My head spun again. Rus’s words sounded like a dart hitting the bull’s-eye. Had I concocted everything for my own subconscious purposes?
Of course I had. The room turned sideways. Then it hit me.
“That’s not true,” I said. Mrs. Chimchak believed me. Mrs. Chimchak had brought him his wine that night. “I’m not the only one who thinks he was murdered.”
Rus made small circles with his wrists around the ends of the belt to shorten its length. “Oh, right. Mrs. Chimchak. The accountant. I forgot about her. You do realize she’s suffering from dementia? Three months ago they found her wandering half-naked at Naylor elementary school. Scared the hell out of the boys.”
Mrs. Chimchak suffered from dementia? I remembered her rambling incoherently on the phone. The signs had been there, but I’d refused to see them. I felt my confidence and my life slipping away from me. Had I deluded myself so badly? Was I such a wreck? Visions of my childhood survival test flooded to mind again.
Yes. I was such a wreck. After everything my brother and I had been through. How could we not be wrecks?
Rus stepped forward. “Grab her,” he said.
Two of the thugs grabbed me by the shoulders, one on each side. I tried to break free but could barely move. It wasn’t only their strength. I seemed to be operating at half power, as though I was accepting my inevitable fate. Then I felt warm breath in my right ear, and the sickly-sweet smell of Brut aftershave in my nostrils.
“Love you, baby,” Donnie Angel said.
Rus’s jaw tightened. A look of unadulterated hatred spread over his face. “I’ve been dreaming of this moment since my boy died. Good-bye, bitch.”
He raised the belt over my head. My pulse quickened but I didn’t feed my fear. I let the moment pass, and I thought to myself:
You are not a fraud. A man is going to kill you but you can prevent it. You can prevent it because you are smart, tough, and resourceful. What do these men covet? Money. What is their weakness? They don’t trust each other.
Rus slipped the belt over my head.
I twisted my neck so that I could look into Donnie Angel’s eyes. They shone with the perverse anticipation of watching a woman be strangled.
There is almost always a way out of trouble. The woman who keeps her emotions at bay can find the way.
“You don’t want the nativity scene?” I said.
I choked on the last word. The belt strangled me. My airway shut. The blood from my throat surged to my face. I could smell Rus’s wretched breath, see the glint in his eyes as he pulled the leather taut and held it. I waited for Donnie Angel to tell Rus to release the belt. He would want to know what I meant by my question. Surely he would.
Black clouds blinded me. I needed air. Why wasn’t Donnie doing the logical thing? Why wasn’t he stopping this so he could ask me what I meant?
I needed air. I needed oxygen now.
I struggled with all my remaining might to break free from the grip of Donnie’s thugs. My struggles were for naught. I felt myself passing out.
Good-bye, Marko.
I heard some noise. It sounded like a man speaking. A struggle of some kind ensued. It happened right in front of me. Then I felt my head falling back… gently, gently… my back landed on the ground.
My airway freed.
I gulped air. Choked and swallowed air repeatedly.
Panic overtook me. I could not control it. I needed oxygen. Were they going to choke me again? Was I going to die? I couldn’t get the air into my system fast enough. I couldn’t keep my mind from racing, or my lungs from heaving—
Something touched my shoulder.
My vision cleared.
Donnie Angel was kneeling beside me, belt in hands. He wore a look of genuine concern. “You okay, baby? You need some water?”
He made calming noises and patted my shoulder like the doctor he’d emulated in his van. Then his men helped me into a chair. My limbs trembled. One of the men brought me a cup of water. I could barely keep my hand steady enough to lift it to my lips. My throat was so dry I choked and spit out the first mouthful. The second one went down, however, and the third restored some of my equilibrium.
Rus stood steaming in the background, hands open by his side as though they were ready to finish the job his belt had started.
Donnie bent over so he was at eye level. “Better?”
“Peachy,” I said. My voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard. “Ready for the debutante ball.”
Donnie doubled over and laughed. No one else bothered to even chuckle, and Donnie’s reaction was so over the top it left no doubt he was pretending to be amused for profit’s sake, and that I was a dead woman if he didn’t believe my story. But he would believe my story, I thought. He would believe it because I was going to give him my confidence. It’s what I did as an analyst. I ripped companies apart, understood them, and imparted my confidence to investors who paid me.
“What nativity scene?” Donnie said.
“The one your partners in Crimea sent my godfather. Direct. As a special bonus. I found it in his house the night Roxy and I searched it. Then I went back and took it the next day.”
“That’s a lie!” Rus said. “There is no such thing. All the goods were delivered through the shipyard in New London. If there was a bonus of some kind, I would know about it.”
Donnie stared at him through slits. “Maybe you do know about it, but I don’t.”
“Nonsense,” Rus said. “Can’t you see she’s making it all up—”
“Shut up,” Donnie said. He cocked his head to the side and pointed a finger at Rus.
Rus shut up.
Donnie turned back to me. “How did you get into the house alone when Roxy had the key?”
“Roxy doesn’t have the only key. I borrowed the other one from my godfather’s best friend and accountant. From Mrs. Chimchak.”
Donnie glanced at Rus. The old man didn’t say anything, implying he either knew Mrs. Chimchak had a key or it was a safe bet.
“Tell me about this nativity scene,” Donnie said.
“Adoration of the shepherds,” I said. “It’s a standard Byzantine theme. Common in Eastern Orthodox icons. Shepherds behind your basic nativity scene. Except this one is circa 1685 by a student of Rembrandt’s. It’s about yea big.” I estimated a width of fifteen inches by twenty-five inches with my hands.
“What a pack of lies,” Rus said. “You couldn’t get something like that past customs—”
“It came as a ghost on the back of a cheap reproduction of a harbor scene print,” I said. The lies were coming quickly and furiously to me. Any one of them could get me killed but I had no choice. I was already a dead woman. That realization emboldened me even more.
“A ghost?” Donnie said.
“The harbor scene was painted on top of the nativity scene. Kirtch Bay. No one in customs would ever know. To them they would have looked like a set of cheap posters. How would they know what was painted under one of them?”
“You lying little whore,” Rus said. “This is the stupidest story I’ve ever heard.” Rus glanced at Donnie with pleading eyes. “Why? Why would our friends possibly alter the delivery process to send my brother some sort of bonus? Bonus for what?”
“For maintaining your arrangement,” I said. “When Takarov died six months ago, his sons assumed control of all his businesses, including this one. My godfather — your dear and loyal brother — immediately demanded a token of good faith to transfer his partnership from the man he’d known since DP camp in Germany to two young men of questionable integrity he knew nothing about.”