House of Secrets - v4 (10 page)

Hyland smiled slyly. “I’d like to have a talk with Vice President Wyeth, Ron. Tonight. Face-to-face. Is he back yet from wherever the hell he’s been hiding?”

“He is, sir. He returned to the capital this morning. I’ll contact his office immediately.”

The chief of staff took a step toward the door, then stopped. “Oh. Wait. The vice president plays tennis on Tuesday nights with Senator Foster. It’s a standing date.”

Hyland was shaking his head even before his aide had finished his sentence. “Andy Foster? No. Absolutely not. Break the date, Ron. I don’t care if you have to get Roger Federer to stand in for him, one thing Chris Wyeth does
not
do is play tennis with Senator Foster tonight. You tell Foster’s people, keep their man clean and keep him away from Chris Wyeth.”

Hyland loosened his tie and leaned back in his chair. This was when he wished he still smoked. For certain it was too early in the day for a drink.

“If the vice president is toxic, I don’t want him infecting anyone we may be wanting to call on.”

“Senator Foster?”

Hyland stared off into the middle distance for a moment. When he snapped out of it, he held up a hand showing four fingers.

“LaMott, Harrison, Bainbridge, and Foster. Are they all vetted?”

“Marginally. Some more than others.”

“Well, let’s kick into high gear, then. You cancel the senator’s love match and crank up the vetting on all four of them. Let’s clear out those closets
now
, for God’s sake. Obviously we want to do a better job this time.”

“Sir, nothing of substance has been presented on the vice president.”

“Ron, a bad scent
is
substance. Even if all this noise about Wyeth proves to be garbage, we should have picked up the fact that questions like this could even be raised. Arrange for the vice president to be in this office at eight o’clock tonight. Keep it quiet, of course. Keep it off my schedule.”

“Yes, sir.”

As the chief of staff neared the door, President Hyland added one more order.

“And Ron? If you’re feeling brave, tell Mr. Wyeth that the president is not in the mood for Wiffle ball. That little press conference we just had makes me want to vomit.”

“
D
imitri, I look like… a monster!”

Irena Bulakov stood shivering at the bathroom sink. A transparent blue plastic smock held closed in front with large white snaps covered her bare shoulders. Dimitri was seated on the closed toilet lid. He ran his hands over his stubbled jaw as he considered his wife.

“You do not look like a monster. When you see a blond woman on the street do you call her a monster?”

“This is not blond, Dimitri. This is
white.”

Dimitri snorted. “Marilyn Monroe has this color hair.”

Irena looked at herself again in the mirror. She could not believe the creature that was staring back at her. “Dimitri. I am not Marilyn Monroe. Look at me! I have a white animal on my head!”

“You are being hyster—”

“I am not!
I want my old hair back!”

The tears were beginning. Dimitri ignored them. He rose unsteadily from the toilet. “Well, you cannot have it. This is what you look like now. Here. Wear these.”

He pulled a pair of cherry-red sunglasses from his shirt pocket and handed them to his wife. Irena pouted as she took them from him and put them on. Dimitri gestured at her.

“See? Look and see.”

Irena turned to the mirror. Okay, so it was a little better. With her eyes hidden, the bleached blonde in the mirror was not necessarily Irena Bulakov looking ridiculous, just some bad blonde in loud sunglasses. But she was still upset that Dimitri had made her do this.

“You want so no one will recognize me, but you make me so everyone will stare. That is stupid, Dimitri. It—”

The slap knocked the sunglasses off her face. They clattered on the tile floor.

“Who is
stupid?”
Dimitri raised both his hands in the air, but he did not strike her again. “I am making plans so you and me have one million dollars to our names, and who is stupid?”

Irena raised her face slowly. The pink sting of her husband’s hand lit up her left cheek. Dimitri was glaring at her with his dull, unintelligent eyes.

“I am stupid,” Irena said coldly. She bent down to retrieve the sunglasses and put them back on.

The man uncoiled.

“I don’t mean to hurt you,” Dimitri said thickly. “But you are not hearing me, Irena. This is a good idea, this disguise. Titov has many friends. You know this. But no one will recognize you now. Now you do not need to be locked up in here all day. You can take walks. You can bring back food for us.”

Tears appeared from behind the cherry-red sunglasses. “I am not hungry. I don’t want to eat. I want to go home.”

D
imitri’s last phone conversation with Titov had been the day before. Initially, Titov had played at consenting to Dimitri’s scheme.

“Okay, Dimitri, I am listening,” Titov had told him. “Here is what we will do. You will tell me who is this important man you have on your computer file. I read the papers, Dimitri. I know that this woman was killed. So you tell me who is this man and why you think he will give us so much money as you say. You want more money than the two thousand I was paying you? You want to renegotiate? Okay, Dimitri. You can have it. You will give me this file, and I will pay you more money. And if either my client or this man will do what you claim he will do to get it, if they will pay all this money, then you and I will split that. Just like you want.”

Dimitri had balked. He wanted money up front from Titov. Without going face-to-face. “I will tell you nothing until I have fifty thousand dollars.”

“Fifty thousand dollars?” Titov had sounded almost amused. “I will hand you a fat envelope. Will that make you happy?”

“No. You will mail the money to where I tell you to.”

