Tsar (29 page)

“Fascinating stuff,” Hawke said, smiling at Pelham. “Please don’t let me interrupt.”

“S
o, you like war, do you?” Anastasia asked, once they were alone on the terrace.

“There is nothing quite so exhilarating as being shot at without effect,” Alex Hawke said, escorting her to the little red-checkered table, drink in hand.

“Churchill?” she said.

“Good for you. Winston nailed it, as usual. All right, then, who’s hungry around here? I’m famished!”

Dinner was served at the table for two overlooking the moonlit sea. A single candle inside a hurricane glass illuminated Anastasia’s face in a flickering umbra. They had simple fish, freshly caught in the grotto below, and a clean, cold white wine. Hawke had found cases of the stuff in the musty cellar.

“Delicious,” Asia said, putting the napkin to her red lips.

“Tell the chef,” Hawke said, smiling, “I think he’s already completely in love with you.”

“You don’t say? Silly me. Here I was, all the while thinking it was Pelham who cooked the dinner.”

“Very funny,” Hawke said, smiling at her.

“Bad joke. Anyway, it’s you he loves, Alex, not me. You’re very lucky to have such a kind and obviously devoted friend. To Pelham.”

She raised her glass, and he his.

“Anastasia, since the other day, that…stormy afternoon, I just want to tell you that I haven’t been able to—”

“You know what? Sorry. Let’s please change the subject, all right?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I think we’re talking about us, Alex. Let’s not talk about us tonight. I’m afraid of us. Scared to death of it. And it’s already far too romantic out here, anyway. So tell me about you, your life. What you do. I thought you were a simple beachcomber, a lost soul without two rubles to rub together. But I don’t think so anymore. Who are you, Alex Hawke? Tell me who you are, what you do.”

“Do? My friends all claim I wake up in the morning and God throws money at me.”

She laughed out loud at that one.

He sipped his wine, looking at her above the rim. Her dark blonde hair in the candlelight, the chunks of gold at her earlobes, her green eyes gleaming. She was lovely, but she needn’t worry. He wasn’t in love with her. How could he be? Love was strictly reserved for the innocent.

“Alex?”

“Yes?”

“I asked you a question. Tell me who you are.”

“Oh, yes. Sorry. Well. No one special, really. Another perfectly ordinary English businessman. Half American, to be honest. My mother was an actress from Louisiana.”

“An ordinary businessman? I don’t think so. Your body has too many suspicious scars for a businessman.”

“Oh, that was just a bit of nasty business. I got shot down over Baghdad. I got a taste of Iraqi hospitality before I checked out of my suite at the Saddam Hilton.”

“And now just an ordinary businessman.”

“It’s true. You should see me marching around the City with my tightly rolled umbrella and my battered briefcase. My family has a number of interests, none of which interests me very much. I’ve managed to hire enough captains of industry to steer the various ships without me. So I came out here to Bermuda for a while. Decided I liked it. I’ve actually got a small company here, a start-up. Blue Water Logistics. Quite exciting, really.”

“Logistics. It’s one of those words I’ve never really understood. What does it mean?”

“Fairly straightforward. People, future clients all, I hope, make various things. Things that need to get moved around the planet. Sometimes huge numbers of things at great expense. Pipe for pipelines. Nuts and bolts, steel and timber, oil. You make it, we move it. That’s my new motto.”

“You should meet my father. He makes a good many things. You might find him a good client for your Blue Water.”

“What does he make?”

“He’s an inventor, primarily. A scientist. He invented a computer cheap enough for the whole world. Called the Zeta machine. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

“The Wizard? I’ve got the latest one sitting on my office desk in London. Amazing little gadget. Changed the world. He invented that? You must be very proud of him.”

“He’s an amazing man. The most brilliant on earth, I think. A scientist. A humanist. A philanthropist. He’s made billions and given most of it away. He’s built schools and hospitals, not just everywhere in Russia but in every corner of the earth. India, Africa. He uses his money to try to make the world fit his view of it.”

“What is his view of it?”

“A natural philosopher’s view. That mankind should be in harmony, like planets orbiting stars, electrons around neutrons, like nature itself. That there should be peace, equilibrium, order. That the clouds of war need never blot out the sun.”

“A romantic idealist.”

“Perhaps. You might decide differently if you met him.”

“I should like that very much. Where does he live?”

“In the sky.”

