Georgians too? The purpose behind Solly Joel’s approach to Djemmal-Eddin Messadou was to find out about the Czar Nicholas II ten Ruble coins. He’d heard that the nephew of the Lion of Dagestan had tons of them.
The Present
In the last year of his reign, Nicholas II, the Russian Czar, issued a new ten Ruble coin. Of course, it had his likeness on it-a side view, the left, the one he always considered his best side. And it was made of gold, each coin containing. 2489 ounces. The international price of gold, in 1917, was fixed at $20.67 an ounce. The Czar’s new ten Ruble coin carried a value, in 1917, that Chita had already figured at $3.10 American. At today’s prices, each coin was worth about $75. She whistled at the thought of four million of them.
She already had learned that most of these coins were minted in Switzerland. Others in France. None in Russia. When the Bolsheviks overthrew the Czar, they canceled the contracts and asked for their gold back. They had no use for coins showing the Czar’s face. Neither the Swiss nor the French were eager to comply. There were costs involved, they said. They were vague about specifics. A halt in production meant expenses would be incurred. They told their Bolshevik clients, things had to be done properly. Procedures had to be followed. The Russians-these new ones now in charge-thought simply by saying stop, they could end the matter and have their gold promptly returned to them. The Englishman, Solly Joel, had shown these Communists knew next to nothing about diamonds. Louis Devereaux delighted in telling her that story. “Well,” he confided in her, “it turned out they knew even less about gold.” So offended were they by the sheer sight of the Czar’s face, they ordered the Swiss, and the French also, to melt down all existing coins. Add it to the gold still on hand, they instructed, and ship it all back to Moscow. They had no immediate plans for the use of the raw gold. They had other more pressing matters to deal with. Although they demanded its return, the Bolsheviks failed to threaten those who delayed or refused. How could they have known? They were innocents traveling down an unfamiliar road. None of them had dealt with international bankers before. They had no idea that no one gets their gold back without the threat of bloody, painful death. How could they have been so stupid? Chita thought of herself as much like the Communists who took over the Czar’s empire. Was she not forceful, resolute and self-confident? Unmistakably, however, and very much unlike her, the Reds were also totally ignorant about money and the people who controlled it. No banker wants his throat cut. Short of that, they’ll do anything to keep what’s theirs, and what’s yours too. She knew it and feared the loss of her own fortune, the risk to her lifestyle, and had nothing but contempt for the Russians. They had no idea at all what they were up against.
Like water when the temperature dips below 32 degrees, events freeze over just as quickly in the world of finance as they do in the often more chilly realm of politics and government. The Russians could run roughshod over their own. No one else really cared. Revolution here. Revolution there. The Communists had a firm grip on the Russian Bear. But they were impotent to influence the wild horses, the sleek stallions of international finance. By the time the Communists decided to do something, to take strong action, European bankers-Solly Joel was their hero!-had robbed them blind. The Bolsheviks, screwed out of much of their own gold reserves, were reduced to forbidding the use of Czar Nicholas II ten Ruble coins as legal tender at home. A lot of good that did. Gold is gold. Everyone knows it, especially in time of war. The coins were widely circulated and found their way into every crevasse of the Russian Empire, now property of Communists who, in their intellectual isolation, believed the means of production were now theirs.
Devereaux’s tales of Frederick Lacey, Lacey’s esteemed father-in-law and the notorious gold coins rescued from the clutches of the tyrant, enthralled her. Were the stories of the gold true? Had the Georgians trusted Lacey with that much? She didn’t know. She wasn’t sure. She couldn’t say. She wouldn’t rule it out. She wanted it, she told Louis. She wondered, was Frederick Lacey the only one who knew-the only one who knew where the gold was? Did he write that secret down in his private journal, the one Louis told her about? Was that too much to hope for? It hardly mattered, she thought. Louis kept telling her that Lacey’s confession was the key to everything. JFK was more than enough. The Czar’s gold would be a bonus, he called it, a present from him to her.
