City of Dreams (47 page)

“These anarchists . . . executed?” asked Vitaly.

“They never found them,” said Peter. “Wall Street insisted on opening the next day, so they brought in floodlights, cleaned up, got rid of all the blood, all the bodies—”

“All the evidence?” said Evangeline.

“Exactly,” said Peter. “The street got right back to work, bandaged but not beaten.”

“That why America greatest country,” said Vitaly. “Think how fast they clean up World Trade mess. Most country, destroy thirteen acres of big city, mess still there ten years later. Not in America. But Americans fight ten years over what to build next.”

Peter looked at him. “If you weren’t holding us against our will, I might like you.”

“I like America.” Vitaly smiled, revealing a stainless-steel incisor, hallmark of Soviet dentistry.

The cab was turning, thumping over cobblestones someplace in SoHo. Parked cars hulked on either side of the street, except where Dumpsters and panel trucks took up spaces. Street lamps did little more than sharpen the shadows, and few lights burned in the windows above. The cab pulled up at the end of a block, at a doorway beneath a sign edged in red lights spelling out the words,
MAY DAY
.

They called the place May Day.

The only white light shone on a poster: “The Rats,” in letters that resembled a rat. The muffled pounding of a bass guitar made the windows rattle up and down the street.

A few kids stood outside smoking. One had green hair. Another had silver-studded eyebrows. The third had a tattoo that covered her whole face with
another
face, a giant fly’s face . . . except that her eyes were the fly’s eyes.

“A bad thing in America”—Vitaly pointed to Ms. Fly—“no law against that.”

The girl buzzed at him.

“Be quiet or I swat you,” said Vitaly.

Two big guys in black leather jackets were working the door.

Vitaly gave them a look, and the door opened.

Sound shot onto the street like light. Driving guitars, pounding beat, a powerful voice singing, “Let’s keep it superficial.”

Vitaly gestured for Peter and Evangeline to go inside.

The floor of the club was a lake of waving arms and bobbing heads, all turned toward a raised platform: a lead singer, a girl bassist, a drummer. “The long legs and the pretty mouth, but you open up your lips and the shit falls out.”

“I was hoping it might be karaoke night,” said Evangeline

“Too bad,” said Peter. “This crowd would have loved your Joni Mitchell.”

A guy in black T-shirt and black jeans was taking the cover charge, cash money hand over fist. The Rats were hot.

Vitaly gave the guy a look—he was good at looks—then he pointed down a stairwell. At the bottom, tattooed shadows drank at another bar or sought out darker corners to sniff things. Sewage pipes and steam lines crossed overhead, each vibrating at a different pitch with the pounding of the Rats’ bass.

Vitaly pointed Peter and Evangeline down a passage behind the bar, past two guards built a lot like him, then he pulled back a dirty curtain to reveal a desk, a few chairs, and a leather sofa against a damp wall.

A man sat in the bubble of light from a desk lamp. He had turned to the wall. His hands were moving furiously back and forth, up and down, up and down, and then . . . they dropped to his sides, as if in exhaustion.

Vitality tapped him on the shoulder.

The man spun around, pulled off a pair of headphones, smoothed his hair, stood. He was taller than Vitaly, more slender, and while his features were not so square and Slavic, they had a distinctive Russian cast—lidded eyes, slack mouth, an expression that seemed morose until something lit it up, a face born of a climate that could make anyone morose, thought Evangeline. But he was dressed like a businessman: expensive blue suit, starched white shirt, and—Peter looked a bit closer—yes, a Harvard tie.

He said, “Forgive me. I am Yuri Antonov. Tchaikovsky drowns out the—”

“Your personal history is shrouded mystery” was the lyric.

“The Rats?” said Evangeline. “Why would you want to drown out The Rats?”

“Because their bass is giving us lung cancer.” Antonov glanced at a trickle of asbestos powder floating down from some pipe insulation.

“Then we shouldn’t spend any more time here than we have to,” said Peter. “What do you want with us?”

“Sit.” Antonov gestured to the sofa. “It is leather, cleaned every week with saddle soap . . . no blood, no bodily fluids.”

“That’s reassuring,” said Evangeline.

“New York basements can be scary places,” said Antonov without a hint of scary and not much of an accent, “roaches, rats—with claws, not guitars—and many bad people who must be punished. Not you, of course.”

“That’s reassuring, too,” said Peter.

