Hot Siberian (40 page)

“Recently.”

“You never mentioned it.”

“I thought it might not be important.” Which was true. He'd lost about 90 percent of the faith he'd had in his hunch. From this regained London vantage he'd looked back upon the entire Prague episode and seen mostly his foolish desperation.

“Shall we open it now or let it remain a surprise for Monday when we get back?”

“Now.” He went and got his Swiss army knife, pulled out the proper blade for her.

“Want to tell me what's in it?” she asked playfully.

Possibility blew on the spark of his hope.

“Last chance,” she teased. There was a dry slashing sound as she slit one of the top edges.

Nikolai's mind left London. He was again in the Zuzana building inside that steel wire enclosure, having just discovered this container with the Paris address on its shipping label. The entire label was covered over with clear tape to protect it during shipment. Using his knife, Nikolai carefully picked at an edge of the clear tape until he had enough free for his fingers to get a sure grip. He peeled the tape off. The shipping label came with it. There were several identical cartons among those packed and ready to be shipped. Nikolai chose one that seemed less favored, had numerous smaller cartons stacked around and on it. Before he moved those he took special notice of how they were arranged. He peeled the shipping label from the identical carton. On the counter he found fresh shipping labels and a roll of the clear tape. The addresses and other information on the labels had been typewritten. Nikolai went to the desk. The typewriter was an older electric. He switched it on. Its hum seemed loud, might be heard by the watchman in the front office. Through the open door of the office Nikolai could see the man's legs extended and up on a chair, just his legs. He pictured the rest of the man, particularly his pistol. He inserted a shipping label into the roller of the typewriter, adjusted it so it was correctly aligned. He couldn't just go ahead and type. That would make too much noise. The consistent clatter of it would get to the watchman's ears. But perhaps if there were adequate intervals between the typing of the characters it would be less noticeable, possibly taken as a normal noise of the building, a sound made by the ovens or the dripping of rain.

He was a hunt-and-hope sort of typist. He shielded the beam of his flashlight to find the keys and copy exactly the label with the Paris address. Twice he made errors and had to begin again with a fresh label. He'd hit a key and wait, hit another key and wait. It was nerve-racking. Each time after hitting a key he expected to see the watchman's legs brought down, see the watchman come out to investigate with pistol drawn. It took three-quarters of an hour for Nikolai to do the Paris label and about as long to do the one addressed to Vivian. He was relieved to the point of nearly sagging when he turned off the typewriter. Using the clear tape, he affixed the Vivian label to the container that had been destined for Paris. The Paris label went on the other identical container. He switched the placement of the containers and arranged the other cartons around them just so. It was essential that nothing appear disturbed. He put the tape back where he'd found it, crumpled the old labels and the mistake ones into a ball that he shoved into his pocket. After a final check that he hadn't overlooked anything and a last glance at the watchman's legs, he climbed to the top of the mesh enclosure. He knew that if he stood on the top edge of the enclosure the steel beam above would be beyond his reach by a few inches. So he planted his feet surely on that narrow edge and, from a crouch, sprang up to grab hold of the beam. After pulling himself up onto the beam, he went across it to the window. He pulled the chain and opened the window enough notches so he could crawl out. He couldn't lower the window from the outside, so he counted on the watchman's not noticing it was again open. He retreated the way he'd come, up and over the roof and down, untying the line and taking the makeshift ladder with him. He went around to the other side of the building and untied there. He returned the ladder to the pile of wood boxes and threw the clothesline into a trash bin. It began to rain again. The air smelled sour. And as he walked down the dark lifeless street in the direction of Sokolovska the first germ of doubt infected him. He'd risked everything, put out a great deal of effort and probably accomplished nothing.

Now Vivian had the container open. It was jammed with protective packing material, little white scallop shapes of foam. She dug down into them, felt around, and brought out a crystal wine goblet, intricately faceted. She held it up, admired it, and let out a downscale sigh of appreciation. “You must have noticed that just about every good glass I own has a nick or two. No matter how careful I am, every time I wash up I seem to do some damage.” She took other crystal goblets from the container, placed them in rows on the table. Altogether thirty-six. “Well,” she said, “you certainly didn't stint. May I gather these are a contribution to my trousseau?”