“Ah. So he
is
God.”

Asia laughed. “No. He has an airship. A very special one that he designed. She’s called
Tsar,
which is the acronym of his scientific company, Technology, Science, and Applied Research. He travels the world aboard her. Of course, he has houses everywhere, including one here on Bermuda that you may have seen.”

“The converted fortress on Powder Hill. So that’s what the big mast is for. To moor his airship?”

“Yes. He spends some time here. And some years ago, he was kind enough to give me Half Moon House, where I live and work part of the year.”

“Where are you from, Asia?”

“Russia, obviously. I grew up in the country. A large estate we have outside St. Petersburg. It’s called Jasna Polana, which means ‘Bright Meadow.’ Tolstoy called his country house that, too. My father is a great admirer of Tolstoy. We have a lovely palace there. Orchards, meadows, stables, many streams. Do you shoot? Fish?”

“I do, occasionally.”

“Then you must come and stay with us. You and Father could have a nice business talk. Would you like that?”

“I think I should like it very much indeed.”

“Good. Consider yourself invited.”

“Asia?”

“Yes?”

“Stay here tonight. Stay with me.”

“What is that song playing now?”

“‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.’ The most beautiful song ever written.”

“And who is singing?”

“Charles Aznavour.”

“Shall we dance, Lord Hawke?”

“Please don’t use that title.”

“I forgot. Only Pelham is allowed to use it. Get on your feet and dance with me, Hawke.”

“I should be delighted.”

“Yes, you should be.”

A
SMALL WINDOW
directly above Hawke’s head proved accessible to sunrise; a fiery parallelogram now appeared on the far wall. The room was filling to the ceiling with the oils of sunrise, light containing extraordinary pigments, washing the whitewashed stone walls around Hawke’s bed with brilliant shades of gold and pink. He loved waking up in this room.

“Are you awake?” he asked her in the stillness of the early morning, stroking her thick golden hair. Her head was still on his chest, right where she’d last fallen asleep.

“Hmm.”

“Thinking of going for a swim.”

“Hmm.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Maybe later,” she said, her voice furred with sleep.

“No, now. It can’t wait. I have to ask you about Hoodoo.”

“Poor Hoodoo. A lovely man. He’s dead. Murdered.”

“I know. I’m trying to understand why.”

Asia sat up in the bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “What they said in the paper. You read it. He was killed by those awful Jamaicans living out on Nonsuch Island.”

“Yes, but why was he there?”

“It wasn’t in the papers?”

“No. You tell me.”

“My father sent him. To deliver a warning. My father wants those people off that island. It’s a nature sanctuary. They are living there illegally.”

“Why didn’t your father call the police?”

“My father never calls the police. He prefers to handle things himself. Besides, the police wouldn’t do anything anyway. My father says someone at the top in Government House is taking money from the Jamaicans. That’s why they’re allowed to stay.”

“I heard a rumor there were illegal weapons involved. That the murder was an arms sale gone awry.”

“Hoodoo? Selling weapons? Ridiculous. People say anything to sow discredit upon my father. I stopped listening long ago.”

“Ah.”

“Do you normally grill your suspects before they have a chance to wake up, detective?”

“Sorry. I’m a beast.”

“I’m beginning to wonder.”

“Come here. Look at this.”

Hawke rolled naked off the bed and lifted the ring attached to the circular section of flooring that concealed the top of his fireman’s pole and the blue grotto below.

“What’s that?” she said, flopping forward on the bed and staring at the hole in the floor.

“It’s called a fireman’s pole, for somewhat obvious reasons. There’s a hidden grotto just below us. You slide down the pole and into the water. I do it every morning. Great way to wake up.”

“Wait. Why are you so curious about Hoodoo?”

“Tell you later,” Hawke said, and then he disappeared through the floor.

“Hold on, I’m coming, too!” she cried, leaping from the bed. Grabbing the pole with both hands, she slipped down into his waiting arms.

R
aining cats and dogs used to be true. Back in Robin Hood’s day, Stoke had read somewhere, the domestic animals used to sleep curled up inside the thatched roofs. When it rained really hard, down they came,
wham
on the dinner table. Hello, Sparky, hey, Ginger! It was raining that hard now. Luckily, except for a few Seminole tiki huts, there were very few thatched roofs in Miami today.

