Hotel Moscow (16 page)

“Is that the case with you?”

“I carry my own baggage.” She paused. “We’re discussing your situation. There’s a huge leap between talking and final divorce.”

Her parents had neither talked nor mediated. They just existed in the no-man’s land of their marriage, their incompatibility too wide to bridge. They had met at a displaced persons camp, where, besides some Yiddish, they didn’t even share a common language—he spoke Czech while she spoke Russian. The Holocaust bound them together as they crawled out from the ashes.

If originally the unquenched instinct to cling to life motivated them to cleave to each other, once they settled, they didn’t share a vision of what that life meant. Her father was extravagant. He
wanted to achieve business success to “show the
goyim.
” He delighted in accumulating possessions to make up for deprivation and enjoyed showering them on those around him. When he moved the family from a dingy Brooklyn apartment into a suburban home in Long Island—and later, against his wife’s wishes, bought a nicer home in the same town—Brooke’s guilt-ridden, self-punishing mother chose to move into the closet-size maid’s room off the kitchen, where she could live the Spartan life she felt she deserved for having stayed alive.

Yet even after Brooke fled their constant bickering and moved to California, they hung on. Her mother would never have sought happiness, but what about her father? No doubt his inability to go through more upheaval and pain had fused with habit and kept him married to a woman with whom he shared nothing.

“I would have waited a few months before finding an excuse to bump into you in New York,” Judd said, bringing Brooke back from her musing. When she said nothing, he took a deep breath. “I have two boys. I don’t want them to feel short-changed like I did, with my father’s attention diverted elsewhere.”

“Aren’t you embarking on just the same path?”

“That’s not what happened.” Judd shook his head. “My father wasn’t your ordinary Lothario. Look, I wasn’t planning to turn this into a sappy confession about my childhood, so I’ll stop.”

“I’m sorry. I want to hear it.” Brooke was caught off guard by the sudden tears misting her vision. “I’m also second generation.”

“Wow.” He gazed at her as if trying to peel off the layers this statement encompassed. “I had no idea.”

“Yes, wow.”

“Technically, I’m third generation, but in practicality I’m
second.” He finished his drink. “My mother died when I was only five. Her parents took over my upbringing. My father traveled for business and divided his week between our home in New Jersey and his trips to Chicago. When I was about to leave for Vietnam, he told me that he’d been remarried for years, in Chicago, and had fathered and raised two more children. His rationale for hiding it seemed quite noble: Since my grandmother had become my mother, he was afraid to devastate my young soul—or their wounded ones—by snatching me away. But I wished that, at some point, he had told me about his new family and given me a choice. His motivation to hide his marriage probably had to do with the fact that my grandparents had lost all their relatives, but later were blessed with one beloved daughter who then died. He pretended for their sakes to have remained faithful to her memory.”

Brooke’s throat contracted. “Your father sounds like a man who had a lot of love to give.”

“That’s not how I saw it.” Judd’s eyes reddened behind his glasses. “I was torn. I loved my grandparents very much, but they had never assimilated, and I felt cheated for not growing up with my half brother and half sister in their normal family. I envied children growing up in American families, with young parents.”

“I, too, envied ‘normal’ families. The
goyim,
especially, had cocktails. I adored the sound of a blender buzz, of clinking ice, and of parents chatting over their cool glasses. The only liquor in my house was one bottle of Sabra someone had brought them from Israel.”

He smiled. “In my case, knowing nothing of my father’s full
life, I missed getting to know the real man. In the end, while I was in Vietnam, his heart caved under the pressure.”

“He must have loved your grandparents. He could have had an orderly life: A wife and all three kids in one household in Chicago. No weekly commute. No heart attack at the end.”

“My grandparents were the only winners in this scheme, and I was the loser, growing up with their Holocaust
mishegas.
” Judd looked down at his fingers and frowned. “Back to now: The thought of inflicting on my boys the kind of upheaval from which my father shielded me paralyzed me for too long. Finally it became clear that witnessing a venomous marriage was worse. My wife and I called it quits and started mediation to finalize things.”

“I should be delighted, but I’m not.” Brooke played with her fork. “The timing of this is poor. I don’t date anyone who must hide my existence.”

“For now, all I want is for you to know that you’re special.” He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “This is special.”

She only had to turn her palm up and curve her fingers to meet his dry, warm touch. Instead, she mustered all her willpower to extricate her hand and fastened her fingers around the stem of her Champagne glass. Then, realizing her tight grip might break it, she loosened her hold.

For a while, neither of them spoke. Finally she said, “Judd, these past twenty-four hours have been intense, but being away from one’s natural habitat distorts things, plays tricks with one’s perspective.”