“So sit.” Antonov dropped behind his desk, and Vitaly placed himself on the other side of the curtain.

Peter and Evangeline both perched on the sofa.

And the music continued to pound above them. “Let’s keep it superficial. Let’s keep it superficial, yeah!”

Antonov cast his eyes to the floor above. “Tchaikovsky never said that. He went to the deep places . . . where humanity abides.” Antonov pulled the headphone plug from his laptop to fill the room with beautiful anguish. “‘The Pathetique.’ Saddest fourth movement in music. Deep. Very deep.”

“Very deep,” said Peter. “Very nice. What do you want from us?”

Antonov turned down the music. “Do you know, Mr. Fallon, that just a few greedy people nearly destroyed the American economy in the great crash of 2008?”

“I’ve heard it said,” answered Peter.

“Those people who brokered the subprime mortgages,” Antonov went on, “loans to borrowers who could never repay under terms they never understood, teaser loans that reset at rates certain to force foreclosure. These American patriots, these sultans of capitalism, these masters of the universe, they bundled these loans and sold them for big dollars and were gone when the buyers defaulted.”

“Thieves selling garbage to morons.” Evangeline repeated something the bag lady had said two nights before on the Bowling Green.

“Very good,” said Antonov. “First little thieves sold garbage to poor morons, then big thieves put it all in plastic bags called mortgage-backed securities and sold it to . . . all of us, through pension funds and banks and other brokerages.”

“High-class loan sharks,” said Peter.

“Loan sharks have more class,” said Antonov. “I know loan sharks.”

“I’ll bet you do,” said Peter.

“Do you have a credit card, Mr. Fallon?”

“Why? Am I paying for the drinks?”

“They said you were a smart-ass.” Antonov smiled. “If you have a credit card, you do business with loan sharks. Banks borrow money for one half percent from Federal Reserve, then charge fifteen . . . twenty . . . even thirty on credit cards. Legal loan sharks.”

“Enough to make a Russian heart bleed,” said Peter.

“No.” Antonov tightened his Harvard tie. “I am a capitalist. I own bank stocks. Let them charge forty percent, enslave the American people in the yoke of debt.”

“So long as the American people can make the vig,” said Peter.

Antonov nodded. “That is the dream of every loan shark.”

“So you
are
a loan shark?” said Evangeline.

“I am an import-export agent who loves pretty women and music, from Tchaikovsky to The Rats . . . but I forget myself. Coffee? Vodka? A nice glass of Russian tea, maybe?”

“No, thanks,” said Peter. “It might keep me awake.”

“Keeping awake would be good”—Antonov looked at his watch—“since you have now thirty-four hours to find what rightfully belongs to me.”

There was a moment of silence in the little basement office.

“Let’s keep it superficial, yeah.”

Then Vitaly stuck his head in the door. “Mister Spic is here.”

“You must forgive my security chief,” Antonov said to Peter and Evangeline. “He can be crude.” Antonov flicked his eyes back to Vitaly. “I will see Mr. Beltron in one minute. We are almost done.”

Three dark men stood outside, and none of them looked too happy.

Antonov said to Peter, “Business. My feeder funds.”

Peter heard one of the men in the hallway say something, low and growling. Then he heard a yowl of pain, and the man fell through the curtain, right into Antonov’s office.

Peter and Evangeline jumped up.

Antonov did not even look at the man twitching on his floor. He merely shifted his eyes and raised his voice. “Vitaly, those men are guests. Do not Tase them.” He looked again at Peter and Evangeline. “Vitaly grows too fond of his toys.”

“Sorry, boss.” Vitaly dragged the twitching man out of the office.

“Vitaly’s got a gun, too, I hear,” said Evangeline.

“Many people have guns in this country. I came here as a young boy, expecting a civilized place. But here is like anywhere else. You must fight to get and fight to hold or someone will take. Someone like Austin Arsenault.”

Peter and Evangeline glanced at each other, then Peter said, “He’s your broker?”

“The word should be
breaker
.”

“Did Arsenault break you?” asked Peter.

“Do I look broken?” Antonov let those morose Russian features harden.

“No.” Evangeline spoke before Peter provoked him further. “You look like a man who breaks others. And likes good music.”

“And pretty women.” Antonov’s expression slackened again. “I am the Russian soul, the hard and the soft, the fighter and the poet.”

“Americans often forget the poetry,” said Evangeline.

