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I didn’t expect to like Mulholland much, I’d already told Bernie that, and I was ninety percent sure I didn’t want to work for him. I also had business in Moscow I was eager to attend to, a big breakthrough in a decade-long project. Bernie asked me to meet with him at least, and Bernie and I go way back, to the days when he was on one side and I was on the other. He’s also my best source of business. One reason being he has much higher tolerance for self-important men like Mulholland than I do.

I took a deep breath and started to cross the street. I stopped, choking on wet air caught in my throat. Three identical SUVs, windows tinted black, paraded down Fifth Avenue and halted, double-parked at the corner. Police vehicles of some kind. I waited, but no one got out. Probably part of a motorcade, getting ready to form. Plenty of diplomats and dignitaries in this part of town. I continued across and approached the entrance of the building under a heavy iron awning. The door opened before I got there. The limestone lobby was cool and dark, a welcome change from the sidewalk. A uniformed doorman looked me up and down without giving any indication of the impression formed. I said I was there to see Mr. Mulholland. The doorman looked over to another uniformed man behind a desk, who lifted a receiver.

“Who shall I say is here?”

I told him. He punched a button, waited, said, “Mr. Turbo,” into the receiver, hung up, and nodded toward the elevator in the back. Yet another man in uniform drove silently to the ninth floor. Expensive place to live at Christmas.

The elevator man pulled back the gate. I stepped out of the walnut cab into a small vestibule. A pair of mahogany double doors opened before I could knock. A man in a dark suit, white shirt, and silver tie gestured that I should enter.

“Wait here, please.”

He left me in an entrance hall that would not have been out of place in an English manor house. No windows, a half-dozen doors, and a large curved staircase in one corner ascending to the heavens. Plenty of pictures, all Old Masters, some better than others, biblical themes. I was trying to divine the message an arrow-riddled St. Sebastian conveyed to arriving guests when the man in the silver tie returned.

“This way, please.”

He led me to a door at the far end of the hall, knocked once, and stood aside. I went in.

The room was dark and cool, like the lobby. No light from the windows, only lamps. Geography said we were on the side of the building overlooking Central Park, where most people would want to show off the view, but the curtains were drawn. Too bad—sunlight was a short-lived visitor where I come from and never to be shut out entirely, even in a heat wave. Another manor house room, double height, paneled, bookshelves all around, with what looked to be a family crest plastered onto the vaulted ceiling. An outsized marble fireplace took up one end, counterbalanced by an enormous partners’ desk at the other. The desktop was clean except for two computer flat-screens. Over the fireplace was a large Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child. Early Italian Renaissance, unless I missed my guess. Mary was lovely, but I’ve never gotten used to the adult features Renaissance painters give the baby Jesus. A carved balustrade circumnavigated the bookshelves at the second level. The books were leather bound, and some looked as though they’d actually been read, but not, I was willing to wager, by their current owner.

Two men rose from chairs by the fireplace. Bernie Kordlite came across an acre of Oriental carpet, hand outstretched, smiling. He was medium height, five-ten, two inches shorter than I am. In his sixties, he was losing the baldness battle and showing some paunch. He had a round face, wide mouth, and small nose, on which was perched a pair of circular horn-rimmed glasses. He was dressed in a three-button sack suit and striped tie. Bernie is perpetually dressed in a three-button sack suit and striped tie. I’ve always wanted to ask Barbara, his wife, if that’s what he sleeps in.

“Hello, Turbo,” Bernie said, grabbing my hand. “Thanks for coming uptown. Let me introduce Rory Mulholland. Rory, this is Turbo Vlost.”

Mulholland stood by his chair, waiting for me to come to him. I thought about standing my ground, too, forcing him to take the first step, but I’d come here because Bernie asked me to, and it was pointless to pick a fight, especially a petty one, as soon as I walked through the door. I was tempted though.

“How do you do, Mr. Vlost,” Mulholland said.

I took his hand. Fleshy, his grip neither firm nor limp.

“Call me Turbo.”

He didn’t say,
Call me Rory
. He sat and gave me the once-over, not intently, but as if he were vaguely curious how someone like me came to be in his library. His face was as expressionless as the doorman’s downstairs.

