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17





Humiliation, Too


::::::At the very beginning, as soon as he said “What do you do” and all that… “What do you do to get food, to get clothes” and whatever the rest of it was, all I had to do was say something like “Sir, do I know you?” And then, no matter what he said, I should have kept pressing him with that question, “Sir, do I know you? I’d have to get to know you really well before I answered questions like that”… and if he still kept going, I could have added, “And something tells me I’ll never get to know you that well, not in a thousand years, not if I can possibly avoid it”… Well, the “not if I can possibly avoid it” might have been overdoing it, especially coming from someone my age, twenty-four, and he’s in his—what?—fifties?—but that was the moment I should have cut him off, right at the very beginning, before he could get going on that vile, humiliating roll of his—::::::

And that was all that was on her mind as she sat here in the passenger seat barely twelve inches from Sergei, who was letting this expensive sports car out for a romp down Collins Avenue in the dark… a black hole with a regular comet of red taillights plunging into it… Sergei laughing and chuckling and chortling and saying things like, “Creenge! He creenged! He creenged like a leetle boy who knows he haf been meesbehafing!”… whipping past this red taillight whipping past the next one and whipping past and whipping past the next one and the next one whipping past whipping past whipping past all of them in the darkness at an unbelievable speed… totally reckless and Magdalena is aware of it all but only in her cerebellum… it doesn’t even reach the pyramids of Betz, much less her thoughts… All she can think about is what she should have done, what she could have done to get that horrible piece of mierda off her… “Champion” Zhytin.

::::::You bastardo de puta!:::::: That kind of crude language Magdalena ordinarily didn’t allow even inside her head. But she was in the throes of Why didn’t I, that dreadful interlude when you’re walking upstairs to go to bed or speeding madly down Collins Avenue—after the party is over—and now you think of the comebacks you should have made… to obliterate that bastard who kept scoring points off you in conversation at dinner this evening… not that Magdalena knew the term l’esprit de l’escalier, but she was living it right now… furiously, uselessly ransacking her brain.

Sergei was in such good spirits, he never noticed how silent and sunken in thought Magdalena was… and now he was off on the subject of Flebetnikov, the Russian who had invited them to the party they were heading for, at his mansion, estate, palace on Star Island—you really couldn’t give it too grand a name… and hadn’t she noticed that every Russian in Miami who lived in a big house was called an “oligarch”? What a joke that was! He himself got called an oligarch. He couldn’t help but chuckle over that. An oligarchy was rule by a few… so would someone kindly tell him what it was he was ruling and with whom? In fact, he had heard that Flebetnikov’s hedge fund had run into some real problems, and how many problems did a Russian have to have before he stopped being ranked as an oligarch? He chuckled again.

By now they were passing through Sunny Isles, and Sergei pointed to the left at a condominium tower on the other side of Collins Avenue. “That’s where I live,” he said. “I have the twenty-ninth and thirtieth floors.”

That caught Magdalena’s attention. “The entire floors?”

“Well… now that you say it… yes, both floors.”

“How tall is the building?”

“Thirty floors.”

“So that means you have the entire top two floors?” Big wide eyes.

“Ummm… yes.”

“The penthouse?”

“Zey are ferry nice, zee fiews,” said Sergei. “But you vill zee for yourself.”

Now he had her back on his wavelength ::::::Does that mean tonight?:::::: and Amélia’s question popped back into her head… and that hoisted her up out of her funk far enough to at least think about something other than the horrible scene at Gogol’s… You’ll see for yourself… and Magdalena began feeling the answer to that question. Could she conceivably be strong enough to go up to those two whole floors of a condominium tower overlooking the ocean and be a good girl who no la aflojare in his lap right then and there?—who is strong and waits for the second date? Or by that time would she be leaning so close that—why hold back now that we’re practically already there?

With that, thank God, Zhytin slipped out of her mind and was gone.

