About Face (19 page)

L always has a couple pieces handy. Occupational necessity when you're dealing in such a large, all-cash business within an industry that sometimes calls for a little strong-arming.

He reaches down and opens another drawer in his desk. He pulls out a compact, aluminum piece. With a rosewood grip.

“Kimber Ultra CDP II. Small enough to keep tucked away. Strong enough to keep someone off your back. Or if need be, bury them.”

I jump back in the town car. The rain has tapered off quite a bit. I throw the drizzle-dusted umbrella on the seat next to me. And put my European accent back on.

“Del Posto, Brutus.”

Dusty gives me his eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Sorry. Just can't do Dusty. Brutus seems to suit you.”

Nothing. His eyes move back to the road ahead. I reach forward and hand him a fifty over his shoulder. He takes it.

“We good?” I follow up.

“Del Posto. Eighty-Five Tenth Avenue, I believe.”

“I believe you're right.”

The restaurant's about ten blocks away. I look at my watch—7:46 p.m. Which means I'm right on schedule.

The inside jacket pockets of my suit are getting fuller by the hour. The flash drive occupying about 75 percent of all my thoughts at this point has joined the inside left pocket with the disposable phone. L's Maserati keys have replaced the silver pen with the iPhone and loupe in the right inside pocket. The gun is in the rear of my pants' waistline.

I take out the disposable. I punch a 410—Baltimore—area code into it. Before hitting “send” I just look at the number. It belongs to Pavel Derbyshev. The last and only time I saw Mr. Derbyshev—the count as I like to call him because of his, well, countlike appearance—I put a gun to the back of his head then kicked him in the balls so hard you'd think I was playing in the World Cup. Derbyshev, descendant of Piotr Derbyshev, has six of the eight missing Fabergé Imperial Easter Eggs—eggs that would have been sold to my half-brother Andreu Zhamovsky had I not blown up the plan. Now, after all these years, I need to see those eggs. And learn once and for all why Galina wants them in her possession.

I remember the night I confronted him in Prime Rib, one of the few restaurants in the 410—back then, at least—for power players. His number is a private, unpublished one, but in the day's leading to my fleeing, I had gotten it from bank records. Derbyshev never knew how I'd obtained it. Which is what I'm counting on for his not changing the number. There's always the fact that I ended up saving his ass. Had the deal gone through, he would have been out both the eggs and the half a billion he thought he was getting in return. But I'm going with the fact he probably figured if I could get his number once, I'd simply get it again.

Once I was out of the country, there were a few things I would
jot down in strange places. Things I couldn't risk forgetting, yet couldn't dare have on me in a more permanent fashion—like in a phone or contact book—until I was safe.

Or safer.

For example, in the room in St. Maxime there were notes, written tiny, under the end tables and in the closet right where the wall met the carpeting. One of those notes was the count's phone number. I said it over and over to myself that night driving back from Baltimore knowing it was probably one I'd need again one day. I'd even switch the first and fourth numbers any time I wrote it. This went on for each stop until we settled in Amsterdam. And I don't mean the first place in Amsterdam—I mean the gift house from Cobus. It didn't stop because I ever felt safe. It stopped because all of a sudden, when I went poking around for places in my new palace to jot them down, it occurred to be they'd all probably been engrained in my brain from the moment I wrote them down in that hotel in the French Riviera.

How's that for paranoid.

Over the years, from time to time in different parts of Europe, I would call the count's number. Probably ten times in total. Just to make sure he was still there in his palatial castle, alive. Most of the time one of his staff would answer. I'd ask if Mr. Derbyshev was in. When they asked who was calling for him, I would hang up. A couple of the times, the count picked up himself.

I hit “call” and lifted the phone to my ear. On the fourth ring a very proper-sounding woman answers.

“Good evening.”

“Good evening to you. Is Mr. Derbyshev available?”

“Who might I say is calling?”

I hit “end.”

