Hotel Moscow (8 page)

Brooke was soft-spoken, Olga noticed. She didn’t shout when expressing an opinion, not even employing the authoritative voice a knowledgeable Russian would assume when lecturing. Yet, she sounded sincere. And she knew her subject.

“Do you really want to help?” Olga glanced about to check where a bug might have been planted. The chandelier was too high for an effective microphone, but one must be built into the table. No institute catering to unions, the public, or foreigners was free from eavesdropping.

“Of course,” Brooke replied.

Without fully getting up, Olga dragged her chair away from the table and turned her head away from its electronic ears. She motioned for Brooke to do the same. “A wave of terror is spreading over businesses in the Moscow region. Women’s cooperatives, like Svetlana’s, are being targeted.”

“Targeted?” Brooke opened her palms in question. “Only
women’s
businesses?”

Olga sighed. “Reports cross my desk every week. All businesses are fair game for one mafia gang or another, but women’s ventures are being more brutally intimidated and exploited. Maybe they can’t afford to buy better protection. Or maybe they’re an easier target for the mafia. I’m not sure. All I’ve figured out is that as soon as a women-owned factory shows promise, someone begins to extort protection money. Even after they pay, violent goons show up, destroy the place, and break the workers’ spirits—if not bodies.”

“But why? How can they benefit if the venture can no longer pay them protection money?”

“Someone ‘buys’ the ruined cooperative for a hundred rubles.”

“The mafia can’t buy a business at a fire-sale price and then run it without friends in high places,” Brooke said.

“That’s what worries me. A fish begins to stink from the head.”

“If the authorities are either powerless or won’t cooperate, what can be done?” Brooke cocked her head as she looked at Olga. “If
you
were to dream of a solution, what would it be?”

“Our people are unused to dreaming, but many of us are nostalgic for simple living. I remember the Russia of my youth.” Olga’s voice warmed up. This was a chance to share the grandeur of her country, rather than criticizing it to a foreigner. “The countryside with its deep forests and bubbling springs, folk songs, and dancing on summer nights.” Olga reached for her
cigarette packet again, but detected Brooke almost imperceptibly pulling back. “Don’t American women smoke?” she asked.

Brooke shrugged. “There’s a strong trend not to start—or to quit.”

Everyone Olga knew smoked even if their cigarettes were made of seaweed. She dropped her hand.

“You have a beautiful artistic heritage that I’m sure will be preserved as you move ahead,” Brooke went on, as if to bridge the awkward moment. “Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky, and the Bolshoi Ballet.”

“Those are our national treasures.” Olga hoped that her listener wouldn’t bring up the Stalin years, that iron-fisted Bolshevik rule that starved millions of Russians and executed hundreds of thousands of them. “There’s no reason we should lose them with democracy. So, if I dared to dream, I would incorporate the pride in our strong values and the cultural history with a democratic, free future.” Olga raised her chin. “When the dust settles, we will survive. Women will strive. The cooperatives must make it. They must.”

“I agree that economic independence is the key to all the others, political or personal.” Brooke’s hand chopped the air. “But the extortion problem is the first that must be solved.”

The American man left his spot at the head of the table and pulled over a chair. “Dr. Rozanova, may I?” He straddled the chair, facing Olga.

“Remind me of your name, please.”

“Judd Kornblum.” He extended his hand, and after she shook it, he smiled at Brooke. “We’ve already met.” When a confused expression traversed Brooke’s face, he added, “You’re with
Norton, Hills, and Bridwell, right? I lectured about Latin America for some of your clients.” His smile broadened. “Or was my presentation so unimpressive that you’ve forgotten?”

“Oh, yes. Of course. Sorry. It’s hard to place someone in such a different context.”

“Are you scouting the land for diamonds in the rough?”

“This is a vacation of sorts.”

“Last I looked, the Bahamas were the leisure destination of choice.”

Brooke laughed a beautiful throaty laugh, as relaxed as only an American woman might allow herself to be. Or a woman under the admiring gaze of a man she was attracted to. The flirting annoyed Olga. She had little patience for nonsense when so much needed to be accomplished.

“I’d like to hear your take on what the group saw today,” the man said to Olga. The lenses of his spectacles were so clear they seemed nonexistent.

Olga considered him for a moment. He was from the American Embassy. No government employee could be trusted. One had to be careful when speaking in front of someone who might be a mole. “A tragedy,” she responded.

“It’s not an isolated incident, I hear.” Kornblum scratched his chin, where a dark evening stubble showed. “The mafia can be as murderous as Stalin’s rule. Seventy years of suppression are being replaced by another era of terror.”

“I’ve just said that something must be done for ventures that are victims of extortion,” Brooke responded, seemingly oblivious to Olga’s cautionary approach.

“What do you have in mind?” Kornblum asked her.

Brooke turned to Olga. “You need a grassroots movement of citizens fed up with the mafia. As pervasive as the mafia is, can it face hundreds of thousands of people coming together?”