Sergei took the exit off Collins Avenue onto the MacArthur Causeway. He drove slowly for a change… for maybe four or five hundred yards… then pointed to the right toward Biscayne Bay… nothing but a vast black shape in the dark… “See that little bridge? That takes you onto Star Island right there.”

“Star Island is that close to shore?” said Magdalena. “That’s such a short bridge, I don’t know how they could call it an island.”

“Well,” said Sergei, “it doesn’t touch the mainland at any point, so I guess that’s how.”

They zipped across the little bridge just like that, but then Sergei slowed down and said, “It’s the—I don’t know exactly which house on the right, but is not far. It is huge.”

Even in the darkness, Magdalena was aware of how lush, posh, and lavish the vegetation suddenly became the moment you arrived on Star Island… finely sculpted hedges, endless perfect allées of giant palm trees. The houses were set way back from the road. Even in this light, it was obvious that they were huge… vast… showy estates, so big that it seemed like they had been driving a very long way by the time they reached the one Sergei recognized as Flebetnikov’s. He turned into the driveway… walls of shrubbery on both sides, so high and thick you couldn’t see the house. The driveway came to an end between two buildings you couldn’t see from the road. Each was two stories high and deep enough for a good-sized family to live in… fancy enough, too… a sort of Bermuda-white stucco… a valet took their car… these two structures were nothing less than a double gatehouse. Beyond it… the main house. There it was. What a pile! It stretched on… and on… for a good tenth of a mile. The walkway to the house had been laid out in gigantic and conspicuously needless curves. But what was this? The beginning of the walkway was blocked by a velvet rope. To one side, barely ahead of the rope, a blonde—about thirty-five?—sat at a card table with a stack of forms before her. As Sergei and Magdalena approached the table, she flashed a bright smile and said, “You’re here for the party?”

When Sergei said yes, she took two forms from the top of the pile and said, “If you’ll just sign these, please.”

Sergei started reading the form she handed him—and suddenly twisted his head and narrowed his eyes and stared intently, as if the thing had turned into a lizard. He shot the blonde the same look. “What is this thing?” Vot ees dees zing?

The blonde smiled brightly again and said, “It’s a release. It’s just a formality.”

Now Sergei smiled. “Ah, that’s good. If it’s just a formality, then why we bother? Don’t you agree?”

“Well,” said the blonde, “we do have to have your written permission.”

“Written permission? For what?”

“So we can use your likeness and your speech in the video?”

“Liiiiikeness?” said Sergei.

“Yes, so we can show you in action at the party. You’ll be amazing, if you don’t mind my saying so. We love European accents on these shows. You’ll be wonderful… and you will, too!” she said, looking at Magdalena. “You’re the best-looking couple I’ve seen all evening.”

Magdalena loved that. She was dying to go in.

“What you mean ‘these shows’?”

“Our series,” said the blonde. “It’s called Masters of Disaster. They didn’t tell you? Maybe you’ve seen it.”

“No, I have not zeen it,” said Sergei, “and no, I never heard of it, and no, ‘zey’ did not tell me. I thought Mr. Flebetnikov is inviting me to a party. What is this Masters of Disaster?”

“It’s a reality show. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it. Our ratings are really pretty good. Everybody’s crazy about stars, but they’re even crazier about seeing the stars fall and crash and burn. You know German? In German they call it Schadenfreude.”

“So Flebetnikov, he crashed and burned?” said Sergei.

“I’m told he’s a Russian oligarch, and he had a huge hedge fund and then some sort of deal went bad, and everyone’s pulled out of the hedge fund, and it’s a disaster for him.”

Magdalena said to Sergei, “Oh, I think I remember him! He was in our line at the opening day of Art Basel. A big man. He kept cutting into the line ahead of people.”

“Oh, also I saw him there.” He chuckled. “And so now he’s a master of disaster…” He turned toward the blonde. “Why do these ‘masters of disaster’ want to humiliate themselves this way on this show of yours?”

“Well, they seem to figure everybody already knows what happened to them, so they might as well make their comeback by showing they’re bloodied but unbowed.” She smiled slyly this time. “Either that… or the fee we pay them for the right to do the show.”