Nikolai's indifferent shrug was offset by an affirmative smile. Vivian gave him a swift smacking kiss that just did get the corner of his mouth. She returned her attention to the container. “I believe I felt something else in here,” she said as she dug deeper into it. She brought out a cut-crystal bottle about five inches tall, dense, heavy crystal. Nikolai thought it a cologne bottle, until Vivian, puzzled but managing to keep up the high spirit of the moment, said: “A bitters bottle. I suppose it's something everyone should have. I've never known you to use bitters. Archer swears that a dash or two along with a raw egg will chase a hangover.” She stood the bottle alongside the goblets and resumed digging in the container. When she brought out a second bitters bottle she was nice about it, didn't comment, and she continued to be considerate and silent as the container gave up twelve more.

Nikolai was embarrassed. What could he say? “For gifts,” he explained.

The container also yielded a dozen cut-crystal inkwells.

“Those were thrown in for goodwill,” he told her. “They were overstocked.”

Vivian took up two of the wine goblets and went into the kitchen. At once Nikolai turned the container upside down, dumped all the foam scallops onto the floor, and began searching through them. They were incorrigible little things, squeaky and so light they went airborne with the slightest disturbance. Static electricity stuck them to Nikolai's sweater. Ninja, who had been a tolerant observer, jumped in and bullied them, swatted them every which way, and finally demonstrated his opinion of this strange substance by raking at it with his front paws as though it were excrement. Nikolai found nothing among the foam. Perhaps the container itself, he thought. He set about tearing that apart.

Vivian returned with a tray bearing the two wine goblets, freshly washed and sparkling, and a half bottle of '78 La Tâche from the previous night. “Whatever are you doing?”

“Just breaking down the box so its easier to throw out.”

“You're making a mess.”

A mess, Nikolai thought. Now without a doubt Prague had been a fizzle. All that getting soaked and climbing over rooftops had been for naught. All that ingenuity wasted. He resented every minute of it. He even resented having made the goddam flight. That fellow Kislov had been an insane son of a bitch, that was all.

Vivian placed the tray down and brought Nikolai his wine. She touched his goblet with hers to cause a ding that said quality. “Our first drink from them,” she toasted, “and may we always remember it was with leftover wine.” They sipped to that. Nikolai watched the tip of Vivian's tongue slip out and gather wine from her lips. Her tongue was like an efficient little animal literally attached to its moist pink cave, he thought, reclusive and yet capable of so many sweet tricks.

“We must hurry, hon,” Vivian said. “I want to be in Devon and out in the stream for the first twilight hatch.”

Nikolai gulped the wine. The rim of the goblet grazed the bridge of his nose. Incidental light caught a facet of the goblet's intricately cut pattern and bounced the flash of a spectrum into Nikolai's eyes. The instant seemed parenthetical, inserted for emphasis, to ensure that Nikolai's mind transformed the flash into a possibility. He crossed the room to the fireplace, removed the folding screen and the andirons. The fireplace had been swept clean for the season. Without hesitation, he flung the goblet against the brick firewall. Fine lead crystal that it was, it shattered into powder and tiny particles.

“A romantic Russian gesture, or are you pissed at something?” Vivian asked. “Either way, you're being destructive.”

“Bring a lamp,” Nikolai told her. He was down on his knees on the hearth.

“You've gone daft. Too much fucking and so on will do it every time.”

“The lamp,” he ordered. “Over here!”

“Yes sir.” She unplugged the table lamp behind the sofa. “I'll have you know I value this lamp. It's only reproduction K'ang Hsi but I don't want it broken.” She set it on the floor near the hearth and plugged it in. Nikolai unscrewed its finial and removed its silk shade. He bent over and stuck his head into the fireplace. Among the minuscule shards and slivers of crystal he spotted one, defined by its shape and intactness. He picked it up and brought it around to the light of the bare bulb, held it respectfully in the basin of his palm.

A diamond.

