“This is ridiculous,” Powell said, looking out at the hedge wall. “How are we supposed to watch a house like this?”
They were parked on Gin Lane, within sight of the main entrance, observing the estate from an unmarked sedan. Through his window, which was rolled down, Powell could hear music from an unseen string quartet, rendered unreal by the distance, like fairy song. Above the hedge, there was a palpable glow, like the light flung onto an overcast sky by a city at night.
“I don’t know what you expected,” Wolfe said. There was an edge of irritation in her voice, perhaps because they had driven two hours to stare at a hedge. “All of these houses are like this.”
“I still can’t believe it.” Powell ran his eyes along the hedge, which reminded him of the defensive wall, a thousand years old, that encircled the town of his boyhood. “What does he have to hide?”
“It makes you wonder how much of this wealth is real,” Wolfe said. “Most of these mansions are mortgaged to the hilt. When the bottom falls out of the market, this will turn into a ghost town.”
It wasn’t the first time that Powell had heard her express these sentiments. “You think there will be a crash?”
“Read the signs. Too much debt, not enough capital investment. If I were you, I’d get ready for seven lean years.” Wolfe reached for a cup of lime gelatin. “I say we go inside. Tell security. We aren’t doing any good here.”
“We can’t,” Powell said. “If Sharkovsky learns that we’ve contacted Archvadze—”
“He’ll suspect that we have a wire. I know. But so far, this is all flipping pointless.”
Powell didn’t have a good response to this. They had been parked here for hours, dutifully noting each arrival, but had seen only the town cars and sport utility vehicles of the Hamptons elite.
Watching the guests from a distance, feeling disheveled from hours in the car, Powell had experienced a curious twinge of English guilt. It was easier to stake out a building in Brighton Beach, where domestic life often spilled out onto the streets. Here, the hedge formed a stark boundary between public and private space, as if the lives inside had nothing to do with the world beyond.
He watched as a jeep rolled down the driveway and signaled for a turn. As it passed, he caught a glimpse of the men inside, a pair of guards in white polo shirts. He wondered if Archvadze imported any of his muscle from home. In Russia, an entrepreneur needed protection to survive, usually in the form of corrupt cops and roofs from the local gangs. Even in his adopted country, the oligarch would not have been likely to change his ways, at least not entirely.
“I’m not even sure we can trust Archvadze,” Powell said now, keeping his eye on the jeep. “You can’t make a fortune in the Russian auto industry without reaching an understanding with organized crime. Privatization has always been funded by the underworld. So has politics.”
Wolfe peeled back the lid from her cup of gelatin. “With all due respect, I’m not sure that I buy the government connection. These gangs hate the Chekists. They swear never to cooperate with the military or police, and if a gangster is revealed as a traitor or informant, he’s exiled or put to death—”
“Which doesn’t mean that they can’t serve the state’s interests in other ways,” Powell said. “Take another example. Until a few years ago, a Delta jet flew from New York to Moscow five times a week with a hundred million dollars in its cargo hold. No one tried to steal it, because it was going to the mob. They would steal oil from Siberia, sell it on the spot market, then place a currency order in New York. When the cash arrived, it was used to pay off members of the Duma.”
Wolfe popped a green spoonful into her mouth. “So what’s your point, exactly?”
“My point is that it wasn’t just the Russians who decided to look the other way. The bank earned a commission on every transaction. The Treasury Department earned ninety-six cents from every dollar that left the country. They’ll only take action if we can prove that it’s in their best interests to do so. The connection between money laundering and terrorism is what finally shut down the money plane. And another way to bring down the system—”
“—is to connect it to domestic crime,” Wolfe said. “All right. But what makes you so sure that Sharkovsky is involved?”
“Experience. No vor works in isolation. If the money plane is out of commission, they’ll find something else to take its place. The connections are there. It’s only a matter of seeing them.”
“It’s also a matter of funding. And at the moment, it’s a hard sell.” Finishing the gelatin, Wolfe tossed the empty cup into the backseat, where it joined several others. “Why are you so interested in the foreign angle, anyway?”
“My father’s influence, I suppose,” Powell said. “He was a member of the civil service, a diplomat, with the most orderly mind I’ve ever seen. He spent most of his life chasing these connections.”
He expected her to ask him what his father had done, but she only took a sip of cocoa. “He sounds like a remarkable man.”
Powell looked through the windshield at the estate. “Yes. You might say he was.”
“I’m sorry,” Wolfe said, with what sounded like genuine sympathy. “I didn’t know he had passed away.”
“He hasn’t.” Powell turned aside. “Not exactly. But he hasn’t been entirely well.”
In the silence that followed, he had time to remember how insidious his father’s decline had been, passing invisibly from harmless, even comical mistakes, like neglecting to turn off the cold water tap, to aimless wandering far into the night, opening drawers and rummaging in closets. In the end, a man exquisitely attuned to ideas had disintegrated to the point where he would repeatedly grope at patterns on the carpet, thinking that there was something on the floor.
Powell was still brooding over this when a pickup truck emerged from the service entrance, loaded with plump bags of garbage. It pulled into the road, then turned left, moving away from where the sedan was parked. Something about it caught his eye, but before he could reach for his binoculars, his phone rang.
It was Barlow. “There’s a fax for you on my desk. They’ve identified your dead girl.”
Even before the agent had finished speaking, Powell had his notepad out, glad for the distraction. “What do we know?”
There was a theatrical rustle of papers. “Her name is Karina Baranova. She was born in Kargopol and emigrated to the city ten years ago. Unmarried. No record. According to her file, she taught ballet in Brooklyn Heights. And guess where she worked on the weekends?”
Powell knew that this flood of information would make it impossible for the police to ignore the case any longer. “The Club Marat.”
“You’re one smart Indian—you know that? She danced in their floor show. When she vanished two years ago, she was reported missing by the ballet academy. Your analysis of the weather records was what narrowed it down. I suppose I should congratulate you for that—”
“What about Sharkovsky? Was he questioned in connection with her disappearance?”
“It looks like they interviewed someone at the club, but it wasn’t him. There wasn’t enough evidence to dig further, so they let it die. Now, of course, they’re breathing down my neck. I need you and Wolfe to keep them in line.”
Powell pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I’m not sure if that’s the best use of my time. Or Wolfe’s, for that matter—”
“You know why Hoover loved the Mormons? They respect authority. Wolfe understands how the system works. If you’re smart, you’ll take a page from her book. I’ll see both of you in the morning.”
Barlow hung up. Powell pocketed his own phone. “How much of that did you hear?”
“Enough,” Wolfe said, her face in shadow. “Now that the police have a name, they aren’t going to hold off on the investigation.”
“We’ll give them something discreet to do in the meantime. Something that will keep them happy, but won’t blow our cover. If they want to put a tracker on Sharkovsky’s car, say—”
A second later, he remembered what he had seen in the instant before Barlow called. “Oh, fuck me,” Powell said. “I can’t believe this—”
The car’s tires sprayed gravel as he pulled into the street. Wolfe was flung sideways by the sudden movement, which sent empty gelatin cups flying. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“The truck.” Powell slammed a hand against the dashboard, hard enough to hurt. “The one with the garbage. Did you see it?”
“Yes, but—” Wolfe broke off, struck by the same realization. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Powell said. They reached the intersection at the end of the road. Even as he tried to decide which way to go, he feared that he had waited too long. The image of a truck danced before his eyes, the one that he had seen in the Assyrian boy’s bedroom, in a photo taken when the hood had still been adorned with the crest of the Russian empire. Sharkovsky, or one of his men, was here.