“How much is that?”

With the same knowing smile the blonde said, “It varies, it varies. All I can tell you is that masters of disaster always cash that check.”

Sergei looked at Magdalena with his eyes opened wide—which was very wide for him—and the slightest of smiles… altogether an expression that said, “This is too good to miss. How about it?”

Magdalena nodded yes with a big smile of her own. So they both signed the releases. The blonde glanced at them and said, “Oh, Mr. Korolyov, now I know who you are! Some people were talking about you just the other day! The Korolyov Museum of Art—and I can’t believe I’m right here talking to you. It’s an honor. You’re Russian, just like Mr. Flebetnikov! Am I right? I’m sure they’ll want you to talk to him in Russian, and they can add subtitles. It goes over great. We did that with Yves Gaultier on Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s show. Both French.” Her face turned radiant with the memory of that high point in reality show history. “The producers, the director, and the writer—they’ll all be happy to see you.”

Magdalena spoke up for the first time. “The writer?” she said.

“Well, yes… It’s all real, of course, and he doesn’t write anybody’s lines for them or anything like that… but you need somebody to give the show some… structure. You know what I mean? I mean, you can’t have sixty or seventy people in there just milling about with no focus on anything.”

Sergei gave Magdalena a knowing smile of his own. He nodded toward the big house. It was an enormous spread in the 1920s Spanish Revival style.

The entrance was manned by two black doormen in tuxedos. Inside, they found themselves in a huge old-fashioned hall, an entry gallery, as they used to be called in grand houses. ¡Dios mío! It was mobbed with merry partygoers, most of them middle-aged. What a lot of hooting and shouting! Half the men were busy getting “white-boy wasted,” as Magdalena thought of it. The new sync’n’slip music was playing over the sound system.

From out of nowhere—an Anglo, a short Anglo wearing a too-big guayabera that came down almost to his knees, materialized right before them, grinning mightily, and singing out, “Mr. Korolyov! Miss Otero! Welcome! Savannah told us you were here, and are we glad! I’m Sidney Munch. I produce Masters of Disaster. I want you to meet Lawrence Koch.”

Two men and a woman were standing together about three feet from Mr. Sidney Munch, the producer. One of them, a young man with his head completely shaved—today’s fashionable solution when a young man is afflicted with baldness of the pate—stepped forward with the biggest, friendliest smile imaginable and said, “Larry Koch,” and shook hands with Sergei. He was wearing a safari jacket with a countless number of pockets.

“And this is our writer, Marvin Belli, and our stylist, Maria Zitzpoppen.” The writer was a young man with a round, blood-pressure-red face. His ponderous gut swelled out even worse below his belt than above it. He was the sort of bubbly, cheery soul who makes it hard for you not to smile back. The stylist, Miss Zitzpoppen, was a thin, gristly woman in a white smock whose smile looked positively dour and forced compared to Belli’s. Introductions all around. Incredible smiles all around… whereupon the bald young director—unfortunately his neck was so long and so thin, his head looked like a white knob—the young director positively beamed at Sergei. “I understand you’re Russian—and you speak Russian?”

“That is true,” said Sergei. Zat ees drue.

“Well—it would be awesome if you had a conversation with Mr. Flebetnikov. That would create some real reality and give Mr. Flebetnikov’s narrative some genuine ambiance.”

“That would be ‘real reality’? Then what would be ‘unreal reality’? I hardly know Mr. Flebetnikov.” Sergei froze director Koch with a mocking grin.

“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” said director Koch. “All you need to get started is a couple of opening lines. And you and Ms. Otero look awesome. Awesome! I can tell, once you break the ice you’ll do very well. You’re certainly not shy, and Marvin can give you two or three good opening lines.”