He raised an eyebrow and smiled. “We’ve gotten a gut feel
ing about each other. We’ve experienced some unpleasant events and some highs. Wouldn’t you say that’s worth at least three New York dates?”

How she wished she were younger, willing to bet all her emotional marbles. An image of the lost envelope flashed through her mind. Such recklessness—borne out of neediness—had once damaged her almost beyond repair. She pushed the rest of her food away. “I’ve seen divorces drag out for years, even when the two parties supposedly wished it to end. I am too vulnerable, not nearly as strong as I seem. There can’t be any ‘us’ until you are truly, legally available.”

The candle flame flickered and half drowned in the liquid wax. Only its tip still glowed. She couldn’t see Judd’s eyes in the shadows of his glasses.

“I’m sorry. It was presumptuous of me.” He pulled back his hand from the table. “I apologize if I made you uncomfortable.”

She wouldn’t look at him.

“Let’s order dessert.” He waved to the waiter, but his hand stopped. As did the music.

In the sudden silence, Brooke turned her head. Four young men stood at the entrance, more burly looking than the three who were seated, and a few years older. Attired in lilac and burgundy striped suits, they planted their legs apart, their fingers hooked into their belt loops cowboy style. Their open jackets revealed chromed handguns.

Brooke and Judd exchanged a look. As soon as the four strutted past their table, they jumped to their feet. Judd slapped a fifty-dollar bill on a plate, and the two of them rushed out.

A
RUSSIAN LADA CHUGGED
up to the hotel entrance, its windshield dappled with crushed insects and its exhaust pipe burping a puff of gray fumes. Brooke, who was checking to see if the tour bus had arrived for the day’s planned sightseeing, was surprised to see Irina struggling to get out. At the same time, a dark-haired woman emerged from the passenger door. When Irina pointed at Brooke, the woman said in English that she had come to translate.

“My deep apologies for late. Much chaos downtown,” she said.

“You are not late because we had no appointment,” Brooke replied. She had been looking forward to this morning’s tour; finally she would get to see Red Square bordered by St. Basil’s Cathedral, Lenin’s Mausoleum, the Kremlin, and GUM, the state department store. If the bus hadn’t been an hour late, Irina and her interpreter would have made the trip for naught. Luckily, also because of the bus’s tardiness, Brooke had been in her
room when a messenger delivered a flowery handwritten note from Olga, inviting her to dinner at Olga’s home. The day was getting short on both ends. “I have only ten minutes,” Brooke now told the translator.

“Thank you,” Irina said. Her hair was washed and clipped up with what Brooke recognized as one of the conference’s door prizes, and her olive skin was brightened by her alert eyes.

Brooke led the two women inside the hotel lobby. In no mood to hassle with the front desk over the use of the locked conference room, she walked downstairs to the dining room. There, the maitre d’ tried to shoo her away, but she tossed a five-dollar bill on the table. “Coffee, bread, and marmalade,
spasiba.
”

On a sheet torn from a school notebook, Irina had scribbled the steps needed to launch her jumper-cable business. The list was a far cry from the detailed business plan Brooke would have liked to see from an enterprise in a stable economy, complete with cash-flow charts and monthly expenses and revenues as well as five-year projections and alternate pricing strategies. Given Russia’s current four-digit inflation rate, no economist could have developed such projections. Nevertheless, Brooke felt her excitement mounting; Irina was using the business thinking she’d acquired just yesterday. She had found hope.

Irina explained that she would manufacture the products in her apartment with raw materials her brother would obtain. “There’s an army base twenty kilometers out of town. My brother’s friend serves there, and he’ll sell us cables and clamps, even the red paint for one clamp in each pair.”

“Your brother can buy military surplus?”

“They’re just army supplies. The soldiers sell them because
they don’t get paid their salaries,” the translator said. “The officers allow it, or the soldiers would leave.”

Brooke scratched her head. “Stealing military inventory is not a sound business idea.” Yet, she realized, in a country that had never developed manufacturing outside the government’s heavy industry, supplies were simply unavailable anywhere. “How many will you produce and how do you plan to sell them?”

As Irina detailed her plan, it became apparent that she wouldn’t take a bank loan even if one were available. “If I do, I’ll be listed as an enterprise,” she explained. “The mafia will be at my doorstep before I get home.”

“You’re doing great, thinking about all aspects of the venture.”

“So you’ll give me the money?”

“Me?”

“You said you wanted to help.”

“And I did. Look at what you’ve already pulled together—”

“Talking is not money. No money, no help.”

Brooke winced. “Teaching is help.”

Irina began to weep. “I need to pay for the cables. I’ll pay you back. I swear.”