Aleksey Titov was not a man who took orders. He had tried to control the seething tone rising in his voice. Tried but failed.

“You are wrong,” he said coldly. “I will not do this. I will put nails in my own father’s eyes before I do something so
stupid
, Dimitri. What I… what I will do is, I will find you and I will find your wife and I will be happy to split open both your skulls and serve your brains to my wife’s cat! Do you understand, Dimitri? You are not smart enough to hide from me! I was doing you a favor when I gave you this job. I was helping you out because I pitied you, and you repay with the double cross? This means one thing only. This means you do not want to live. For that you are an idiot, Dimitri. You are a dead idiot.”

That same night, vandals had trashed Paddles. The tables had been broken with axes. In the tavern, all of the liquor bottles lined up behind the bar had been smashed. Orange spray paint had gone wild all over the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. On the bulletin board in the cramped office that Dimitri shared with his brother and his part-time manager, a citrus knife from the bar had been used to pierce a photograph of Dimitri and Irena. The knife had been left behind, stuck into Dimitri’s forehead.

Dimitri had learned all this in a phone call from his part-time manager, who was now his former part-time manager. After Dimitri had hung up, he had said to Irena, “Aleksey Titov is not so smart as he thinks. Now I need this money more than ever.”

He had phoned Leonard, who was home now from the hospital, to tell his brother not to worry. The conversation had soured quickly, and Dimitri had ended it abruptly.

“Everyone is thinking small,” he lamented. “I am outside this box now.”

“
Y
ou look like a rock singer,” Dimitri said to Irena after she had removed the plastic smock and pulled on a sweater. Irena had played around with her hair a little bit, pulling some of it back and tying it up with a rubber band, letting the rest drop like dog ears. She came over to where Dimitri was sitting on the edge of the bed, inserting his blue flash drive into the back of his computer. She sat down next to him and pushed the sunglasses up onto her head. Dimitri put a hand on her skinny leg and squeezed.

“Listen to me,” he said. “If Aleksey does not want to hear me, this is his problem. We can become rich without him.” He tapped the empty screen. “The man in here, he is going to make us rich. I am not going to show him to you, Irena. You are not to know, you understand? In this way, you are of no use to Titov or to anyone else. I am keeping you safe. This is smart. But I am telling you. This man? If we want his left ball and his big toe, we can have it. He will pay us for this file, Irena. Trust me. Anything we ask for, he will have to give it to us. I know this.”

He squeezed her leg again.

“A man must pay for his mistakes, Irena. We are going to make this man pay. You will see how smart your husband is. Everyone will see.”

And he squeezed again. A little higher.

E
ver since the beginning of the year, stopping off at the Boho Bakery on Bleecker Street on the way to Michelle’s school in the morning had become a ritual. Spurred by the suggestion of her homeroom teacher that the students come up with a New Year’s resolution, Michelle had declared her intention to eat one miniature cupcake a day for every school day, starting in January. Her goal, she had declared, was to eat a million cupcakes. A nice big round insane number. Christine was aware that in allowing her daughter this sugar indulgence she propelled herself instantly onto the list of Incredibly Irresponsible Parents, but she was willing to take the hit.

“I have my caffeine, the kid has her sugar. Fair’s fair.”

Over the past months, Christine and Michelle had become friendly with the bakery’s employees. Occasionally, a new face would appear. A newbie, or as Michelle referred to them, a “New Bear.” Michelle’s most recent New Bear was a genial man in his late twenties. The seven-year-old had a not-so-secret crush on him. He was actor-handsome, with hazel eyes and thick black hair that curled out from beneath his baker’s cap. Outside the bakery, in his real life, he was a sculptor. Large, muscular pieces. Mainly bronze and steel. Recently, his work had been included in a gallery showcase that Michelle had pleaded with her mother to take her to. Christine had considered it, but the time had slipped away. Once she learned what he did outside the bakery, Christine enjoyed observing the almost feminine delicacy with which the man employed his strong hands on the fragile pastries. For several weeks, a plan had been formulating in her head about doing a shoot of the sculptor slash bakery chef. In particular, a study of his hands at work on the pastries and then, in contrast, at his studio, contending with his far less pliable materials. The concept held potential, but she hadn’t yet firmed up her thoughts enough to float the idea to him. He seemed the type who would be amenable.

T
he sculptor was waiting on a customer when Christine and Michelle came through the door on Wednesday morning. Michelle dawdled, waiting until her New Bear was free before stepping up to the counter. The sculptor threw Christine a knowing smile as he launched into full flirt mode with the little girl.

“Well, look who it is. Miss One-of-a-Million. Good morning, cupcake. How are you today?”

Michelle’s face lit up like the rising sun. The man’s charms brought out a rare bashfulness.

“So what will it be today?” he went on. “Let me guess.”

“You know!” Michelle burst out.

The sculptor snared a paper tissue from the box on the counter. He looked again at Christine. “Do you have any idea how old we’re going to be by the time this is finished?”

“Yeah. I think the dinosaurs will be back.”

The sculptor laughed. “The dinosaurs, huh? What goes around comes around?”

Christine shrugged. “Beats the idea of complete and utter extinction.”

“I guess we could say that’s vaguely optimistic.”

Christine considered the point. “It is if you’re a dinosaur.”

Michelle was poking her finger against the glass case. “That one!”