Hot Siberian (16 page)

“I don't know,” she replied. “Perhaps one doesn't do so much concentrating in Macao, and that's the attraction. When it comes to gambling the Chinese are anything but inscrutable, you know. They make a din of it.”

“They're reputed to be excellent gamblers.”

“They're not really,” Vivian said. “They wager wildly without the slightest regard for the realities of chance. Every so often luck feels sorry for them and lets them win an unlikely bet, and that's what everyone oohs and aahs about and remembers.” She sighed longingly. “Someday, just wait, I'll be right in the thick of it in Macao.”

“I'm sure you will,” Savich encouraged.

“We could leave tomorrow,” Archer offered, not altogether lightly.

Didn't that cause Vivian to pause? She might be mentally making that voyage, Nikolai believed. He thought she looked particularly beautiful tonight and it wasn't that he was seeing her through his insecurity. She'd altered her makeup, he noticed. A stronger mouth and softer eyes. She had exaggerated the oriental aspect of her eyes. Thus the penchant for Macao. The cause had been the effect. The romantic notion occurred to Nikolai that time would be kind if it halted then and there, so he would forever have her just as she was in his sight.

When they were seated in the upper study Archer suggested a game of cards. They could learn whist as it had been played originally in the eighteenth century, he said. He'd just acquired a booklet of instructions that had been printed back then for members of the court. Wouldn't that be amusing?

Apparently no one thought so.

Valérie was feeling the dominance of a huge portrait that hung on the wall near her armchair. It was a full-length study of one of Archer's eighteenth-century female forebears, well done, when the lady was in her prime. “Lovely,” Valérie said, “but she'd be even lovelier if she didn't have such a stern look about her.”

“In those days they were invariably portrayed with their mouths set like that,” Archer told her.

“Why not a smile?” Valérie smiled.

“They had rotten teeth,” Vivian explained. She was seated in an armchair upholstered in a leather so soft it would have been suitable for fine gloves. She was discreetly observing Savich, who was seated on the sofa across from her. How was it, Vivian wondered, that a Russian bureaucrat, a political descendant of that man in the accountant's suit who had called himself Lenin, could be so completely at ease in these prodigal circumstances? Where was his Communist conscience? He seemed to take for granted a lap of luxury such as this, as though he had it coming. Vivian was most eager to find out what the irises of his eyes would reveal. She had brought along her magnifying monocle for that express purpose.

“I've decided to learn how to cook both
sheke
and
borshch urankii
,” she said out of the blue.

Nikolai, who couldn't recall having seen her delving into a Russian cookbook, wondered if she was serious.

Savich smiled and patted the sofa cushion next to him, and within a few minutes she had her monocle magnifying his eyes. As she examined and simultaneously discoursed on the fundamentals of iridology, Nikolai stepped out of the study unnoticed.

He needed to be alone for a while, thought that might help his perspective. All evening he had tried to shake the feeling that his being there at Archer's verified the inevitability of the emotional hurt that lay ahead for him. His smiles had been merely the pulling up of the corners of his mouth, and he hadn't been able to compete nearly as deftly as usual in the repartée. Stop being the melancholy Russian, he told himself. Or, as Vivian would put it, get centered.

He wandered Archer's place. Down the long, wide upper hallway, in and out of various rooms, appreciating precious things while trying not to be affected by them. It was of no personal consequence, he thought, that the carpet he was standing on was a perfect eighteenth-century Aubusson, or that the boulle marquetry writing table that had its place in one of the less significant guest bedrooms was Louis XIV and was worth well over a hundred thousand. He was on the landing immediately above the main staircase, feeling the pricelessness of a perfectly lighted Tintoretto, when he realized someone was beside him.

“What's wrong, Nikolai?” Savich asked.

“Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“I felt like moving around. I stuffed myself with dinner.” Savich persisted with eye-to-eye silence.

Nikolai stated the fact. “Vivian was married to him.”

“I know.”

“She was married to all this.”

“And from what I gather she could be again.”

“Yes.”

“If she so chose.” Savich made the point.

“Eventually it may not be a matter of choice.”

