“Does it matter? You are one of the very few people alive who have seen the real Mona Lisa. The rest of the world gawks at a fake. It’s like religion when you think about it: Only one faith can be correct. The rest of the world worships a forgery. You, my dear, now get to be the enlightened.”
Maggie frowns. “So you’re not going to tell me?”
“No, not yet.”
“Why?”
He doesn’t answer. He opens the door and leaves the room. Maggie stares for another moment, meeting the eyes of all three Mona Lisas as though one of them might reveal some inner truth to her. None do. She follows Oleg back into the corridor. The lights go out. The door closes and locks.
Maggie lets loose a long breath.
“Shall we continue?” Oleg asks.
He shows her other valuables on the way — more artwork, a Qianlong vase, a fifteenth-century tapestry, sculptures — but after the Mona Lisa story, the other collectibles seem almost passé. Oleg eventually leads her down a long corridor into a glass-enclosed walkway — no need to experience the elements. As they cross through the snow, Maggie notices a large pile of firewood up against the side of the glass. They are now in a see-through tunnel behind the palace. At the end of the tunnel, Oleg opens a door. Maggie senses a cavernous space. He hits a switch on the wall, revealing an enormous garage/showroom loaded with cars. Collectibles, she is sure.
“Look at my baby,” Oleg says, walking serpentinely through the collection. “A 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, the greatest Ferrari of all time, a grand tourer with a V12 engine, three hundred horsepower. Only thirty-six were ever produced over a two-year span...”
Maggie tunes him out. Men and cars. She has zero interest. She has also had enough with the estate tour. She wants to get to work and start prepping for the surgery. Oleg shows her the key is in the ignition. When he jumps in and says, “We can take it for a quick spin. Just open the sliding doors and we can vroom around the property,” Maggie cuts him off: “You were going to show me the medical facilities, remember?”
Oleg’s hand drops off the ignition key. “Ah yes, I do prattle on, don’t I?”
Maggie chooses not to answer. Oleg slides back out of the car.
“Shall we?”
He exits the vast showroom through the same door where they entered. He takes her back through the glass walkway, past the firewood, and turns left at the foyer when they are back in the main house. When Ragoravich opens another door — she gets this is all to impress, but it’s still difficult not to be floored — there is an Olympic-size indoor pool. Only one person is in the giant pool right now, someone who knows how to swim, slicing through the water with barely a ripple.
“Nadia!” Oleg calls out.
The swimmer — Maggie can only really see the bathing cap and the arms doing a picture-perfect crawl — does not slow down.
“Nadia!”
Still nothing as she glides through the water with a smooth stroke that is almost hypnotic to watch.
“Nadia,” Oleg says to Maggie, “is your other patient.”
“I’ll need to examine her before the surgery. You too.”
Oleg does the head tilt again. “We’ll see.”
“No, we won’t see. I’m not performing surgery without examinations and consultations.”
Oleg just smiles.
“What?” she says.
“Please, Doctor McCabe, can we stop the posturing? You are here. You are being well paid. I understand that there are certain protocols. I am paying a great premium to avoid some of them. Like when you flew here on my private plane. Did you have to arrive at the airport two hours early? No. Did you have to go through a metal detector or wait for your boarding group to be called? No.”
“This isn’t the same thing,” she says.
“But it is, my dear.”
“I won’t do it then.”
He doesn’t bother replying anymore. He grabs a towel and waits for Nadia to reach the edge of the pool. When she does, he calls out her name again. This time she hears and stops. He barks something at her in Russian. She nods and makes her way to the ladder. When Nadia gets out, it almost seems like she’s moving in movie slow motion. Nadia reaches up, pulls off her swimming cap, and shakes out her long black hair as though she were appearing in a shampoo commercial. Oleg hands her a towel. She takes it and then she turns and looks at Maggie.
Nadia is, no way around it, gorgeous.
Blue-aqua eyes that sparkle off her sun-kissed skin, raven-black hair, the lithe and long body of a swimmer. She also looks, Maggie can’t help but notice, young. Very young. Oleg appears to be around sixty. Maggie pegs Nadia somewhere in her early to mid-twenties.
Does it surprise her that a billionaire oligarch has a young...
girlfriend, bae, boo — what other bizarre terms had Porkchop used?
It does not.
When Oleg puts his arm around Nadia’s back, Maggie cringes for her. Keeping his hand on her lower back, Oleg leads Nadia to where Maggie is standing. In the pool, Nadia was poetry in motion. On land, with Oleg touching her, Nadia’s movements are more tentative and awkward — gangly even in a way that reminds Maggie of her teenage nephew.
When they stop in front of Maggie, Oleg doesn’t introduce Nadia. He just says, “She’s too skinny, no?”
“No,” Maggie says.
Maggie steps toward Nadia and puts out her hand. Nadia looks toward Oleg as though seeking permission to respond. Oleg nods that it’s okay and Nadia hesitantly sticks out her hand for a quick shake.
“I’m Doctor McCabe. You can call me Maggie.”
Maggie locks her gaze onto the blue-aqua eyes, but Nadia quickly turns back to Oleg.
Oleg says, “She doesn’t speak a word of English. But she’s too skinny. I like a woman with a bountiful bosom.” He gestures this with both hands in a hopefully exaggerated way. “You understand?”
“Oh, I understand,” Maggie says. “Do you understand that I’m not performing any surgery on Nadia without her permission?”
“Permission?” Oleg repeats with a laugh. He starts waving his hand theatrically. “Of course! You must have her” — he laughs again — “‘permission.’ I wouldn’t dream of having Nadia do anything against her will.” Oleg rips off some Russian in Nadia’s direction. Nadia listens obediently. When he finishes, Nadia nods at him. Oleg says something else in Russian, a bit more animated now, and points at Maggie. Nadia turns so that her entire body faces Maggie. Their eyes meet again.
Nadia nods at Maggie and says, “Okay.”
Oleg spreads his hands. “See?”
“See what?” Maggie says. “What was that?”
“You wanted Nadia’s permission. I asked her if she wanted you to give her bigger boobs — oh, and maybe a rounder ass. It’s too flat right now. Nadia is saying okay, that’s what she wants.”
“What she wants,” Maggie says, “or what you want?”
Oleg looks perplexed for a moment. “Why does there have to be a difference? She wants, I want — why can’t we all get what we want? Don’t make life a zero-sum game, Doctor McCabe. That’s how you create losers. The world is a series of negotiations — and the best negotiations are when both sides win. We’ve made a deal, Nadia and me. She gets, I get. Same as you and me, no?” Oleg grins again.
“Come, I want to show you your operating room.”
He steps toward the exit. Maggie stays where she is. He waits a moment. Nadia tightens the towel around her as though she wants to hide. For a few moments, the three of them stand there in silence. Oleg breaks it.
“Fine,” Oleg says with a melodramatic sigh. “My personal physician is expected in an hour. He can tell you everything you need to know about my medical history.”
“And Nadia?”