Olga regarded her, then raised her arms in mock protest. She liked the young woman’s daring spirit. “Women of Russia, unite! But we’ve done that already—until recently, when we lost our guaranteed seats in the Duma. That’s our congress.”

Brooke pressed on. “Do you have any suspicion of who’s behind the intimidation?”

“If criminals wore white caps, they’d look like a flock of sheep. Right?” Olga sighed. “How can one begin to find out who’s behind something like this?”

“Well, who benefits?” Brooke tossed a glance at Kornblum as if sharing with him this particular thought, then looked back at Olga. “Who buys the collectives for ‘a hundred rubles’ as you’ve said, once they’re almost ruined?”

Olga’s fingers twisted her necklace so the two chipped beads wouldn’t show. “The newspapers say it’s the bankers. They are the most dishonest people in the new economy.”

“How is that?”

Olga shrugged. It was safe to quote what she’d read in the government-sponsored newspaper,
Izvestia.
“They launder money, give ‘loans’ from government subsidies to their cronies, and embezzle funds from state and commercial accounts. That’s what we always said was ‘corrupt’ capitalism.”

“That’s a Soviet version of capitalism,” Kornblum said. “Self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Brooke cut in. “Anyway, in this case, you need to find out which specific banks these cooperatives have been dependent
on. It’s that simple.” Her eyes shone with intensity. “That’s the thread you should follow.”

“Right into the path of the crooks?” Kornblum’s eyebrows rose behind his rimless glasses. “Then what?”

“If I am to help Svetlana, someone must get to the root of the problem.” Brooke tucked back an errant strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail. “In the worst-case scenario, Svetlana will know who the enemy is. At best, knowing will help her develop a strategy to deal with it.”

Of course corruption lay with some bureaucrat—and one with mob connections. Olga could have guessed it herself, except she hadn’t. But Brooke, who understood the business process, just pinpointed the third corner of the triangle: the specific bankers that worked with the women’s ventures. “In Russia, information is dangerous,” Olga said quietly.

F
EELING INVISIBLE EYES
piercing her from the ceiling and walls, Brooke walked up the flight of broad steps out of the dining room, pretending ease. She had stayed behind to munch on the one piece of buttered bread and three cucumber slices the waiter had salvaged from the chef’s tight hold in exchange for a five-dollar bill. But the delay had left her alone in the company of two shabby-looking men with brooms who focused on sweeping the floor of the vast dining hall just around her feet. Once again, lagging behind had left her exposed.

She reached the lobby floor still hungry. Her mother, scarred by wartime starvation and forever distrustful of the surety of her next meal, squirreled food away in her purse, pushing it on her little Bertha at all hours. When Brooke reached puberty, she had shut her mouth and became anorexic before the term was widely known. It had given her a measure of control, even as she floated about in a starved haze, in a weightless body. Now she wished she had packed cans of tuna, a box of matzos,
and the granola bars she often carried when traveling to third world countries. She hadn’t thought of Russia in such terms. Amanda had a bag of dried fruit, though, which she would no doubt share.

Yet Brooke wasn’t ready to go to her room and decided to test the boundaries of her freedom to move about the lobby. As she ambled past the two sets of guards standing at the inside gates she held up her hand-written pass and was relieved that they let her through. Would the next guards stop her from venturing outside?

She stopped before the double glass doors of the front entrance and, adopting a stiff, commanding body language, scowled at the guards until one of them unlocked the door. Stepping out with no intention of going anywhere, she stood motionless on the top landing to breathe in crisp air fragrant with damp leaves. It was dark. No need to waste precious Russian light bulbs outdoors. This late in the evening, Moscow felt like any other city. Brooke’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she noticed trees dotting the sidewalks. The huge residential buildings across the wide road seemed peaceful, the crumbling plaster on their facades concealed in darkness. Only the glow from hundreds of small golden lit windows in each mammoth building hinted at life gathering itself for the night.

She caught a movement at the bottom of the stairs. Half-hidden by the front post, Judd Kornblum was leaning against it, his hands tucked into his pants pockets and his legs crossed at the ankles. Although he didn’t turn his head when Brooke walked down the last of the few steps, a slight shift in his position told her that he sensed her presence. In the light spilling
from the doors behind them, his jaw tightened and rippled a vein at his temple.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I would have killed the bastards.”

“Who?”

“I can’t get over what happened at the factory today.”

A chill zipped through her. Half an hour before, in Dr. Rozanova’s presence, he had sounded insouciant. “For a security guy, you seem quite agitated. Isn’t this routine here?”

His wrist gestured a dismissal. “I am not security. I’m here on business.”

“Business?”

He shrugged. “You can raid this country and come up with incredible loot. I’m looking at proposals for nickel mines in the Urals, fishing rights in the Caspian Sea, and production of agricultural machinery in places whose names end with
akhstan.
”

“That’s interesting, but it’s not what I meant. Why did the embassy send you here tonight?”