It was just after two in the afternoon when Stoke turned the GTO off Collins and onto Marina, headed for the Miami Yacht Group’s showroom. It was located almost kitty-corner from Joe’s Stone Crabs. Big glass showroom with red, white, and blue flags standing out stiff from the tall poles surrounding the lot.

The weather today, finally, was perfect for what Stoke had in mind. Blowing hard out of the southwest, a big tropical depression headed up from the Keys, the leading edge about over Islamorada now. As he drove slowly through Miami Beach, palm trees were bent over backward, crap was flying around in the streets—no cats or dogs, though, at least he didn’t see any.

He’d taken a good long look at the ocean from the balcony of his penthouse apartment. Blowing like stink out there. Huge rollers, whitecaps with the crests whipped off soon as they peaked. He’d been waiting all week for weather like this.

Today’s the day
, he thought, smiling at himself in the mirror, sliding the knot on his Italian designer silk tie up to his Adam’s apple. He adjusted his wraparound sunglasses. Would Sheldon wear sunglasses on a day like this? he’d asked himself. Yes. He had the whole Sheldon Levy thing down now. Hell, he
was
Sheldon Levy.

Traffic was light on a stormy day, and he’d made good time getting over the causeway. Miami Yacht Group looked just like a car dealership, except it had boats where all the cars would normally be. Big boats, little boats. The littlest ones were out front on trailers. The medium ones would be inside on the showroom floor. The big go-fast ones he was interested in, those of the Cigarette persuasion, they were in the water at the docks located on the marina side of the glitzy glass and steel showroom.

Soon as he walked through the front door in his shiny sharkskin suit, Elsa Peretti tie, Chrome Hearts wraparound shades and pointy-toed alligator shoes, a salesman was on him like sucker fish on a mako.

“Good afternoon!” the guy said.

“You, too.”

“And how are we doing today, sir?”

Stoke smiled at him. Tall and angular and blond. Blue-water tan. Faded khakis, no socks with his bleached-out boat shoes, collar of his navy-blue polo shirt turned up on the back of his neck. Two little crossed flags on his shirt with the words “Magnum Marine” underneath. Talked funny, too, through his teeth, like his jaw was permanently wired shut.

“I’m good, I’m good,” Stoke said, looking around the showroom.

“Heckuva storm out there, isn’t it? Golly!”

Golly?
When was the last time you heard that word? Seriously.

“Golly is right, darn it,” Stoke said, as he bent over and peered out the big plate-glass showroom windows, as if noticing the weather out there for the very first time today.

“Nothing a Magnum Sixty couldn’t handle, I’ll bet,” Stoke said, clapping Larry Lockjaw on the back. “Right?”

“Well, n-now,” the salesman said, staggering a bit before recovering his balance, “you’d have to be pretty darn plucky to go out on a day like today. But you know what? Your timing is perfect. We’ve got a pre-Christmas special going on, and I—”

“Call me plucky, but I want to rock one of those Magnums right now!”

“Well, gee, you know, I don’t think today is ideal for—”

“Actually, you know what? I’m here to see one of your other salesmen. Piss, I think his name is.”

“Piss?”

“Yeah, Piss. Like—take a piss? I’ve got his card somewhere in my wallet.”

“I’m sorry, sir. My hearing’s terrible. Are you saying Mr. Piss?”

“Yeah, Piss. Pisser, something like that.”

“You’re looking for a Mr. Pisser? I’m afraid—”

“No, wait. Urine. That was it. I knew it was something like that. Like piss, I mean.”

“Oh.
Yurin,
you mean?” the guy said, sort of chuckling. “Right, sir, that would be Yuri Yurin. He’s our divisional sales manager here at the Miami Yacht Group.”

“He around?”

“Matter of fact, he’s on his lunch break. But I’m sure I can help you. I’m Dave McAllister, by the way.”

“I’m sure you could help me, Dave. But, you know what, I came here to see this Yurin guy.”

“Well, in that case, let me go back to his office and see if I can get him. May I tell him who’s asking for him?”

“Sheldon Levy.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Sheldon Levy. No, no, don’t apologize. I get that all the time. I don’t look all that Jewish, do I? But then, look at Sammy Davis, Jr. Know what I’m saying?”

“Don’t go anywhere, Mr. Levy. I’ll be right back with Mr. Yurin.”

