An Image of Death (29 page)

“You want me to live here? With you?”

“In time, yes. Your son and your parents, too.” He stood up. “You see, I am not the heartless animal you take me for.”

No, she thought. He was worse. He had no heart or soul. The people in her life, all the people who’d been important to her, he’d exploited for his own gain. “You had such energy, Vlad. Such passion. Men were devoted to you. But you squandered their loyalty. Ours, too—Sacha. Me. Mika. Yudin. How can you possibly think I would allow myself to be part of that?”

“I see.” He folded his arms. “You are suddenly a woman of principle. It was acceptable to smuggle diamonds when it was just you and Yudin. But now that you know I am involved, it is a heinous crime? What has changed?”

“I have.” Her rage had been mounting, building and sharpening until it coalesced into a palpable thing, a scythe that glistened and shimmered in her mind. “They say you can never know evil. That it will trick you. Change its face so you cannot recognize it. But, they are wrong, Vlad. You killed my husband. Destroyed my best friend. Now I learn you have cheated my father-in-law. And me. I called you a monster once. You have not changed. You are evil.” Her voice quavered. “But I will not allow you to inflict any more damage.”

He waited, a half smile on face. She lunged toward him. She would claw his face, permanently erase that smirk. But he caught her wrists easily and yanked them up in the air. A sharp pain sliced through her. His eyes grew cold. “Arin. You must know I will not allow you to ruin my empire.”

He twisted her arms, forcing her to arch into him. As her body bent backward, he pressed into her and crushed his mouth on hers. She tried to pull away, but he had her arms pinned.

With his lips bearing down on her, Arin opened her mouth, hoping he would think she had surrendered. His tongue insinuated itself into her mouth. She bit down.

He jerked and fell back with a shout. Blood spurted from his tongue. He covered his mouth with his hand, a curtain of anger veiling his eyes. Arin staggered back, desperate to escape. But his men were too quick. One grabbed her by the waist, the other by the neck. Together they wrestled her to the ground. They flipped her over, pinning her beneath the big one’s meaty arms. Vlad crouched, his face looming above hers, and gazed at her with those pale, cold eyes. One of the bodyguards asked if they should take over. Vlad shook his head. For one fascinating but terrifying moment, Arin thought he might explode in rage.

But then something emerged from deep within him. Not a serenity, or even a quietude, but something silent and dark and icy. His expression smoothed out, and his features seemed to freeze in place. He didn’t strike her. He didn’t raise a hand. He took in a breath, his face only inches from hers.

“You see, my dear Arin, the secret is to remain in control. At all times.” The crooked smile distorted his features. “You must work on that.” He straightened up and nodded to the men. “Take her away. We will talk again when she has a different perspective.”

As they pulled her to her feet, the cold metal of a gun barrel nuzzled her neck.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-ONE

Max Gordon was more than a “player,” I learned when I Googled him that afternoon. Some considered him “The Little Engine That Could” of banking—albeit with the occasional emphasis on “little.” One of the articles compared him to former Clinton official Robert Reich, but I didn’t pick up the same affection they lavished on the diminutive Bostonian. More often it was the “small man cuts big swath through new markets” theme.

He’d grown up in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, the son of Russian immigrants from Belarus named Grodzienski. After changing his name, he enrolled in Brooklyn College, the first member of his family to pursue higher education. He graduated with a degree in economics, then worked his way through NYU’s business school and earned an MBA in finance. He was immediately hired at Chase, and after a flurry of internships, landed in their international banking department. His hiring was seen as an asset, especially since he spoke Russian fluently.

Even before Glasnost, he was well-informed about the economies of Russia and Eastern Europe. In the seventies, he wrote a brilliant analysis of the U.S.-Soviet wheat deal in which he predicted a time when superpower politics would be less significant than commerce. Subsequent events seemed to bear him out. During the Arab oil embargo he recommended that the U.S. look into Russian oil as an alternative, and it was rumored that government officials did indeed hold private talks with the Soviets.

