attendant was selling little bottles of champagne and cellophane-wrapped shrimp cocktails. I followed the line of patrons to the end. No Kharchenko. Maybe if they sold borscht …
“We should try downstairs,” I said.
Foley’s face was screwed up in secret spy thoughts. “In Russia, Kharchenko was one of the verkhushka. He’d get special treatment.”
“So what?”
“He would never have come in the front door. Even now, some Ruskies are more equal than others.” He grabbed my arm and motioned me back toward our seats. “On a foreign tour, he would have gotten his tickets from the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. He probably came in the stage entrance with the cast and crew. In Russia, he’d be in a reserved box. He would have made similar arrangements here.”
By the time we got to our seats, the orchestra was playing again. As the lights dimmed, Foley reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out a pair of opera glasses. At least that’s what they looked like. He adjusted the focus, pushed a button, and handed them to me. Then he gestured with his head in the direction of the boxes at the mezzanine level to the right of the stage.
Below us, the curtain had opened, and the dead lady was in her grave, wearing white. I raised the binoculars and looked into the darkened boxes. Wow! Infrared. Power plus acuity. I could see them, but they couldn’t see me. A weasel-faced man had his hand on the bosom of a well-endowed woman. Two men snoozed in the next box, their wives chatting away, oblivious to the stage. Nearby, a skinny woman sipped greedily from a champagne glass. An empty seat came next, then a thick-necked man in a brown suit. I looked closer. A white bandage covered one eye, and his face looked as if a cat had dragged its claws across his cheek.
Bingo!
I handed the binoculars to Foley and gave him directions. He nodded and took a look.
“Stankevich!” he exclaimed.
“Gesundheit,” I replied.
Foley didn’t thank me. He withdrew a small camera from his other coat pocket. He screwed a telephoto lens into place, aimed, focused, and clicked off half a dozen shots at a slow shutter speed.
Below us, as the music swelled, the lady’s girlfriends, looking like angels in white, swirled around and raised her from the grave. Foley said, “When he was the number three KGB goon in Afghanistan, his name was Boris Stankevich. C’mon, let’s go.”
“Now?”
“Now.” Foley stood and motioned me to do the same. “Wherever he’s going, we’re following, and I don’t want to be stuck here when it’s over.”
“Damn, the show’s just getting interesting.”
The angels had tossed one of the guys into the lake and were after another one. I reluctantly stood and started down the aisle, tromping on toes, drawing curses in guttural Russian. Sure, I wanted to follow Kharchenko. But I wanted to stick around until the end, or at least until I figured out which one was Giselle.
20
The mansion was done in the 1920s Mediterranean Revival style. It sat at the end of a brick circular drive trimmed with blooming hibiscus and bottlebrush trees. The walls were pink stucco, the roof mission tiles. You entered an interior courtyard through a loggia flanked by twisted columns. The floor was glazed ceramic tile, the exterior walls adorned with terra-cotta ornaments. There were wrought-iron grilles and wood brackets and casement windows shaded by pink-and-white awnings. There were arches everywhere, some flat, some pointed, some with Moorish elaborations. A second-floor balcony lined with balustrades overlooked the bay.
I had been here before.
There had been a party that night, too.
Only that time, I had been invited.
Foley and I had followed Kharchenko’s taxi from the theater. Once on the causeway, I knew where he was headed. I just didn’t know there’d be a crowd.
Matsuo Yagamata was playing host to his usual collection of political and social animals, some artist and writer types, plus a Russian cultural delegation and the cast and crew of the Bolshoi Ballet. The dancers would be along later. But Kharchenko was here now.
We pulled into the drive behind a line of limos and Mercedeses with an occasional Lexus thrown in. Not a Lada in sight. Foley’s government-owned Plymouth drew a look from the valet. For once, I was glad I had dressed up. Nobody stopped us; nobody asked to see an invitation. We entered the courtyard, passed through a segmental arch wide enough to accommodate a herd of buffalo, and came to the pool deck. Once, a thousand years ago or so, Yagamata had stood there and showed off an egg filled with a golden choo-choo train.
The scene on the patio reminded me of a famous party on a balmy February evening just down the street from here. I wasn’t there. I hadn’t been born yet. That night, arriving guests were searched by men with rifles. Miami’s politicians and social elite drank champagne and ate canapes, figuring it was just another Valentine’s Day party. The celebration was more meaningful, however, to the host. While the festivities were in full swing on Palm Island, seven members of Bugs Moran’s gang were gunned down at a garage in Chicago. Newspapermen later speculated that the party was intended to celebrate that event, since Bugs Moran was a bitter rival of the party host, Al Capone.
I wondered what Yagamata was celebrating tonight.
A gentle breeze wafted across the patio, flickering the torches. A string quartet strummed quiet music, guests milling about, oohing and aahing at the sheer delight of being here. Bars were set up every twenty yards or so to save on the shoe leather. In the center of the patio was a buffet table no longer than an average NFL punt.
“Stick with the zakuski, the appetizers,” Foley ordered. How clever. Yagamata, the perfect host, was serving a Russian feast. We loaded our plates with red and black caviar, sturgeon, cucumber-and-tomato salad, and pickled mushrooms. A server handed me a tiny silver pot covered with melted cheese.
“ Griby v’smetanye,” Foley said. “Mushrooms and onions in sour cream.”
I washed everything down with a double shot glass of ice-cold Moskovskaya vodka, then did it all again. The training table was never like this. Finally, I went back for blinis with sour cream and caviar.
By the time most of the guests had arrived, I was pleasantly stuffed from the food and warmed by the vodka. Foley hadn’t touched a drop of the liquor. We kept scanning the crowd. Half a dozen Russian officials in baggy suits were lined up at the buffet table, loading their plates as if it was their first meal in a week. Maybe it was.
“Think these guys are happy to be in the West?” Foley asked. “You can’t buy a decent sausage in all of Russia, but look at this. Sometimes you civilians don’t appreciate what we’ve got.”
“Don’t start waving the flag,” I responded, “without acknowledging that this isn’t America. This isn’t real. This isn’t the housewife stretching the food budget with peanut butter for dinner. This isn’t cocaine dealing a few blocks from the White House.”
Foley gave me a nasty look. “Let’s cut the bullshit and go to work. Time to earn our supper.” He nodded in the direction of the quartet. Matsuo Yagamata was working the crowd, moving slowly but steadily, granting each guest a precious twenty seconds or an even briefer hello-how-are-you-so-pleased-to-see-you-again. He wore an elegant tuxedo and smiled graciously at each stop on his way to the buffet table. Over the violins, I could hear him laugh politely at some remark as he gestured with a champagne glass and speared smoked salmon hors d’oeuvres from passing trays.
Foley used the cocktail party shuffle to edge between a woman in a white gown and Yagamata, who caught sight of him, then me. Our host registered surprise, then smiled evenly.
“What an enchanting development to see my government friend and my lawyer friend,” he announced loudly, his eyebrows raised. The woman in the white gown shot us a hostile look.
“Hello, Matsuo,” Foley said. “How’s tricks?”
