The Book of Air and Shadows (35 page)

“There are females?”

“Yes. On average, half of all offspring are females. Three of Richard Bracegirdle’s son Richard’s children were female. The eldest, Lucinda Anne, married Martin Lewes in 1681….”

And off we went. I did not pay much attention, I have to say. Being with Niko is often like sitting near a rushing brook, oddly soothing. I was thinking about my coming meeting with the Russian, and also about my crack-up in the afternoon and also about where my next sexual encounter was going to come from, and under all of it was the great pulsing wound of Miranda Kellogg. Niko’s narrative reached its end. He picked up the various neat stacks of paper and carefully stapled them together. He said I had to take them away because his mother said he had too much stuff in his files and he was no longer interested in Bracegirdle genealogy. He turned to his screen, slipped on his headset, and left the building. I found a big envelope, stuffed the papers in it, and left
too. I did not see or seek out Amalie, although I was aware of her presence in the house, like a rumor of war.

Rasputin’s is a
small chain of semi-fast-food joints started by a couple of Russian immigrants, one of innumerable efforts to find the next pizza. They serve a variety of piroshki, borscht, Russian pastries, and strong tea in tall glasses. The decor is Ye Olde Soviet Union: socialist realist posters, tile floors, servers in peasant blouses and long skirts, steaming samovars, and chunks of Red militaria artfully arranged. The menus are in faux Cyrillic, with the Rs printed backward, and so on. Omar dropped me off at the only one in Manhattan, on Lafayette Street, at five of ten and lurked in the Lincoln on the curb outside, in case our gangster tried any rough stuff.

It was fairly pleasant inside, actually, steamy and redolent of cinnamon and cabbage. I sat under the ornately framed portrait of the eponymous mad monk, a place with my back to the wall and facing the doorway, and ordered a tea and a couple of piroshki. The place was half-full, mainly of local denizens seeking a break from Chinese or Italian or overpriced trendy. At ten past, a man walked through the door and stood in front of my table. I rose and shook his extended hand and he sat down, looking smilingly around the place. He was about my age and half my size, with a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair, a big jut of a nose, and intelligent deep-sunk dark eyes. He was wearing a shearling coat, a black silk turtleneck and fashionably

Oh, what the
fuck does it matter what he looked like or what he was wearing? I just came back from a walk around the property. All is silent in the early-morning mists. I checked out the boathouse, the pump house, and the two-car garage, in which I have parked my rented Cadillac Escalade, a vehicle nearly large enough to contain me in the driver’s seat. I can see why these behemoths are popular among the bulky Americans. Next to my rental is Mickey’s Harley-Davidson Electra
Glide, which he bought shortly after I got my BMW bike back in the day, to show me, I suppose, that he was a daring fellow too, although I had bought my machine because I could not afford to run a car in the city. A little breakfast and here I am back at the keyboard.

I must have
looked around inquiringly because Shvanov caught the look and said, “What, you’re expecting someone else?” and I said I had always imagined that Russian gangsters traveled with an entourage. This made him laugh and show teeth that had been expensively capped in one of the industrial democracies. “Yes, six bullet-heads in black leather and a couple of Ukrainian sluts. Would you like? I can make a call.” He spoke a nearly unaccented English, and made only infrequently the mistakes of article and pronoun omission typical of people whose native tongue is highly inflected. He wished to make small talk, as if we were old friends meeting after a brief separation. I indulged him in this, and we spoke about my sister and her fabulous career and about Rasputin’s and he said he was one of the early investors and I made a crack about had he made an offer they couldn’t refuse.

Here his smile grew a little tighter and he said, “Mr. Mishkin, I don’t know what you think I am, so let me tell you, so we won’t have any misunderstandings. I am a businessman. In past times, I worked for Soviet government, like everybody, but since fifteen years, I am in business. I have interests in Russia, in Ukraine, in Kazakhstan, in state of Israel, and also here. What kind of business, you wish to know. Primarily, I am investor. Someone has an idea, I have the money, and also the contacts. Contacts are very important in Russian community, because this is how we learn to do business in the old days. Trust, you understand? Because we don’t have what you call the business norms, the court system, and so forth. In return for this investment I have a piece of the business, just like New York Stock Exchange.”

“You’re a loan shark,” I said.

“And Citicorp is loan shark, J. P. Morgan Chase is loan shark—what do you think, they don’t charge interest? They don’t take over collateral?
This is subprime lending I do, like for this place, no one else would find this money for them, so they come to Shvanov and they give me some piece of this and we are all happy.”

“And if not happy, you have people come and break their legs, which is one thing that distinguishes you from Morgan Chase.”

Again the tight smile and he waved his hands dismissively. “Please, I have no contact with any types of collection business. This is all outsourced to completely different firms, I assure you.”

“Outsourced?”

“Exactly. You buy a pair of Nikes, how do you know who made? Maybe a kidnapped little girl chained to machine in China, they starve and beat her. It says Nike—this is all you know, a respectable firm. I think Nike don’t even know who makes. If you want to be so pure as that you should be in church and not in business. You agree?”