He was already on the job. That is what he told Conchita Crystal. But he hardly knew where to begin. He knew next to nothing about Harry Levine and he knew even less about what was going on, what was really going on, what sort of trouble Harry was in. Who might be after him? The guy was walking around with the truth about Kennedy, if this Frederick Lacey was for real. After their talk on the dock, Chita had agreed to meet him at his place later that afternoon.
“Bring me everything you have,” Walter told her. He meant about Harry, but he also meant she should bring the money. “Think about it. I want to know everything you know.”
Now, Walter sat in Billy’s thinking back on the events of that day, the day he went to work for Chita Crystal. It turned out she couldn’t tell him very much at all about her nephew. She found him, when his mother died, only a couple of years ago. Harry was “pleased,” she said, when he learned she was his aunt. “He was somewhat amused by it all. Not overly impressed,” she told Walter.
“There is a certain…” Walter stammered, looking for the right word.
“I know. I know,” Conchita said. “One day, out of the blue, an aunt shows up, an aunt from nowhere.”
“And she’s one of the most famous people in the world.”
“One of the richest too. Don’t forget that,” Conchita added that with a smile, her trademark smile. Walter struggled once again to keep his concentration.
Harry Levine was a “nice boy.” That’s the way she described him. Walter took that to mean he was average. He’d always associated nice with average and saw no reason not to do so here. Chita, as Walter had finally agreed to call her, had not spent much time with Harry. He was a grown-up when they met. They both had busy schedules. Fortunately her work carried her around the world. She told Walter this as they sat in his kitchen watching an afternoon Caribbean rainstorm splatter hard against the seaward side of his hilltop home. She met Sadie Fagan first, in Atlanta, not long after Elana died. She saw Harry in London. She made the trip just to meet him. There was a minimum of publicity, although a complete blackout is simply not possible in England where celebrity is more interesting than the royal family and where Chita was just as big a star as in the United States. She did her best to protect Harry. After a few days of photos, only one of them showing him clearly, she returned to America and he was not bothered further by the press. Her work, she told Walter, took her to Europe frequently, and she managed to see Harry a few times, in London and Paris as well. Once they got together in Spain. All told she had been with him perhaps a half-dozen times. Walter listened patiently, but soon Chita had little new to offer. “I’m sorry,” she said, “that I can’t be more helpful.”
The young woman who was Walter’s housekeeper brought a pot of tea and a plate of fresh fruits. She put them down on the kitchen counter, at a respectful distance from them, and offered to pour the tea.
“Thank you, Denise,” said Walter.
“She’s lovely,” Conchita whispered to him after Denise had gone.
“Clara’s niece,” Walter said, with a tone that told Conchita he hadn’t considered the fact that she had no idea who Clara was.
“Clara?”
“She was my housekeeper, my cook, my protector, my surrogate mother. She was with me here so long I can’t remember when she wasn’t.” He had a tender, hurt look in his eyes. Chita wanted to comfort him. This crusty old man, she thought, had a soft, vulnerable side too.
“She died?”
“Yes. Three years ago.”
“You miss her.”
“I miss her.”
“I can see that,” said Chita. “Denise, she does a good job?” Walter just shook his head, yes.
Conchita Crystal looked around her. It was definitely a man’s house. The television in the living room-more like an amphitheater, she thought-had the biggest screen she’d ever seen. “I didn’t know they even made them that big,” she said to him. The furniture was comfortable and, although Conchita could not pin a name or any particular style to it, it looked like quality merchandise. Perhaps, she thought, this is what they call eclectic. The floors of Walter’s house were hardwood, richly stained, gleaming, shiny and spotless. A few throw rugs were scattered about. The room, including the kitchen area, was so huge it was difficult to see it as a single room. The far wall was made entirely of glass soaring all the way to the top of the vaulted roofline. Since the glass stretched at least thirty-five feet from one end to the other, there were three double glass sliding doors that opened onto a wooden deck running the full length of the house. Part of it was covered, she could see, by a slanted roof and under it was a table with six wicker chairs. At the other end was some sort of outdoor stove and, next to it, a hot tub. The tub was