A
MSTERDAM
, T
HE
N
ETHERLANDS
2005

Once in Amsterdam, Gaston helped us secure a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment on the second floor of a modest canal house. The address was 133 Langestraat, a twenty-six-foot-wide gray brick coach house. It was a solid location right near Central Station, which was the nucleus of Amsterdam. Everything scales outward from Central Station like rings scale outward from the center of a tree trunk. The landlord was a man named Olig Frindland. And what no one aside from Perry—not Gaston, not Max, no one—knew was that Olig and I also made another deal. One that gave me the top floor apartment at 251 Herengracht. It was only a couple blocks from where we would be living. And it would be my personal studio to perform all research and analysis with regard to my obsession: the missing Imperial Fabergé Easter Eggs. All I really knew was that Andreu's mother Galina wanted them, and my father had tried to warn me. But I was literally kept up at night as to why Galina wanted them so badly. Why she was willing to risk so much.

What did Galina mean when she wrote that she needed to stay true to her own?

I took a junior broker position with a firm called Oovik Premier
Property. Oovik was a small family-run firm with twenty-two commercial canal houses, mostly in the higher-rent district near Central Station, and twenty residential canal houses spread more evenly throughout Amsterdam. I applied for the position solely pertaining to the commercial portion of the portfolio and within a few days was out with my senior broker—Jan Oovik, thirty-eight-year-old son of one of the two older Oovik brother principals—learning our product, showing our space.

I remember our first showing. The address was 24 Singel Straat, an awesome piece of space overlooking the Singel Canal. The potential tenant was Henrik Heesters, a well-known European fashion designer.

“Obviously you are not to speak. Just watch, learn. Showing office space is one thing. Getting potential users to commit is another,” Jan said, arms folded.

I cocked my head left like a curious puppy.

“Henrik Heesters is one of Europe's premier fashion houses,” he went on, “and they are looking to possibly take this entire canal house. This is the second time they have come to see it. They will ask about the tenants occupying the top two floors—this is where you need to pay special attention. These are the intricacies that make commercial real estate a free-flowing experience, a never-ending puzzle.”

I heard a car pull up out front. I moved to the window to look outside.

“These tenants can be dealt with,” Jan went on. “Just listen and learn how.”

“I understand you loud and clear, Jan,” I say, looking out the window, “but may I offer one thought before Mr. Heesters and his team, who just arrived, step in here? Before I have the opportunity to embarrass myself?”

Jan sighed and dropped his arms to his side.

“Of course, Ivan. Please.”

“Henrik is trying to hide behind his sunglasses, but it isn't working. He's discussing a couple aspects of the physical structure of the
building, most notably a modification to the front door entrance. I know this because while I can't see his eyes some of his team are not as subtle. They too may be wearing sunglasses but they are pointing. And the architectural drawings they are holding—clearly of the front of the building—are marked ‘Draft,' which means they have already been spending time and money planning on this space.”

I turned my attention back into the building toward Jan.

#8220;Of course, I have no idea what you have discussed with Mr. Heesters in terms of price. But you can do better. You've been speaking to me for the last hour as if this is one of many options they are looking at. While I believe that is probably the case, I'd be willing to bet this is their first choice.”

“I, that—sounds—”

I looked back toward the window.

“How can—the drawings are of—” Jan continued to sputter.

“The sun's coming through them. Architectural drawings are created on vellum paper which becomes near transparent with the right light,” I cut him off. “Okay, they're on their way in. Sir—I would never dare overstep and I am simply honored to be working for a family of such strong real estate minds. But with your permission, should your discussions concerning price tell me you can push harder, might I send you a signal?”

Jan was dumbfounded.

“A what?”

“A signal. I believe you are underestimating the potential tenant's desire to take your space. Which means you may be selling your own firm short, which I would hate to see happen. If I think you can press, I'll subtly play with my cuff link like this.”

I showed him.