“Not really. And speaking of kidnapped girls, since you bring the topic up, I believe one of your outsourced firms assaulted an employee of mine and kidnapped a young woman from my domicile the other night.”

Shvanov motioned to a waitress and ordered tea and blini. When she was gone, he said, “And why should I do that, do you think?”

“Perhaps you could tell me.”

He ignored this and looked grave. “Kidnapping is a serious offense. You have contacted the authorities, I presume?”

“About the assault on my employee, yes. But not about the kidnap. I would prefer to keep that between us businessmen.”

The waitress brought over his order, much more quickly than she had brought mine. He drank some tea, ate a bite, sighed, and said, “Look, Mr. Mishkin, we are both busy men, so let’s cut to the chase, yes? Here is entire story, my end. This academic fellow Bulstrode comes to me and says, Shvanov, I have a key to a great cultural treasure and I appeal to you as a man of culture to help me find it and restore to world. I need some small monies to do this thing. And I say, of course, Professor, of course, here is some twenty grand, U.S. dollars, you ask if you need more. You understand, even a businessman such as myself has a soul, and wishes not to spend life entirely with bathhouses and piroshki
shops and bars with girls, and besides I see it as perhaps a source of substantial cash flow for my firm. So I give him money to explore for this treasure. After this, he leaves country, and I hear nothing. Some weeks pass, and I receive disturbing message from reliable source. This source is saying, the professor has returned and has found this treasure but does not wish to share it with Shvanov. So, what shall I do? I call him and he denies everything: no treasure, it is a dead end. Now, in my business, many times people do not wish to share and I must take strong measures….”

“You had him tortured.”

“Please! I had him
nothing
. I had
nothing
to do with any torture, same as President Bush. In any event, my sources tell me that my professor has deposited the papers—which is, I believe, my property—with your firm, Mr. Mishkin, and I hear from my sources that there is heiress showing up, who can dispose of this, and naturally I hope she will do the correct thing and turn these papers over to me. So she joins with you, in a legal manner, and I expect she will soon contact me and we can do business. And now you tell me she has been kidnapped. Of this I know absolutely nothing, so help me God.”

Oddly enough, I believed him, which I never would have had I not known that my Miranda was a fake. I said, “Well, Mr. Shvanov, that puts things under a completely different light. If you are not holding Miranda Kellogg, why are we meeting?”

“Why? Because you are the Bulstrode estate attorney and the estate has something belonging to me; namely, a manuscript of seventeenth century written by Richard Bracegirdle. I have seen this manuscript. I have paid to establish authenticity by scientific tests. I have papers giving me title to it. It is all quite legal and aboveboard. This is not why
you
came to this meeting?”

I said, “Well, when I had my sister set this up, I imagined that you were trying to obtain the Bracegirdle manuscript by violence and threats.”

“What do you mean, violence and threats?”

“Sending people to steal the manuscript at my residence. Sending people to my gymnasium to menace the proprietor, so that I am expelled
from membership. And, as I said, the supposed kidnap of Miranda Kellogg.”

He was shaking his head. He was waggling a finger in the air. “First of all, I have never sent such people to steal. As I have explained, why should I? As to gymnasium, this is some misunderstanding. I only wish to contact you in confidential manner, no threats implied. As I say, is often difficult to control subcontractors. I will have words and reinsert you as desired, with my apologies.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now, how shall I go about to obtain my property?”

“Ah, well, there we have something of a problem. I regret having to tell you that the woman I knew as Miranda Kellogg was not Miranda Kellogg at all, and moreover this woman is missing now, and the manuscript with her. I think we have both been outsmarted by the same person.”

For an instant, Shvanov let slip the persona of a genial businessman and something truly awful flashed out of his eyes. Then it was gone. He put on a rueful smile and shrugged. “Well, this may be true. You win some, you lose some, correct? If you manage to locate her or it I would expect you will contact me, agreed? I have all legal papers to prove this ancient document is my property.”

I said that I certainly would and requested that he do the same. “Naturally,” he said, “and any other papers of same type, of course.”

“What do you mean by other papers?”

“I have some information that when the Bracegirdle manuscript was found there were other historic papers that the people who sold to Bulstrode did not deliver. This is not standard business practice, I think. Tell me, Mr. Mishkin, have you these papers?”

“I do not.”

“Should you come across them sometime, you will recall that they are also my property.”

“I will recall your claim, certainly,” I said, and realized that this was the real reason he had agreed to meet me, the possibility that I had the damned ciphers. I immediately discounted everything he had said.

“Thank you. I believe that concludes our business. A pleasure.”

We shook and he extracted a thick roll of currency from his pocket, dropped a twenty on the table. “For the girl,” he said. “For the rest there will be no charge, my treat.” Then he stared at me, his head cocked and eyes narrowed, as we do when comparing something in our sight with a mental image, and the next thing he said almost knocked me off my chair.

“You know, it is amazing how much you resemble your father.”

“You know my
father
?”

“Of course. We have done some investments together, and so forth. In state of Israel.” He stood up and added, “The next time you see him, please offer my sincere regards.”

He walked out, leaving me gaping.

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