“Very little in life is inevitable,” Savich said and gave Nikolai an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “From what I see, you have nothing to worry about.”

CHAPTER

8

MONDAY MORNING IN GENEVA
.

Arthur Newfeld believed the deal was surely sweet enough to suffer some for. But he had such awful jet lag. Worse than ever. All the hinges and other articulations of his seventy-year-old body seemed to be refusing, and his head felt mushy and lopsided.

How was it, he wondered, that so many people could fly away without a qualm and fall into any bed anyplace in the world and wake up bright and ready to do business? Not he. He was a prisoner of his time zone. Like a finely tuned, hypersensitive clock, his vital intricacies got out of whack when moved. And, as irony would have it, for the greater part of his life there'd been so much moving demanded of him. Ten times a year for thirty years he'd had to make the flight from New York to London to New York. Three hundred round trips altogether. One would have thought that after a while he'd have become conditioned to it. No one ever knew how much he dreaded those trips, all those times he'd sat in one boarding area or another at Kennedy International and debated with the reason why it was imperative that he get on the plane. He was always the last to get on, reluctantly committing himself to the torture he knew lay ahead. Whenever he arrived in London and went at his appointed hour to 11 Harrowhouse Street for his “sight” he was always at more of a disadvantage than any of the other diamond dealers and brokers. There on the table would be his parcel of rough, the small box wrapped just so with immaculate white paper, inviolably sealed by blobs of bright red wax impressed with the Systern's official stamp. Because of his jet lag, it never seemed to Newfeld that those were his fingers that opened the parcel, never his eyes that looked over the lot of rough diamonds the System was allowing him to buy. What strain it had been each time to appear interested, to take out his monogrammed gold loupe and bring it up to his left eye and pretend to be examining the stones. It was only ritual, of course, but it was expected of him. Truth be known, he couldn't really appraise the quality of the goods the System had chosen to dole out to him until he got them back to New York and his head was cleared.

What intensified it all the more was his having to keep his suffering to himself. He'd never spoken of his jet lag, not even lightly, to any of his fellow dealers, and certainly not to anyone at the System. He couldn't afford to have them knowing such
inside
information. They would have rated him a pushover in business, and, as well, it would have been exposing what Newfeld regarded as a personal weakness, unmanly. Thus, as the excuse to catch the very next flight home to the comfort of his own timing there'd always been pressing business back in New York or crucial family matters. In all those years there'd been no socializing or camaraderie in London, no leisurely dinners at the Savoy, weekends in Surrey, or any of that. He'd missed so much.

What relief for Newfeld when five years ago his son Theodor had finally been approved by the System and permitted to take over the responsibility of attending the sights on behalf of the family firm. The rather retired Newfeld had, at first, let out many relieved breaths. However, after a while, his guilt made him think about how much more he could have accomplished had he been a good traveler. Jet lag, now that it was no longer a monthly inevitability, seemed a surmountable, minor thing. He'd allowed it to stunt the firm of Newfeld & Son. If he had it to do over again, he'd fight it with more resolve, he thought. He might not beat it but at least he'd give it a better battle.

And now here he was in Geneva, doing just that. Standing in the lobby of the Président Hotel feeling painfully out of sync with the time and the place and the activity around him and yet determined to persevere. Not just to see the deal through but to force himself to stay on for a day or two after it was concluded, to see Geneva, stroll around the lake, do whatever.

But first the deal. What a sweet one it was. Nearly too good to be true. He stood to make four million, nearly five, without putting out a dime except for expenses. Theodor knew nothing about it. He hadn't mentioned it to Theodor because he wanted—needed, actually—to pull this off on his own. He hadn't even told Theodor about the Russian fellow who'd come into the office on 47th Street a short while back. Without appointment. An extremely fair-haired Russian who'd introduced himself as Dmitri Tarasov. He'd shown Newfeld a sample lot of goods and made the proposition to him as though aware of the private circumstances that would obviate refusal.