Brooke threw her hands up. “Lending money is not an option; we didn’t come here to finance businesses.” She regretted sounding as cold-hearted as any banker. Perhaps, long-term, she should consider establishing a fund to finance these women’s ventures; most would require very little to put them on their feet. Yet even if she created a fund, how could it support Irina’s purchasing pilfered military supplies? The world was wringing its hands in fear of deadly Russian weapons appearing in the hands
of criminal gangs and Russian nuclear warheads finding their way to terrorist nations. How could she support a project—as small as it was—based on the corruption of army officers or the desperation of soldiers?

“You’re my only hope!” Tears laced with mascara streaked down Irina’s cheeks as Brooke ushered the two women upstairs to the hotel lobby. “Please!” She grabbed Brooke’s hand and tried kissing it.

Irina’s emotional drama grated on Brooke’s nerves; she already knew that Irina’s M.O. was to use every arrow in her quiver to try to break down Brooke’s resolve. She kept walking toward the door, speaking in her kindest voice. “Your intensity will serve you well when you run your business.” She craned her neck to check past the sentries, but there was no sign of the bus. She willed it to materialize. “Now I must get on with my day.”

“But you have another meeting,” the interpreter said.

“I do?”

“With a very powerful man. He wants to see you at his office.”

Brooke halted. “Now, at ten-thirty on a Saturday morning?” For a split second she hoped it might be Sidorov at last. But he surely would have approached her through Svetlana or Aleksandr.

“His driver is waiting outside,” the woman said, her tone urgent.

Brooke would have laughed if the idea wasn’t beyond absurd. The business cards she had given out liberally at the conference were now circulating in Moscow, as contact with an American corporate executive had become a tradable commodity. The
interpreter probably was receiving a commission for bringing Brooke over. “Thank you, but I’ve made other plans.”

“This businessman, he has a very big business deal for your firm,” the interpreter pressed.

Brooke didn’t ask for details; she didn’t want to show even the slightest interest. “No, thank you.” She turned to leave.

The interpreter grabbed her arm to turn Brooke toward her and went on speaking. The more the Russian insisted—never revealing any specific information that might persuade Brooke—the more she confirmed Brooke’s suspicion of her vested interest in the meeting. No way would Brooke enter a car and be driven to some unknown destination for the self-interest of someone’s obscure agenda.

“What’s his name?” Brooke heard Judd’s voice behind her, and turned to see him in a sweat suit, a terry-cloth band across his forehead holding back perspiration. He still panted from his jog.

“Konstantin Tkachev,” the woman replied. “A very important man.”

Judd smiled at Brooke. “What do you say we go together?”

“What?”

A
S THE DRIVER
bypassed the barricaded downtown streets, Brooke took in the armed militiamen clustered at major intersections. In the large boulevards where merchants opened their kiosks to display products from Revlon, Marlboro, and Chivas Regal as well as Mickey Mouse sweatshirts, people walked their dogs, seemingly impervious to the military presence.

Wary that the driver might understand English, Brooke whispered to Judd, “Remind me again why we’re here?”

“I listen to everything and keep my options open.” He shrugged. “You never know who might come up with what. I’ve heard that this character is well plugged into the military.”

“You’re an incorrigible capitalist, as Olga would say.”

The limousine stopped in front of a modern office building—the first plush one Brooke had seen since her arrival—and they were ushered by two suited, silent bodyguards into a lobby pan
eled in chrome and mirrors, with a huge black slab mounted as a sculpture. Two more bodyguards bookended them in the elevator.

In the office anteroom, the contemporary Scandinavian furniture looked as though it had been lifted from a showroom. An abstract collage on the wall enhanced the unlived-in quality, and not a piece of paper cluttered the surface of the desk behind which sat a beautiful redhead wearing false eyelashes and sporting generous cleavage.

The redhead showed Brooke and Judd into a conference room with a polished oak table that could seat thirty people. A bodyguard was planted against the back wall, his muscular arms crossed over a barrel chest. A burly man wearing a suit jacket but no tie slouched in a center chair along the conference table. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone and revealed the edge of an undershirt and a gold chain as thick as Brooke’s pinkie. On his fingers twinkled two heavy gold rings, one studded with a five-karat diamond. The smile that teased his lips failed to reach his liquid eyes.

“Welcome into my empire.” The man Brooke assumed was Tkachev rose and smiled broadly at Judd. He gave Judd a vigorous handshake and handed him a business card.

Brooke watched with amusement as he ignored her; he must think that she had brought her boss along. “I’m glad you can meet my colleague, Judd Kornblum,” she said pointedly.