“Oh, that. I happened to be at a meeting with the commercial attaché at the embassy when Amanda called. He wanted you all to catch the first flight out in the morning. With the political situation about to blow up just a block away from the embassy, they don’t need the additional responsibility of a group of women traipsing into all kinds of violent situations.”

“I see,” Brooke said, though she didn’t. “How do you figure in this?”

“Amanda asked me to run a workshop tomorrow. She told me what a big deal it was for the Russian women who’ve registered; many have traveled huge distances to attend.”

“You were quite pessimistic about the state of things just thirty minutes ago.”

“Wanted to hear Dr. Rozanova’s reaction.” He paused. “And yours. Will you be leaving in the morning? A couple of women from your group are.”

Brooke shook her head, then remembered that he couldn’t see her, still standing slightly behind him. “Not yet. Don’t tell me you’re staying in this dump of a hotel out of free choice.”

“Now I am.”

Brooke shifted her weight. The group’s security issue remained unresolved. And this guy, Judd, was as mysterious as the Russians. Why did he care about the conference? “When did Amanda ask you to present? I haven’t seen your name on tomorrow’s program.”

“We were seated next to each other on the flight here. We talked all night. It had never occurred to me to consider the women’s business perspective. I’m intrigued.”

In the silence of the night, crickets trilled and an owl hooted. A sudden thought hit Brooke. Could Judd be the secret admirer Amanda had referred to? He had met her the year before, after all. On the flight to Moscow, he would have learned from Amanda that Brooke was on this Citizen Diplomat mission.

She examined his aquiline profile and the strong shoulders under the collared golf shirt. She could have been seated on his other side on the plane had she not caught that fretful sleep at the back.

“Would you like to take a walk?” He motioned with his head. “The river is four blocks behind here. There’s a great panoramic view of the city.”

Her eyes tried to pierce the darkness down the road.
Nazis behind every tree.
She had put herself in enough unsafe situations for one day. “As you’ve pointed out, this place is dangerous. Thanks anyway. I’ll take a rain check.”

She had taken one step up the stairs when he spoke again. “May I ask you a question?”

“Depends on the answer.”

“Where did you disappear to at Sheremetyevo Airport this morning?”

His pronunciation of the airport’s name sounded impeccably accent free. “Do you speak Russian?” Brooke asked.

“As much as your average American.” He unfolded his legs and turned to face her. “So where were you?”

“How do you know about that?”

“Like I said, I was on your flight. I had to leave the airport just when Amanda became frantic about you.”

Brooke wasn’t up to reliving the airport ordeal; she had put it behind her. “Oh, I got my first taste of Russia; was shaken down for some bucks at customs.” Standing one step above him put her at eye level, so she smiled directly at his face. “But I learned from that not to separate from the group, which is why I’m not taking a walk with a stranger in the dark.”

“Fair enough.”

“Good night.”

“I’ll come in, too.”

At the sight of their passes, one of the bored guards let them in, then relocked the door behind them. Brooke and Judd rode the elevator without speaking, the tiny space enclosing them in
intimacy. Too fast, too soon. Brooke turned to face the panel of buttons.

The ninth floor corridor smelled faintly of damp wool, cheap cologne, and fried food. Garbled Russian spilled from the TV through the open door of the
dezhurnayia
’s room, followed by canned laughter. The silhouettes of half a dozen men hovered in the far end of the long corridor, the red tips of their cigarettes glowing in the dim light.

Brooke motioned toward the men. “What’s going on?”

“Johns waiting for the call girls.” Judd walked her the few steps to her room door and waited as she fumbled with her large skeleton key, inserting and pulling and inserting again until it fit in the keyhole. “You’ll be all right.”

“I plan to move us to another hotel tomorrow.” She stood by the open door, finding it hard to step in and close it.

“Not a bad idea. Not simple, though.” He lifted her hand and brushed his lips against it. The gesture touched her in its unlikely Old-World courtliness. “Good night, Brooke.”

She knew from the way her name rolled off his tongue that he had toyed with it, had said it over and over in his head. She extracted her hand from his fingers. “Good night, Judd,” she replied, her tone soft, her heart singing.

A
MANDA WAS CURLED
up in her cot, face to the wall. She had lit another scented candle, and its faint glow in the dark room reminded Brooke of its meaning. Healing. She regretted being bitchy about it. Careful not to make any noise, she changed into her nightgown, then rooted in Amanda’s backpack and found
the bag of dried fruit. She took it to the bathroom, where she settled on the covered toilet, tore open the cellophane, and limited herself to one piece each of apple, pear, apricot, and peach. She drank bottled water, then brushed her teeth.

Before crawling into bed, she beamed her flashlight under the blanket for any errant cockroaches. Spotting none, she stretched out on the sheets and looked at the candle, now gutted into its own wax. She ordered herself to clear her head of all thoughts and to focus on a spot behind her navel, Amanda’s Zen style. She wasn’t going to think about the Gorbachevskaya Street Factory. Or worry about Nazis breaking down the door in the middle of the night. Or fret about the lost envelope and the burden of its costly secret.

And she especially was not going to think about Judd Kornblum.