Winter Palace (36 page)

“I tried to call you from the guesthouse when I arrived,” Jeffrey apologized, accepting the man's firm handshake. “But all I got was the sound of a war zone.”

“Yeah, this city has a phone system that would do Beirut proud. Have a seat in the comfortable chair there by the window.” He motioned Casey into the seat alongside his desk. “When did you get back?”

“This morning.” Jeffrey related what he had learned from Father Anatoli. “Have you had any word about the missing girl?”

“No, afraid not. But I may have picked up a little something for your Ukrainian friends. Have you seen them yet?”

“They weren't at the guesthouse when I went by, so I left a message.”

“Casey's buddies over at the KGB,” Allbright began, permitting himself a small smile. “Boy, I can hardly believe I'd ever say such a thing. Anyway, they've been scouring the earth. Came up with a lot of evidence—nothing solid, mind you, but enough to convince them that something big is going down.”

“Like what?”

“Like an organized effort to make a fair-sized killing in one fell swoop,” Casey replied. “Appears they've been skimming bits and pieces from a lot of different museums. Probably churches as well. Small pieces, mostly. No centerpiece, no pride of the collection, nothing that would attract too much attention, except in your case. The anti-crime squad say the thieves probably figured your Ukrainian treasure wasn't supposed to be there in the first place, so they'd be fairly safe just taking it all.”

“Who are they?”

Casey shrugged. “The lines separating the KGB, the mafia, and the old Party bosses are pretty much nonexistent these days. Looks like they've pooled their muscle and knowledge and gone for the big one.”

“That's what these people are saying, anyway,” Allbright added. “And others, too, some of whom I would tend to trust when it comes to observations like these.”

“There may be some kind of holdup with the transaction,” Casey went on. “Exactly what, nobody seems to know. But something's kept the thieves from moving the goods out of the country, or so everybody's hoping.”

“It appears they decided it would be safer to stockpile everything here,” Allbright explained, “instead of exporting it in dribs and drabs.”

“And risk having a small consignment be discovered and alert the authorities,” Jeffrey guessed.

“Exactly. They have supposedly collected everything at a
safe house here in the Saint Petersburg area. From there they were planning to make one massive shipment.”

“Only they haven't done so yet.”

“Not according to rumors. Which is all we've got to go on right now.”

“My friends will be glad to receive this news,” Jeffrey said. “Thanks.”

“Don't mention it.”

Allbright leaned forward. “Two things, Jeffrey. First, I think it is time you told them about Leslie Ann Stevens and ask them to keep an eye out. If the big boys are involved here, her disappearance may somehow be connected with the thefts.”

Jeffrey nodded, then winced as the motion sent the familiar lance of pain up his back. “Sure.”

Allbright was immediately solicitous. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Man's still got trouble with his neck,” Casey explained.

“I'm all right, really,” Jeffrey protested. “It's just been a long day.”

“Well, let's finish this up so you can get back to your hotel. The second thing is, tell your friends to be careful. You, too. These boys don't play by the book.”

“I understand,” Jeffrey said. “So what do we do now?”

“Wait. Patience is a virtue in this business, and a necessity if you're going to work in Russia.” Allbright rose to his feet. “Go get some rest, son; you look done in. As soon as we hear anything more, we'll be in touch.”

****

When Jeffrey arrived back at his hotel that evening, he found that his message for Ivona and Yussef had not been collected; Sergei had not seen either since early morning. Jeffrey went to his room, lay down, found himself too wound up to rest. The pain in his neck pounded in time to his heartbeat, and he was not quite weary enough to sleep through the discomfort. Jeffrey rose from his bed, opened his case,
swallowed a couple of aspirin, and drew out the pair of gifts he had purchased with Sergei's money.

Back downstairs, the grandmother beamed her toothless thanks when Jeffrey presented her with the pint-sized copperplated model of Big Ben and the Beefeater guard doll. Sergei was moved beyond words, making do with a series of shoulder pats and handshakes. Then he went into the kitchen and returned with two heavily laden plates. He set them down, moved behind the bar, and pulled out a bottle of vodka.