“Hello.” Her host gave her a cursory once-over, ending with a slight nod. She would have gotten his attention, Brooke thought, had she appeared in a miniskirt, spiked pumps, and a tight red sweater.

The moment they sat down, Tkachev said to Judd, “You must agree fifty–fifty.”

“Excuse me?” Brooke asked.

“Fifty–fifty for the business.”

“What business?” Brooke asked.

The Russian’s gaze remained on Judd as if he had been the invited guest. “What business I’m going to tell you about.”

“Ninety–ten,” Judd replied, amusement in his voice.

The Russian shook his head. “No business then.”

Judd suppressed a chuckle. “What’s the business?”

Brooke stood up. “Well, this was fun. If your driver would please take us back—”

Tkachev cut her off. “I’ll tell you what. You came all this way so I will be
large
and tell you what business.” He motioned for her to sit down.

Brooke remained standing. “I’m listening.”

“You buy ten airplanes,” Tkachev said, again speaking to Judd, who was still sitting. “We start domestic airline.”

“Ten airplanes,” Brooke repeated.

“First year. And you put four million dollars in bank.” The Russian continued to speak to Judd. “Second year, you buy ten more airplanes—”

“I buy twenty airplanes and put up four million dollars?” A shade of a smile played on Judd’s face. “And you buy twenty more airplanes and put up four million dollars more?”

“We don’t buy airplanes. We manage airline.”

“Where would these airplanes be flying to?” Brooke asked.

Tkachev made a broad sweep of his hand. “All over Russia.”

Now Judd stood up, too. “Thanks, but I don’t see what’s in it for us—”

“Wait. Sit down.” The Russian motioned with his head. The driver-bodyguard opened a panel in the wall, retrieved a tray with vodka and small glasses and placed it in front of them. “We drink to business.”

Judd remained standing. “We’d better get going.”

“No. We have a good idea. The government will pay.”

“How does the government figure into this?” Brooke sat down, her curiosity piqued. This was material for her article.

“Your four million, government matches with special low-interest loan for airline. Only twenty-six percent. Yes? We put it in the bank and get big interest, maybe three hundred percent. We make maybe eleven million dollars, put it in
offshorsky
bank. We pay you consultation fee. Yes?”

“Consultation fee? What happened to the fifty–fifty deal?”

“Airline is fifty–fifty.”

“Oh, the airplanes. I forgot,” Judd said. “Do they fly in the meantime?”

“We will own Russia’s national airline.”

“Sounds like a Groucho Marx routine,” Brooke murmured.

“You American make jokes.” Tkachev shot her a warning look. “We are serious businessmen. You are our American partner or government don’t give us money.”

Brooke rose to her feet again and extended her hand to Tkachev. “It’s not for my firm. Nice meeting you.”

Tkachev circled the table as they made for the door and gave Judd’s back a hearty slap. “Fifty–fifty?”

“Maybe ninety–ten.”

Anger knotted the Russian’s eyebrows into one black line, like electrical tape. “We shake hands on it now or no business.”

“No deal, then.” Judd smiled, reaching for the door handle. “Any nukes?”

The man’s eyes narrowed as he surveyed him. “Maybe.”

“That’s a yes.”

“I only trust a partner.”

“Oh, well. If you come across anything good in that department, please let me know.” Judd steered Brooke toward the anteroom.

There were no bodyguards in the elevator; probably Brooke and Judd had passed security clearance. She would have entered the elevator laughing at Tkachev’s offer had it not been for the hidden cameras she was certain were trained on them. She whispered to Judd, “You blew your chance of being an airline tycoon.”

“A steal for only four million dollars.”

“What’s with the nukes? You can’t be serious.”

“Contacts here are convoluted, interlocking. It was a test to find out who I’m dealing with.”

The answer didn’t satisfy her. It would never have occurred to her to ask about nuclear weapons. But Judd had obviously recognized Tkachev’s name when the interpreter mentioned it. The Wild West had attracted many unsavory opportunists, and she had just learned how no one in power in Russia “bought” anything. This privatization orgy was nothing but the biggest transfer of government-owned rights to a few robber barons since the European nations had carved up Africa.

The driver, in dark aviator glasses and a black leather jacket, was waiting outside and held the limousine door open for them. Once Brooke and Judd were in, he pointed to the teakwood bar in the center of the car, where cut crystal glasses and a decanter of vodka shimmered on a silver tray.

Brooke stared out the window, feeling Judd’s presence at the far end of the same seat. Nukes? There was no free market in Russia, or it was free indeed but the only “market” was the competition among the vultures descending on it both from the inside and the outside. How did Judd fit into this, and what had really brought him to Russia in the first place?