“That is true. So”—Antonov smacked the table—“we see eye to eye.”

Peter and Evangeline turned to each other and both said, “We do?”

“You work for me now.” Antonov stood. “One Harvard man to another.”

“Wait a minute,” said Peter.

“Yes, Harvard. My father was very proud.”

“So was mine,” said Peter. “But he wouldn’t be if I broke a contract.”

“With Magee?” Antonov made a wave. “A thief, like his boss. They steal from me, so I will steal from them. A simple equation. What you find, you bring to me.”

“What have they stolen from you?” asked Peter.

“Do not trouble yourself. He who works for me knows what he needs to know.”

“I’m not working for you,” said Peter.

Evangeline tugged on Peter’s elbow. She’d gotten the message. It didn’t matter that Antonov liked nice music and had a good wardrobe. Men who met you in dungeons beneath rock clubs were making a point. She said, “You must forgive us. It’s been a long night. We saw someone killed in the Harvard Club. We had a bookstore blown up in our face. So we’re just about dead ourselves.”

Antonov stepped around the desk. “The big city can be dangerous. People get shot. Accidents happen. Gas leaks come, even in famous old bookstores, especially famous old bookstores owned by men who betray me.”

Peter caught Antonov’s meaning. “Is that why Oscar Delancey has disappeared?”

“I do not know where Delancey is, but he is not to be trusted. I have found that out.” Antonov turned to Evangeline. “So have you.”

“I have?” said Evangeline.

“Did he not use you as bait on Monday night?”

“Bait?” said Evangeline. “Me?”

Antonov shrugged. “The details are . . . sketchy.”

Peter said to him, “Delancey’s deal with Avid is for twenty percent. Mine, too.”

“I will give you thirty.”

“Is that the deal you made with Delancey?” asked Peter.

“I made no deal with Delancey.”

Evangeline tugged again on Peter’s elbow.

“So how did you get his phone?” asked Peter.

“Who says we did? We are resourceful. We know electronic tricks.”

“So Joey B. is right about the phones,” said Peter.

“Berranova? Another dangerous man,” said Antonov. “There was no need to kill Sergei on Fourth Avenue this afternoon.”

“Or your man in Central Park?” said Peter.

“He was not our man,” said Antonov.

“Not your man?” said Peter. “Then who was he?”

Antonov shrugged again. “A competitor. A traitor. An enemy of my late father. My father had many enemies. I am a businessman.”

Outside the door, Vitaly growled something at someone, then delivered another Taser shock to a man who screamed and fell to the floor.

“Vitaly! Put that thing away!” cried Antonov. Then he said to Peter and Evangeline, “As for the shooting in the Harvard Club, we wanted to talk to the accountant. Why would we kill him?”

“Then who did?” asked Peter.

“I am not sure. So trust no one. Not Joey Berra. Not the police who should arrest him for murder. And remember, if you trust the police, you may find that you get a gas leak of your own.”

Upstairs, The Rats were playing a new song.

Evangeline tugged Peter’s elbow again. They went through the curtain.

Vitaly put an arm out to move Mr. Beltron aside, then he gave Peter a small bow of the head and Evangeline a little smile, just enough to show a bit of stainless steel.

Then Evangeline heard Antonov’s voice. “Miss. Miss, you’ve forgotten your purse.”

He thrust his hand through the curtain.

She took the purse. “Thanks.”

“Fendi. Nice. But heavy. What you got in there? Rocks?”

“A gentleman shouldn’t ask,” said Evangeline.

T
HE BLACK CABBIE
drove them back to Times Square. They got off at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Forty-second Street.

And Evangeline told Peter, “That cabbie was the guy watching us on the Bowling Green the other morning.”

“Maybe Joey Berra will know who he is. We’ll wait fifteen minutes.”

“It’s after midnight. We’re too late,” said Evangeline. “Besides, Antonov told us not to trust him.”

“So you trust Antonov? Because he says he went to Harvard?”

“Well . . . no. But he has good taste in music, and he liked my purse.”

“Yeah, and he has lots of poetry in his soul.”

Somewhere above them, the sky was dark. Somewhere around the edges of the square, the shadows reached out. Somewhere below the street lay the memory of the farm that sat there in 1776. But this was the land of the midnight LED, the crossroads of the Big Apple, the place where American commerce, money, and entertainment collided in a giant pinball machine of light and noise.