“Come, we drink to your return.”

“Thanks, but I'm not a drinker.”

“Usually, yes, this is fine. But tonight very special.”

“No, really—”

“You new in Russia. Vodka old Russian tradition. You take.”

“No, I—”

“Yes, yes, Yussef explain vow. Make sure we have much pepsi. But this good Russian vodka. Best in world. You—”

The grandmother lashed out with a shrill volley of words. Sergei raised his hands in submission. “Grandmother, she say more Russian men should take such vows. Wait. I get you pepsi.”

He went out to the kitchen, and handed Jeffrey the warm drink. “Take. Please. Friends, yes?”

Jeffrey took the glass, agreed, “Friends.”

Sergei motioned toward the gifts, said, “Thank you, friend.” He drained his glass and gestured to the food. “Is for you. Another thanks. Good Russian food. People come now, easy to see only bad—bad people, bad danger, bad food. But Russians have art of food. Very old. Very good. Here. You try.”

The plates held a variety of miniature cold cuts, Russian style. Caviar and sour cream on cold
blinis
, or thin potato pancakes. Salty fish on dark bread, smoked fish on light, both with heavy dollops of butter. Thinly sliced nuggets of roast beef with homemade mustard. Mushrooms, both fresh and
pickled. Tiny cucumbers, spring onions, and baby tomatoes sliced and served in iced vinegar and pepper. Jeffrey tasted one of the fish, pronounced it delicious.

The grandmother said something which her grandson translated as, “You are again here for work on the winter palace?”

“Yes.” He reached slowly toward the plate—gradual, deliberate motions were easier on his back. He then sat and ate and held his head carefully still as he listened to them go back and forth in Russian.

“Politics and romance,” Sergei said suddenly.

Jeffrey worked to focus his attention beyond the pain. “What?”

“My grandmother, she used to visit Markov palace. Back when a little girl. Her mother was Markov's number-two chef.” Sergei poured himself another shot. “Once she even saw the czar.”

He took another miniature sandwich, this one containing a slice of smoked sausage topped with fresh horseradish. Chewing made his muscles ache more, but the food was delicious. “I've got enough romance in my life just now, thanks.”

The grandmother laughed like an old woman, a dry remnant of what once probably had been light and musical. “Young prince Markov,” Sergei translated. “So handsome. And so naughty.”

“You mean the current Prince Markov's father?” Jeffrey asked.

The young man's interest sparked. “You know Markov?”

“I've met him,” Jeffrey replied, deciding there was no harm in discussing it among friends. “Once.”

Sergei turned to his grandmother, who chomped her toothless way through one of the delicacies. When Sergei translated the news she became even more voluble. “Yes, this was in 1916, so must be father. The young prince,” Sergei said for her, “he was engaged to girl from big family. Girl very nice,
but Markov, he have other girlfriends. Many, many girlfriends. He, how you say, make wedding wait?”

“Postpone,” Jeffrey said, massaging his neck with one hand.

“Yes. But father old, sick. He worried about family. Then girl's family start saying they stop wedding, young prince never marry. So they make day. But young prince, he still have many girlfriends, only secret. Except servants, of course, they know everything. They know of secret stairs to cellar, and door from cellar at back of garden.”

Jeffrey smiled politely, sipped at his pepsi without raising his head.

The grandmother misunderstood his lack of interest. “She thinks you not believe,” Sergei reported.

“That's not it,” he protested. “It's just that my back—”

But she was not listening, and the grandson did not dare stop with his translation. “I know exactly where was secret stairway. They go from young Markov's chambers down to cellar.”

Jeffrey played at wide-eyed interest while his nerves continued to throb.

“Grandmother spent much time there when she was little girl. Servants showed her everything,” Sergei continued, drinking and translating with equal verve. “Markov chambers have long hall for clothes. Doors have paintings. Paintings were from old Russian fairy tales. Box with lever for stairs was behind one of troika. You know troika, sleigh with three horses?”