Mulholland wore a suit as well, but his was tailored. Double-breasted, dark gray with a heavy white stripe that stated without question Savile Row. His white shirt had a blue
RPM
monogram on the French cuff. Woven blue and gold silk tie that probably cost more than my car. Tied in a Windsor knot. I’ve never trusted men who use Windsor knots. The entire Brezhnev Politburo wore them, and they were all hard-asses. I shouldn’t talk—I haven’t worn a tie in years.

Mulholland was shorter than I expected—about five foot eight—and rounder, too. He looked younger than his sixty-eight years. His dark curly hair was still full—no gray. His face was without wrinkles, his complexion Irish-pale with round red cheeks—an aging Pillsbury Doughboy, except for one thing. He had hard, dark eyes behind round tortoiseshell glasses that tried to soften them but didn’t stand a chance. A predator’s eyes. I knew them from the Gulag and the Cheka, and I’ve always made a point of keeping my distance.

I turned to Bernie with a look in my eyes that said,
I want out,
but he either didn’t get the message or ignored me. “Sit down, Turbo. Coffee?”

“No, thanks. Had my fill.”

“Excuse me a moment,” Mulholland said, walking to the desk at the far end. Just after nine thirty, I had a pretty good idea what he was doing. He pushed a couple of keys on his computer. “Market opened down fifty, we’re down two. Not an auspicious start to the day.” “We” would be FirstTrustBankCorp, of which he owned twelve percent.

I took off my jacket, probably a breach of etiquette, and sat next to Bernie. I was wearing the same thing I always wear, gray linen jacket, black T-shirt, beige linen trousers. In winter, I substitute leather and flannel for the linen and a turtleneck for the T-shirt. Saves a lot of time in the morning, not thinking about what to wear.

Mulholland came back down the long room and reclaimed his seat. He straightened his cuffs, then his tie, looked at Bernie, and turned toward me. He was trying to decide between more small talk and getting down to business. Once he started telling his story, he was vulnerable. By the time he finished, I’d own some piece of him. Men like Mulholland didn’t get where they got by exposing themselves. He was instinctively uneasy, trying to delay the inevitable. I waited patiently. Given the mindset I’d brought with me, I was somewhat enjoying the moment.

Bernie, however, was in a hurry, or just uncomfortable with the silence. “Right,” he said, “Rory, perhaps you’d like to tell Turbo—”

Mulholland held up a pudgy finger. It showed his age more accurately than his face. “I have a few questions for Mr. Vlost first.”

He wanted to run the meeting, maintain control for as long as he could. I turned and tried to look attentive—for Bernie’s sake.

“You were in the KGB,” he said. A statement, not a question.

I nodded.

“How did you come to choose that career?”

“Beat being a prisoner.”

That got a reaction. Usually does.

“I don’t understand.”

“Limited career choices. Could’ve been a criminal. Had most of the necessary training, but prison and I didn’t agree. KGB looked pretty good by comparison.”

“I still don’t follow.”

I wondered how much Bernie had told him and, not for the first time, how much he knew.

“Law, crime, and punishment were ill-defined concepts in the Soviet Union. The line moved around. A lot of people started out on one side and ended up on the other. I was lucky, I have some skills that were useful.”

This was the truth, as far as it went, which wasn’t very far. The rest of the story was something I, along with millions of other Russians, don’t discuss. Shame is the most insidious of human emotions—worse than death, as another of our proverbs puts it.

“It didn’t bother you to enforce the same law that victimized you?”

“Who said I was victimized?”

Bernie said, “Rory, I—”

Mulholland said, “You were a member of the Party.” Another statement.

“Had to be.”

“You believe all that Marxist-Leninist claptrap?”

“Marx was a pretty good historian but a poor student of human nature. Even in its pure form, before the Bolsheviks got hold of it, Communism is a flawed ideology. People don’t want to share. They want to keep everything they can get.”

I looked around the paneled room. Mulholland frowned, and Bernie winced.

“Why did the KGB want you?”

“Languages. I speak seven.”

“You were well trained. I don’t hear any accent.”

“
Mes amis français me disent la même chose
. I don’t hear any Boston brogue either.”

