Looking out at the hedge, Ilya was astonished. The hedge was eight feet tall and perfectly maintained, its sides so smooth that they seemed permanent, like a geographical feature that had been sculpted by the elements. When he thought of the effort required to grow this infinite hedge and keep it from wandering even an inch out of line, he was awed and angered by the wealth it implied.
Ilya glanced at Zhenya, who was slumped in the driver’s seat, a toothpick wedged in the corner of his mouth. He had exchanged the tight shirt and silver medallion of the day before for a velvet tracksuit. Beneath the show of thug fashion, Ilya sensed that Zhenya was deeply uncomfortable in this Southampton neighborhood, ninety miles and a world away from Brighton Beach.
During the drive, he had been less subdued. “We all know about Budapest,” Zhenya had said, shouting to be heard over the music. “Tonight, when we meet the Armenians, I’ll have my eye on you, keelyer—”
Ilya had said nothing, knowing that any response would only be turned against him. Now, without warning, he got out of the parked car. “I’m going for a walk. Go around the house once and meet me at the beach.”
Closing the door, he headed for the wall of green. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zhenya toss his toothpick aside and pull away from the curb. He waited as the station wagon, a concession to a low profile, eased itself into the deserted street. A moment later, it rounded the bend and was gone.
Once he was alone, Ilya went up to the hedge. Looking at the ground, he could see a flattened strip where the sidewalk had been. At some point, however, it had been torn up, allowing the lawn to run to the edge of the road. When he looked up, examining the places where the hedge grew less thickly, he found that he could make out what lay beyond. Aside from a few clumps of topiary and the white hexagon of a gazebo, he saw nothing but acre after acre of perfect grass.
Ilya headed for the main entrance, passing a sign that said GIN LANE. There was no gate, only a gravel driveway that curved sharply past the hedge, blocking his line of sight. He crossed to the other side of the street, hoping to get a better sense of the layout. As he reached the opposite curb, there was a splash of gravel, and a yellow jeep appeared on the driveway. Two men sat inside, wearing white polo shirts with red roundels embroidered on the left breast.
As the guards drove past, Ilya moved on. After thirty yards, the road curved and the shade trees vanished. To his left, the hedge continued as before. On his right, the houses disappeared, replaced by a pond trimmed with reeds and pitch pines. Ospreys floated on the calm surface of the water.
He arrived at the beach. At the end of the road, there was a small parking lot, but no sign of the station wagon. Up ahead, the ocean was a pale expanse merging with the sky. The estate continued to the edge of the beach, and it was only here, he saw, that the hedge came to an end.
Ilya removed his shoes and stepped onto the sand, the grains warm between his toes. The sensation reminded him vaguely of something from his boyhood, a time when he had gone with his family to a place by the sea. He tried to cling to the memory, but it ran like water between his fingers and was lost.
Walking down the beach, he turned to regard the estate from the ocean side. Here, for the first time, he could see the house, which was twenty thousand square feet, its roof and siding shingled in cedar. It rambled as if its construction had been a huge improvisation, with many levels of gables and eaves.
He sat down in the sand, angling himself so that he could continue to observe the mansion. With the hedge gone, a dune planted with beach grass was all that separated the main house from the rest of the world. Across the dune ran a snow fence, its slats tilted at awkward angles, less for protection than to keep the sand from drifting. Otherwise, the house was completely exposed.
Waffled tire tracks were visible in the sand by his feet. In the distance, he saw a couple of teenagers in a luxury shooting brake. They had paused half a mile away, the hatch raised, their torsos muscular and brown. As he watched them drive farther up the beach, a plan began to form in his mind.
He heard the crunch of footsteps behind him on the sand. “So what do you think?”
As Zhenya sat down, Ilya said, “In my opinion, it probably can’t be done. It’s easier to steal from a museum than from a house like this. Museums don’t pay for the art themselves, so they don’t keep track of it. Private collectors are more careful, because they understand the cost of capital.”
Zhenya seemed confused, as if he didn’t understand the cost of capital, either. “So you’re having second thoughts?”
Ilya overheard a sneer in his voice. Working with this man, he thought, was like sharing a bed with a wolf cub. Zhenya, like all enforcers, wanted to become a vor, without understanding what such a life truly entailed. When Ilya tried to imagine him growing into a man like Vasylenko, it seemed impossible.
A second later, it occurred to him that wisdom came from a lifetime of mistakes, and that Vasylenko, as a young man, might have been no less of a fool. Looking at Zhenya’s pockmarked face, Ilya reminded himself that the material here was not entirely unpromising. Zhenya had spent a year in jail without turning state’s evidence, an American jail, to be sure, but nothing to be dismissed out of hand. Which was to say that there was more to him than his ponytail.
Ilya turned back to the mansion on the beach. “We’re sure that the painting is here?”
Zhenya sifted a handful of sand between his fingers. “Our eye on the inside says yes. If it isn’t here now, it will arrive in time for the party. One hundred and fifty guests. Easy for us to get inside.”
Ilya pictured the party, the glamour and money bright in the moonlight. “Security?”
“Six men. They will be focusing on the lawn. The house will be wide open. Twenty cameras on the grounds outside the house, but inside, except one covering the vault, no cameras at all.”
Ilya considered this. The sun had grown low in the sky. If they were going to make it back in time for the exchange, they had to leave soon, but he didn’t want to go just yet. He mentally retraced the journey that the painting had taken since Budapest. Instead of traveling the usual road, it had vanished for more than a year, and now it had resurfaced here, behind the endless hedge. But not for long. Because for all its protection by land, it was exposed from the sea.
“All right,” Ilya finally said. “I’ll do it. But I’m going to need a few things—”