“Yes,” Jeffrey replied, and decided he had sat as long as he was able. “Please thank her for me and say how fascinating it was to hear of Markov's father as a young man. But I think I need to get a breath of air.”

Gingerly he stepped outside, climbed the six stairs, and stood leaning on the metal banister. He could go no farther. His pain hung like a veil across his brain, and through it he suddenly felt danger everywhere.

He gripped the railing and breathed metallic-tasting air. The pollution turned passing headlights into gleaming pillars as solid-looking as the cars. Jeffrey felt the same sense of descending into agony that had marked his dinnertime confrontation with Ivona back in the Ukraine. For the moment, it dominated his world.

Impurities hung so thick in the air that streetlights wore golden globes twenty feet across. As he watched, these globes seemed to pulse, driven by the unseen beat of the city's heart, pacing in time to the late-night trucks and cars thundering by. He seemed to see shadows coalesce into dark shapes that slipped among the throngs of hard-faced people to whisper words of rage and hopelessness into unprotected ears. He stood there helplessly, his mind too foggy to pray, as the lights coalesced and clustered around him as well, mocking him with words that pierced his heart and mind.

We are the legacies of centuries past, they chanted, and in his deepening gloom Jeffrey knew the words to be true. Look and see those for whom you pray, they cried. And he did, and he saw the chains of history and the manacles of fatigue and the shackles of darkest despair. Go home, the shapes mocked. Your place is not here. We are many, and you are nothing. Go home and leave us to our work. Pray not for those already lost.

Jeffrey turned and fled as fast as leaden feet would carry him, through the lobby and up the stairs and into his room and away from their mocking tones. As he carefully lay his head upon his pillow, he knew an instant's gratitude that at least this time he had managed to suffer through the moment of pain alone.

Chapter 36

Under the Soviet regime, the Kazan cathedral had been renamed the Museum Of The History Of Religion And Atheism, a suitably bulky Communist title. Yussef remembered seeing its graceful colonnade in his childhood textbooks, the same books that had classified Christianity as a dangerous Western cult.

Only two of Saint Petersburg's multitude of churches had been allowed to remain open as houses of worship during the Soviet years—serving a population of five million people. A few had been closed and then reopened as meeting halls or recital chambers or museums—always with great fanfare and, according to the propaganda releases, always at the request of the Soviet people. Others had been used for less noble purposes; the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, for instance, had become one of the city's three central storehouses for potatoes. The Cathedral of the Holy Spirit had been razed to make way for the Finland train station. Most others had been faced with a similar fate, blown up and bulldozed and rebuilt as apartments or offices in the blockhouse style known as Stalinist constructionism.

Yussef kept away from the romantically entwined couples and the home-going revelers and paced impatiently along the colonnades, waiting for Kiril, the car dealer, to appear. Overhead the sky was cloudless, yet so laden with pollution that the stars remained lost behind a copper-colored veil.

The kid slid from the surrounding shadows and sauntered toward Yussef. He was perhaps nine years old, but it was hard to tell. Despite the heat still trapped and held firmly to the earth by the pollution, the kid wore a man's sweatshirt that fell to below his knees. Beneath that were threadbare jeans and ancient sneakers secured with binder twine around his ankles. The outfit made him look more undersized than he
already was. His scrawny face had the unwashed leathery cast of a full-time street kid, and he took Yussef's measure with a professional gaze.

His appearance made his words even more startling as he recited in English, “Postcards, you buy postcards, yes? Look. Leningrad, Hermitage, Fortress. Twenty postcards, one dollar. You buy?”

Yussef was genuinely offended. He replied in Russian, “Do I look to you like a rich foreign tourist?”

“You look to me like the trader Yussef from the Wild Plains,” the kid retorted. “And the price is now five dollars American.”

“For postcards?”

“You buy, you see.” The kid was having a good time. “You know somebody who likes silk shirts?”

Yussef reached into his pocket. “One dollar. No more.”

“Ten.”

He peeled off three, punched the air between them. “Add this to what Kiril already paid you.”

The kid grabbed the money, tossed over the cards, retorted, “Go back to the country, peasant. City streets are dangerous for the likes of you.”