“This way I won't have to speak, which means there is no opportunity to let my inexperience show through.”

There was a knock on the door.

“If you feel I am out of line, you can just forge ahead. I know I have very little idea about all of this, but I just want to help.”

Seventy minutes later, following an in-depth walk-through of
the entire canal house with Mr. Heesters and his team, I played with my cuff link. Jan Oovik pressed. A deal was struck to occupy the entire building for ten years. At numbers 7 percent higher than previously thought achievable.

Jan Oovik was a tall, slender guy with an equally long and slender face. He went for the tight, black suit and thin black tie on a white button-down look, always wore shiny, pointed black tie-up oxfords that made his feet look like size twenties. One showing and I made Jan Oovik look like a hero to his family. To his credit, Jan didn't forget it. He took me on as his sidekick. With each showing, with each new potential client for an Oovik property, with each commercial property potentially purchased or sold, I played the part: young, green broker with an innate sense for the industry he'd stumbled into.

Soon I displayed a desire to learn all I could about the properties in the portfolio, pretending to learn more than I had probably already forgotten on the topic over my career. I was wowing and wooing my employers and clients on a daily basis. I had them looking at real estate in a way they never had before—not as brick and mortar but as cash flow; not simply as roofs, walls, and floors but as individual entities with a need to be nurtured. I taught them to see each property—and each space within a property—as a continuously expanding opportunity that flows naturally, unpredictably like water flowing through soil. I was a young, hungry kid who had prided himself on straight living and using the experiences of those I'd read about to see the bigger picture. I brought a level of sophistication to the game these people had never seen before, sophistication I worked painstakingly hard at seeming more innate than previously learned.

We were all falling into a nice rhythm. Perry decided to take on a more casual tone to her life. She got back in touch with the skills that helped her pay her way through college and became a bartender at the uber-hotspot “supperclub,” at night, a joint in the center of Amsterdam, while homeschooling Max during the day. Surprisingly, she loved it. She enjoyed the simplicity of this life as
opposed to the one she had lived as a power broker in New York City. She appreciated a life where her work remained at the workplace; where when she left work—she left work.

She loved the time with Max. At night the three of us would take walks. Sometimes we'd go for ice cream and do some good laughing. Other nights we'd stroll quietly and look at the city's lights sparkling on the water, as if each of us was simply walking alone with our thoughts.

Every moment I was able to steal away to the apartment at 251 Herengracht, I took. A couple hours in the middle of the night here, a small tale to my employers about my needing to leave early for a doctor's appointment there—I did whatever I could to get into that space and perform my research about the missing Fabergé Imperial Easter Eggs. I had to know what the connection was, what I was missing about them. Yes, my half-brother's mother, Galina Zhamovsky—secret longtime lover of my father—was more than willing to go to great lengths to retrieve all eight of them currently residing in the United States.

But why?

Why would she put so many people's lives in jeopardy in order to obtain them—including her own son? What was I missing?

I had to know.

My father had been killed, and my life had been destroyed because of Galina Zhamovsky's need to obtain these eggs.

I simply would not, could not, let it go.

I had to know.

The apartment was essentially a long, narrow train-track space with uneven plank wood flooring. It was barren aside from a large, unfinished wooden Parsons table in the center that held an iMac and a lamp. There were also a couple of small, shadeless lamps scattered around the space. The place looked like it belonged to some psycho-stalker-murderer. The walls were lined with research clippings, printouts, timelines, and pictures. There were diagrams with different color arrows slicing through them. A different portion of wall was dedicated to each of the eight missing Fabergé Imperial
Easter Eggs: the year it was made, what it looked like, what materials were used, what the egg commemorated, what known history there was in terms of the egg's whereabouts before vanishing, and what documents surrounding each egg had survived. If there was information from some corner of this earth in relation to one of these eight rare treasures—six of which were sitting in Baltimore, Maryland, with a man named Pavel Derbyshev—that information was represented on these walls.