Two minutes later, Yurin came out on the floor, wiping the mayo off his lower lip. Big boy, good-looking blond bodybuilder. He still had a little piece of shredded lettuce in the corner of his mouth. Big Mac, Stoke thought, seeing the guy eating one at his desk, wolfing it down, when he heard he had a fish on the line. Russians couldn’t get enough of Big Macs ever since Mickey D had opened that first one on Red Square. Beat the hell out of borscht, you had to figure.

“Mr. Levy!” he said, shaking Stoke’s hand, Yurin trying to figure out where the hell he’d seen the huge black guy before. He knew he’d seen him, you didn’t forget someone Stoke’s size easily. But where?

Like all the black-shirted security guys at the Lukov party, Yurin was muscled up, beefy, anyway, going to fat around the middle courtesy of the good life in sunny south Florida. Too many stone crab dinners at Joe’s.

“Yurin, Yurin, Yurin, good to see you again, man. You don’t remember me, do you?”

“No, I do, I do. I’m just trying to remember where we met.”

“The Lukov birthday thing. You gotta remember that.
Kaboom
?” Stoke clapped his hands together loudly when he said it, and both of the salesmen flinched, McAllister actually taking a couple of steps back.

“Ri-i-i-ght,” Yurin said, drawing the word out, deep Russian accent, still no clue. It was the suit, tie, and sunglasses Stoke was wearing, that’s what was throwing him.

“Fancha’s manager? Suncoast Artist Management?” Stoke said.

“Fancha! The beautiful birthday singer! Of course! So, what can I do for you, Mr. Levy? Dave says you’re in the market for a new Magnum Sixty.”

“I certainly am,” Stoke said, holding up a genuine crocodile satchel with his right hand. “Man, what a machine. I want to get Fancha one to celebrate her new movie contract. We just cashed the first check,” Stoke said, holding up the croc case again just for emphasis.

“You are in luck today, Mr. Levy. I just happen to have three brand-new Sixties in stock. Factory fresh. Pick your color. Diamond Black, Cobalt Blue, or Speed Yellow.”

“Is there a question? You got to go with the Speed Yellow, you got any style at all, right, Yurin?”

“Speed Yellow it is! Let’s go back to my office and work up a sales order, Mr. Levy. Or can I call you Sheldon?”

“Call me Sheldon.”

“Call me Yuri, then,” he said, big smile, fish already in the boat, easiest damn yacht sale in the entire history of South Florida yacht brokerage.

“I kinda like Yurin. Let’s stick with that, okay? You know who you look like, Yurin? Just came to me. Dolph Lundgren. The movie star?
Agent Red? Red Scorpion?
No? Doesn’t matter.”

A momentary look of confusion crossed Yurin’s face, but he grabbed Stoke’s biceps, or tried to, and steered him back toward where all the sales guys had their little offices. This guy Yurin was obviously used to being the biggest kid on the block. You could see he didn’t care for second place at all.

“Yurin, hold up a sec,” Stole said, stopping dead in his tracks just outside the guy’s office.

“Whassup?” In a Russian accent, the tired old hip-hop expression sounded funny instead of cool.

“Here’s the thing, Yurin. I truly want this boat. And I’ve got the money to pay for it right here. Cash.”

“We take cash,” he said, like a joke. Being funny didn’t come naturally to most Russians.

“But, of course, I’ll want to take her for a quick spin first.”

“Hey, no problem, Sheldon. We can arrange for a sea trial whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m ready.”

“Okay, what day should I schedule you for?”

“Today. Now.”

He laughed. “Good joke. Funny.”

“No joke, Yurin. I want to take her out there in a blow. See how she performs when it’s kicking up like this.”

“Kicking up? You’re looking at gale-force winds out there. It’s got to be blowing thirty, thirty-five knots. Gusting to fifty. Small-craft advisory warnings have been up since ten o’clock this morning.”

“Sixty feet’s not all that small a craft, Yurin.”

“Yes, I know, Sheldon, but this is an extremely high-performance racing boat with a planing hull. She likes flat water.”

“Yurin. Ask yourself one simple question. Do you sincerely want to sell a boat today? Say yes or no.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not afraid of a little wind and rain, are you, Yurin? Like my grandmother used to say, rain won’t bother you unless you’re made of sugar.”

“Afraid?” The look said it all. He was going.

Stoke clapped him on the back hard enough to rattle his molars. “All right, man, cowboy up, and get your goddamn foul-weather gear on, little buddy, we’re going sailing!”