A one-carat diamond, clear as water and as cold-looking as ice.

Vivian just stared at it. Her jaw had gone slack. With a degree of ceremony Nikolai dropped the diamond into her hand and stuck his head back into the fireplace. He found another diamond, then another, and another! He could easily make them out. Oh, bless, double bless the soul of that fellow Kislov, Nikolai thought.

Vivian fetched a mixing bowl from the kitchen to hold the diamonds. Optimistically, her largest mixing bowl. To improve the light she arranged two upright lamps with 250-watt bulbs. She knelt beside Nikolai and elbowed him to make room so she could enjoy helping with the harvest.

For the next five hours they smashed crystal and found diamonds. Their fingers got cut, but enterprise was anesthetic. When they'd thoroughly gleaned one batch of smashed crystal, Vivian sucked it up with her tank-type vacuum cleaner to give them a fresh surface for the next smashing. She had to change the bags of the vacuum frequently.

While hard at it, she told Nikolai: “You're a tricky one. You knew all along there were diamonds hidden in the crystal, didn't you?”

“More or less.”

“How did you know?”

“Intuition.”

“Many women but very few men have it. Do we get to keep these diamonds, or is this a smuggling scheme the Kremlin has you involved in?”

“They're ours,” he replied calmly. “Yours and mine.” He was hyperventilating. His head felt twice its size.

“How did they get to be ours?”

Nikolai wondered what of it he should tell her.

“I know,” she said. “Now we come to the macho bullshit part where the woman is kept in the dark because what she might know might hurt her. Don't give me that.”

He told her all of it, droned it out, everything from Kislov to Churcher to Prague to now.

“You stole from the stealers!” she exclaimed brightly.

Nikolai thought that a forgiving way of putting it.

“So that disqualifies you as an out-and-out thief. You must look at it that way, Nickie. I won't have you up to your chin in conscience. Guilt would taint everything. What's more, you stole for a most worthy cause.”

No doubt she meant
them
.

She used tweezers to pluck a sliver of glass from her second finger and allowed two drips of blood to fall to the hearth before putting the tiny wound in her mouth. “One thing for certain,” she said around her finger. “The stealers won't be happy. I suppose you have an idea who they are.”

“No.”

“Are they apt to suspect you?”

“Never.”

“You're in the clear, neat as that?”

He believed he was.

“Clever,” she praised.

“Aren't I, though?” Nikolai smiled, allowing himself this rare moment of immodesty.

They smashed the bitters bottles and the inkwells, and when they'd smashed the last articles and retrieved the diamonds they contained, Vivian swept well with the vacuum so they wouldn't be cutting their feet when they padded around barefoot. Then, seated in the kitchen, they swabbed tincture of Merthiolate on each other's wounds and applied adhesive strips. The clear glass mixing bowl was there on the table.

Two thousand, nine hundred and ninety-seven diamonds had come from the wine goblets.

The bitters bottles had yielded nine hundred and ninety-six.

The inkwells nine hundred and ninety-eight.

In all, four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-one.

The diamonds were identical. Round cuts, each precisely a carat. The finest quality, pure as water, with the stark, icy brilliance that made Aikhal goods so desirable.

Vivian gazed at them. She went off on a side road of vision for a bit of private auguring. Nikolai noticed the distance in her eyes and wondered what she was foreseeing. Was it Macao? Was it a hillside villa in Monte Carlo, situated so advantageously that it looked down upon the roof of the casino? Wouldn't they, some late nights, on the spur of the moment, dress grandly and stroll down to roulette? She'd never lose. Wouldn't they keep her winnings (until they overflowed) in a box in her closet at the foot of her many evening gowns? Wouldn't they sit in the lounge of the Ritz in Paris, accompanied only by a sweating silver bucket with the neck of a favorite fine vintage sticking up out of it, and casually observe the desperations of others? They'd know one another so well that a mere flick of an eye or closed-mouth grunt would be adequate commentary. Wouldn't he buy her a racehorse, one that would never let another horse pass, one that would start in front, stay in front, wire to wire? Gold combs, engraved pearl buttons.