as if someone had called to him.
His clothes were old and paint-spattered, and he had a prominent and quite crooked nose. But it was his smile that was out of place. It wasn’t one of mirth. Rather it seemed fatuous, almost silly. I thought for a moment that he might be putting it on, but when I studied his eyes, I didn’t think so.
Photographs 7-27 were of ornate buildings, and under each, Kim had typed what looked like a title followed by an artist’s name. None were familiar, so it was likely that the buildings were museums or archives, and the typed information noted the Tretiakov painting residing inside. Since most repositories of fine art do not permit photographs to be taken of their collections, that would account for only showing the building.
Suddenly, Archer said, “Go back a few slides.”
I did, and shortly she stopped me. “I’ve been there,” she said, pointing. “That’s the museum at Klenova in the Czech Republic. Just across the German border. I did a shoot for
French Vogue
at an old castle there. We took a train from Nuremberg, and it was like stepping into Hansel and Gretel.
Mountains, forests and gingerbread houses. And that title.
Scourge out of the East
. It’s a painting. I saw it.”
“Tell me about it.”
She closed her eyes, remembering. “There was a skeleton riding a white stallion and waving a sword over his head, like this.” She whirled her arm, like she was handling a lariat. “The rider had on a red cape that billowed out behind him, and the horse’s nostrils flared into big, black holes.”
“Dramatic.”
“No, awful…and sad. The skeleton’s mouth was open—screaming—and there was this ominous, deep purple and crimson sky hanging over a landscape littered with bodies torn to pieces. And in the foreground was a group of terrified men and women clutching each other, like they were waiting their turn.”
“What about the artist? Petr Stech. Remember anything about him?”
She shook her head. “There was a plaque, but all it said was what’s on the slide with the word ‘Communism’ at the top. I guess that’s what it’s supposed to represent. It was hanging by itself in a little room off the main gallery, and it had a three-sided brass railing around it so nobody could get too close.” Suddenly, she laughed.
“What?” I asked.
“There was a guard. He didn’t speak English, but he pointed to the painting and whispered, ‘
Dissidentski
.’ I whispered back, ‘No shitski,’ but he didn’t get it.”
The twenty-eighth and final slide—what would have been the twenty-second painting—wasn’t a photograph. It was just a blank screen labeled:
Archer made the observation on her own. “That would be the painting Truman was carrying when…” I nodded, and we rode in silence for a while.
Finally, she said, “I have a question. I don’t know where those other buildings are, but I do know the Klenova one. Kim’s article says General Zhuk got his artists from the Soviet Gulag, but Czechoslovakia wasn’t part of the Soviet Union until after the war. So why would there be a Czech artist in the Tretiakov Collection?”
“I think I can give you an answer. After the 1917 revolution, Lenin threw open the doors to his new ‘Workers Paradise.’ It was an orgasmic moment for sympathizers around the world, and a lot of them packed up and headed east. Merchants, tradesmen, doctors, even thousands of Jews lured by the marquee of social equality. Not to mention artists of all stripes. Musicians, painters, writers. Remember John Reed?”
“My mother was completely cracked over Warren Beatty. She had every movie he ever made, and some weekends, she’d stock up on popcorn and beer and marathon it. Bess wouldn’t have known a Trotskyite from Kryptonite, she just thought Warren had a great ass. But give me a fucking break with that self-indulgent piece of shit,
Reds
—and I’m a goddamn liberal.”
“Yeah, but what do you think about Warren’s ass?”
“
Splendor in the Grass
—hot.
Bugsy
—old and flat. Go on with your story. We were skipping toward Moscow with smiles on our faces.”
“Well, like all big lies, one day, everybody woke up. But the exits had been nailed shut. If you were in, you were staying. And if you were complaining, you were staying too, just minus a pulse. For a lot of the true believers, it was one mother of a jolt, and by the time World War Two rolled around, some of their children were old enough to start becoming radicalized in the opposite direction.”
Archer was quiet for a while. “What’s going on, Rail? And who is that man painting in a studio? He’s not one of the others.”
“I don’t know…” I let my voice drift off.
Archer finished it for me. “But Kim did, and it got her killed.”
“Yes.”
Just after midnight, the Gulfstream put down at Carl Spaatz Field in Reading, Pennsylvania. Reading, like a lot of the old coal and steel belt, is a down-on-its-luck town, and the airport reflects it. Nobody goes there who doesn’t have to.
Somewhere over Nevada, I’d told Archer about my meeting with Dante Bruzzi. She’d taken everything in and asked only a couple of questions. Then both of us had gone to sleep for the rest of the trip.
We deplaned in a light fog with the engines still running. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Archer looked around and said. “Jesus,
Clockwork Orange
.” I gave a thumbs-up to the pilot, and he retracted the stairs and taxied back onto the runway. He was headed to New York to pick up one of Jake’s music clients, who was escaping to Vegas to cool off after a throwdown with his former Playmate wife. Made perfect sense. Where else?
We found an ancient cabdriver at a run-down lunch counter in the terminal. He was drinking coffee with a couple of UPS guys. “How much to take us to D.C.?” I asked.