Gordon was involved in one of the first forays into Poland after Lech Walesa opened its markets in the late eighties, and after the Berlin wall fell, he helped organize the first economic development conferences focusing on East Germany and Czechoslovakia.

Another article said his interest in Eastern Europe was prompted by the fact that his family came from that part of the world. Gordon didn’t disabuse anyone of the notion. “This is my way to give something back so others can realize their dreams, too,” he was quoted as saying. But he added that no progress would be made on a large scale until all nations embraced free markets. I twirled a lock of hair. Not only an economic powerhouse, now he was Adam Smith? Others, though, took him more seriously, and he was sought out as an expert whenever the media focused on that part of the world.

Unfortunately, his personal life wasn’t as successful. A stormy marriage to Karen Wise, also from Brooklyn, ended in a nasty divorce, and while the divorce proceedings were sealed, reports hinted at a stunning settlement. In the early nineties, he moved to the Midwest.

I found it curious that Gordon would leave the financial capital of the world for the Second City. But New York was crowded and competitive, he pronounced; new ventures were difficult to launch. That was probably true. If he’d already conceived the notion of starting a bank and building a skyscraper, Chicago
was
a more conducive climate, financially and politically. Even Trump had dipped his toe in the lake. Plus, Gordon’s marriage was over, he had no children, and his parents had passed away. Why not make a fresh start?

Gold Coast Trust started small, but Gordon aggressively looked for opportunities and was credited with some ingenious investments. For example, he helped bring capital into Yugoslavia for the Yugo, the cheap car that was successfully exported to the West. And when the Soviet Union collapsed, he invested not only in basic industries like steel and oil, but less capital-intensive ventures as well, particularly software.

Money attracts money, he liked to say, and despite the risks of conducting business with politically unstable countries, Gold Coast Trust thrived, investing and building assets at the same time. When the economy turned sour here, moreover, the high interest rates he was collecting acted as a hedge against the slow-down and he continued to prosper, although publicly he downplayed his achievement.

He also kept up his networking, continuing to sponsor conferences in Eastern and Central Europe. That was critical, he maintained. Not only did these conferences provide a window for potential investors, but it was important that fledging businesses and industries study the successful methods used by western captains of industry.

Of all the articles I skimmed, only one was less than praiseworthy. Written by a curmudgeonly Chicago financial analyst for his company’s newsletter, it questioned the speed with which Gold Coast Trust had ramped up. A bank that went from rags to riches in ten short years, Donald Robinson claimed, was nothing short of a miracle, and miracles were in short supply in this economy. He advised readers to take a close look at this shooting star to make sure it didn’t burn itself out.

I glanced at David’s photo on the shelf above the computer. I’d taken it last summer when the three of us biked up to the Botanic Gardens. He knew Max Gordon and Gold Coast Trust; he could probably fill me in with more detail than a few articles. But calling him was out of the question. In fact, I should probably take his picture and throw it away. I sighed. I couldn’t do that yet. But I did turn the frame around so that his picture faced the wall.

I printed out the articles and stashed them in a file folder. Then I went downstairs to brew a pot of coffee. While it was perking, I ran out to pick up Rachel from school. Her friend Katie climbed into the car with her. Back at the house, they grabbed a bag of cookies and two pops, and bounded up the stairs.

“Whoa, there, road runners. Where are you off to?”

Rachel stopped on the top step. “We need to get on IM. There’s this really hot—”

“Sorry.” On the way to pick Rachel up, I’d realized there was something else I wanted to check online. “I need the computer.”

“Muhhthherrr.…”

“Another half hour.”

Katie looked crestfallen, but after a moment, Rachel recovered. “No prob. Let’s jog over to the Forest Preserve. By the time we get back, we’ll go online.”

Katie shot Rachel one of those “are you crazy” looks. She was apparently the type who thought clicking on a remote or a mouse was more than enough exercise.

“Tell you what,” I said. “How about some cocoa to gird your loins?”