“That would be the nuns. Another kind of police.” He smiled at his joke. “What did you do in the KGB?”

“Started out in the Second Chief Directorate, counterintelligence. Spent most of my career in the First Department of the First Chief Directorate. That’s the part that spies on you.” I gave him a friendly grin to let him know it was nothing personal, which he did not return. “Retired with the rank of colonel. That’s about all I can say.”

“Can or want to?”

I shook my head. The look on his face said people didn’t do that to him very often. The look went away.

“How long have you been here?”

“Since ’93.”

“Why’d you leave?”

“Everything about Russia was changing. Except the KGB. When Primakov took over, he offered an early retirement program. I took him up on it.”

He looked as if I’d finally said something sensible.

“Married?”

“Used to be.”

“Divorced?”

I nodded.

“That’s unfortunate.”

“Not according to my ex-wife.”

“That’s not what I mean. Marriage is a sacrament. Divorce is something that shouldn’t … Children?”

“One son. Grown now.”

“No thoughts of marrying again?”

“I don’t see—”

“Not queer, are you?”

I considered whether that was any of his damned business, which was a waste of time because of course it wasn’t. Bernie stopped me before I could say so.

“Rory—”

Mulholland held up the fleshy hand again. “These questions may seem impertinent, Mr. Vlost, but I need to assure myself that I can trust you. The matter that brings you here involves my family, which is the most important thing in my life, after God. Bernie tells me you are smart, honest, and competent. That’s all to the good. But you are not an American. In fact, you were a sworn enemy of our country for your entire career. Your divorce indicates a certain lack of faith in one of the institutions that holds our society together. I’m wondering if there are other moral lapses.”

Moral lapses. From a guy who practiced legal loan-sharking. I turned to Bernie again, but he’d acquired a powerful interest in the carpet. I swung back to Mulholland, who was watching me intently. Might as well put an end to this now.

“I drink vodka. Beer, too. I play cards, for money. Tried dope, did inhale, didn’t like it, went back to vodka. My childhood friends were all what you’d call juvenile delinquents. Some went on to become full-fledged criminals. I chase tail from time to time, female, if that makes a difference to you. I’ve covered most of the seven deadly sins at one point or another—except maybe greed, but only because guys like you cornered the market. I don’t expect to change my ways. Perhaps I’m not your man, Mr. Mulholland. I’d certainly understand if you felt that way.” I stood and picked up my jacket.

“Sit down,” he barked. The hard, dark eyes got darker. “We’re not finished yet.”

That surprised me—I would have bet the dacha on being thrown out. I did as he asked, perhaps because my curiosity—an eighth mortal sin, if there ever was one—was kicking in. We sat silently for a good several minutes, which didn’t seem to bother Mulholland or me. Bernie bent forward and rubbed his hands between his knees. Eventually Mulholland got up, walked to the desk, announced the market was now down ninety and FTB two and a half, returned to his chair, and said, “Tell me about your company.”

“No company, just me. I get paid to find things. Sometimes people. Sometimes valuables. Sometimes information. I work for all kinds of clients—individuals, corporations, insurance companies. Even, when I have to, for lawyers like Bernie.”

Nobody laughed at my attempt at levity. I reached into my jacket and found a business card, which I handed across. He looked it over and scowled.

“‘Vlost and Found?’ What’s that—a joke?”

“A lot of Russian humor is based on wordplay.”

His expression indicated Russian humor was a waste of time. Dislike was winning the war with curiosity. I’d just about had enough of him.

“Tell me about some of your clients,” he said.

“I don’t talk about them.”

“Surely you have references.”

“Bernie here will vouch for me. At least, I think he will.”

I looked at Bernie, who clearly was not happy with the way things were going.

“I cannot proceed on this basis,” Mulholland said.

“Fine by me.” I picked up my jacket again.

“Wait,” Bernie said. “Rory, be reasonable. You wouldn’t want Turbo to talk about you. He’s done work for a number of clients of the firm. They all speak highly. No one has ever complained.”

I suspected few people got away with telling Rory Mulholland to “be reasonable,” but there were plenty of reasons Bernie had a successful second career as one of the top lawyers in New York, not least among them was he knew how to play his clients.