Newfeld wasn't naive. He immediately recognized the sample lot as Aikhal goods. All one-caraters, perfect. He assumed the deal was an underbelly sort, the kind that disappeared the moment too many questions were asked about it, the kind one just got into or didn't. “You provide the investment-type customer, we supply the goods at enough below the going market price for you to make a nice margin of profit,” Tarasov had told him.

Newfeld, as instructed, had taken a particular flight to Paris and laid over for an hour at De Gaulle. At a certain airport bistro counter he'd put down his business case while he ordered and drank a
café américain
. He was surprised when, a quarter hour later, the business case he picked up was still his. He'd expected a switch. Evidently it had been taken away for a moment and returned. He didn't open it, waited until he was in Geneva and in his room at the Président to look at the diamonds. Three packets of them. Eight hundred to each packet. Each stone an exact carat. Such perfect little beauties.

It had gone so smoothly, Newfeld thought. In another hour the bank would be open and the deal would be a done deal. He still had time to go up to his room and shave. That was another thing about making long-distance latitudinal journeys. They threw one's shaving schedule off. Right now at the beginning of the day he only half-needed a shave. To hell with it. He didn't want to look in a mirror. He'd be made to feel worse if he saw his gaunt old face with its four creases so prominent across his forehead and double bags beneath each of his eyes and the aging spots on his bald skull as if he'd been splattered with sepia paint. Better that he proceed toward the deal and keep his mind on how pleased with himself he was going to feel when it was done.

He went across the hotel lobby to the cashier's cage and told the woman there he wanted to get into his strongbox. The woman buzzed him in through a door off to the left and accompanied him to the room where the strongboxes were built into the wall. He produced his key and the woman opened the correspondingly numbered little hinged door and drew the black steel box out and handed it to him, and he went into the adjacent smaller room and closed the door. He'd decided to carry his business case, but the diamonds wouldn't be in it. He rolled up his left trouser leg. He was wearing a wraparound pouch just above the calf, had put it on earlier to get used to it. He peeled apart its Velcro straps and took it off. From the strongbox he removed the three packets of diamonds. Placed them evenly in the compartment of the pouch. He put the pouch back on and rolled down his trousers.

Over forty million dollars' worth of diamonds on his leg. He
humphed
at the fact. This was good for him, he thought. Just the thing to counter his jet lag.

He strode across the lobby and used some of his strength to revolve the very polished brass door that deposited him outside on the Quai Woodrow Wilson. Directly across the way on the opposite side of the traffic was Lake Geneva. He paused for a moment to take in its gray-blue surface, pointillistically textured, the morning sun like a spill across it.

“
Taxi, monsieur?
” the doorman asked.

“
Merci, non
.” Going against inclination, challenging the fatigue in his legs. He'd walk to the bank, which was located on rue des Alpes, ten blocks away.

Newfeld had gone only twenty-some steps when they confronted him, stopped him by saying his name. Because it was so unexpected to hear it and was said without question he responded to it instinctively. His thought right off was that the two of them might be an escort provided by the Russian to see that he got to the bank safely, but then they showed him plastic-laminated credentials that identified them as functionaries of the Security Section of the Central Selling System. They were young men, British, well dressed in vested suits, fresh white shirts, and ties. A proper appearance and a pleasant, polite manner about them. One was sandy-haired and wearing round-lensed eyeglasses with thin frames of dark wire. He was Fred. The other, Horace, had the same sandy hair but was somewhat taller and stoop-shouldered.

“Mr. Newfeld, sir,” Fred said amiably, “we'd appreciate your coming with us.”

“I've business to attend to,” Newfeld told him.

“We won't keep you,” Horace promised.

“Please, sir.” Fred smiled.

Newfeld knew the rules of the System, the unwritten and officially unstated but steadfast rules regarding dealing in contraband diamonds. “Outside goods,” as they were called. Over the years he'd often heard of offenders and how unsparingly and severely the System punished them. He'd always believed most of it had been mere scare talk meant to put fear into the trade. Surely these two young fellows from the Security Section intended him no harm. They were being particularly gentle. Possibly this was only a routine check. They did them randomly. They'd ask a few questions and look into his business case and that was all there'd be to it. Anyway, Newfeld thought, he had no choice but to cooperate.