They both brightened. I made hot chocolate with marshmallows, which they sucked down like liquid candy. Then they put on their coats and headed outside.

Back in my office, I Googled “Tattoos and Russian army.” Only one Web site popped up, revealing an obscure crest that was supposedly tattooed on white army recruits during the Russian Revolution. Other links, however, and there seemed to be a slew of them, promised information about tattoos and Russian prisons. Recalling what the Buddhist tattoo artist said about tattoos and gulags and jails, I clicked on them.

Like most prison populations, tattoos were common in Russian jails. Of the 35 million people jailed in the Soviet Union between the mid-sixties and the late eighties, 85 percent were tattooed. Certain tattoos meant that a prisoner was a high ranking criminal, a
pakhany
, or had some special status before being imprisoned. Others meant they were one of the
razboyniki
, or mob. Some tattoos indicated a prisoner had done time in solitary confinement. Nazi imagery wasn’t uncommon.

There was even a cadre of Russian street thugs known as the “Tattoos.” Described as a cross between the Gambinos under John Gotti and Hell’s Angels, the Tattoos were muscle men who ran the rackets and extorted payoffs. One of the Web sites claimed they had a virtual lock on almost every aspect of the Russian marketplace.

According to a Russian criminologist, tattoos were a passport, business card, and résumé all rolled in one. Criminals distinguished one another’s rank in the underworld, their past incarcerations, even their area of “specialty” from their body art. But so did the police, who gradually learned to use tattoos to identify and apprehend criminals. As a result, the criminologist said, the application of tattoos might have peaked.

I took my empty coffee cup down to the kitchen and looked through the window. Rachel and Katie hadn’t gone jogging. They were dragging some neighborhood kids around on a sled. I pressed my forehead against the windowpane. Icy tendrils of frost coated the glass. I ran my finger across it, letting the wavy wet line bisect them.

After all that research, I wasn’t sure what I was looking for or what I’d found. Max Gordon seemed like a gifted businessman, and with the exception of the one article, above reproach. He had put his loyalty to his homeland to good use. Yet, a construction worker at his site wore a ski mask, the same mask worn by a murderer. Both men had a limp. The woman on the tape had been killed at a dental office. So were the Russian immigrants who owned it. The man who might have sent me the tape had connections to a Russian strip joint. And a tattoo that might have originated in the Russian army or prison was on the dead woman’s wrist…the same tattoo that had shown up on a diamond courier in Antwerp.

I felt as if elements were whirling around me like electrons around the nucleus of an atom. Everything required to restore order was there, but whizzing around so fast, I couldn’t identify them. Layered on top was an urgency, an edgy sense that I needed to piece everything together before…before what? I didn’t know, but I had the distinct feeling I was running out of time.

I backed away from the window and went to the phone. I doubted it would make any difference, but I left a message for Davis telling her what I’d learned.

***

I came out of the bathroom that night to find Rachel curled up in my bed, engrossed in the end of civilization as we know it on her Game Boy. I threw back the covers, slid into bed beside her, and pulled the blankets up to my chin.

As she clicked on buttons and arrows, voices screamed, tones chimed, and colors flashed. I tried to determine some logic to the sequences, but the patterns were either beyond my ability to comprehend or totally random. After a particularly unearthly shriek, Rachel paused the game and everything went silent. Without looking at me, she asked, “How come you turned the picture around?”

“What picture?” I said, though I knew the one she meant.

“The one of David at the gardens.”

I shrugged one shoulder, producing a slight lump in the quilt.

“There’s a problem, isn’t there?”

I took out my hand and smoothed out the covers. She put the Game Boy down and rolled onto her side. I sighed. I had to tell her sometime. “It seems as if David has a new girlfriend.”

Her eyes grew round as plates. “What?”

I repeated myself.

“How could he?” Her voice turned suddenly suspicious. “What did you do?”

“As far as I know, nothing.” This time.

“Then what happened?”

I explained as much as I felt she could understand.

“I don’t believe this.”