But Sergei had already turned toward Sidney Munch, the producer. Maintaining his look of amused disbelief, he said, “This is a reality show, I thought. And I speak lines by a writer? I think the English term for that is ‘a play.’ ”

Without a moment’s hesitation Sidney Munch said, “As I’m sure you can imagine, on television you have to create a hyper-reality before it will come across to the viewer as plain reality. Marvin and Larry here have to give all this”—he gestured toward the party in progress—“a narrative. Otherwise, it will just be confusion, and this is supposed to be Mr. Flebetnikov’s own story. By the way, why do you think Mr. Flebetnikov went bankrupt like this? I hope to find out more about it, but at this point I really can’t comprehend it all.”

Sergei had to chuckle. “Oh, there are very few risk takers like Mr. Flebetnikov; he has—how you say it—‘guts’—that is the word? He has the ‘guts,’ and he makes a very big bet on American natural gas production, and energy futures are never a safe bet, and the bigger you bet, the more unsafe the bet. It was a foolish mistake in the hindsight, but Flebetnikov, he has the guts. Real guts. That is how his hedge fund made billions of dollars in the first place. He has the real guts to take the real risks.”

“That’s awesome!” said the bald-headed young director. “We’ve been struggling to figure it out and make it easy for the audience to comprehend. You’re awesome, Mr. Korolyov! Why don’t you go over and have a discussion with him about all that? He’s right over there. The cameras are on him.” He pointed toward two of the high white camera stands. You couldn’t see Flebetnikov for the crowd. But you could see video cameras aimed at him from the rear and head-on.

“So you want me to confront him and talk about his troubles,” said Sergei, more amused than ever. “You will like for someone to come to you with the television cameras and start talking about your troubles?”

“Hah!” said Munch. “I only wish I rated that much attention! I’d love it! It’s not a confrontation, not at all. It’s a chance for him to give his perspective regarding this situation, and he wouldn’t have agreed to come on this show if he weren’t prepared to bring it all out in the open. And this time he can explain it in his own native language. Maybe he wouldn’t feel comfortable going into such a complicated situation in English, but this way the entire thing can be in Russian, with English subtitles. Confrontation! Hah!—he’ll be grateful for the opportunity to talk about it in his own native tongue and capture all the nuances. Very important, the nuances. You’ll be doing him a real favor.”

Sergei all but laughed in his face. “So you think you instruct me to go over and talk to someone about things that interest you, and you film it, and that’s reality?” Now he did laugh in Sidney Munch’s face.

While Sergei was still laughing and pulling faces, Munch cast a glance at Larry, his bald-headed director in a safari jacket… a very quick glance, he cast… and resumed giving Sergei his full attention… but all the while keeping his arm down at thigh level and flapping the palm up and down. Without a word, Larry departed their little cluster, walking ever so slowly and casually… but once he was about twenty feet away, his pace sped up to the maximum. He was walking so fast, he kept having to put his hands up before him to keep from colliding with people in the crowd and continually saying something on the order of “Excuse me!… Excuse me!… Excuse me!… Excuse me!”… Magdalena caught that. Sergei hadn’t seen it at all. He was having too much fun laughing at Munch and needling him with heavy sarcasm. “What a wonderful ‘narrative’ you have! I be an actor! My role, I go up to Flebetnikov and rub his nose in his mess, and you film it—and we call that a reality show!” What a good time he was having… showing up Sidney Munch for the fraud that he was! What a little snake!

All at once a rumble and drunken hoots and howls in the crowd off to the side… and drunken anger… “Get the f*ck off my foot, you greasy tub a butter!”… Comrade Fleabittenov is more like it!”… “You don’t shove me, you big fat piece a blubber!”… “Master of Up the Asster!” The tumult only grew louder. Whatever it was, it was heading toward Magdalena and Sergei and Sidney Munch. Following it were two mobile camera stands. You couldn’t miss them, they were so tall. They rolled through the crowd like a pair of tanks.

Dios mío, the rumble! The edge of the crowd broke open—and the tumult was right on top of Magdalena. It was the great hulk of Flebetnikov himself—enraged. He was clad in an expensive-looking dark suit and white shirt. His neck was now bulging with veins, tendons, striations, and a pair of huge sternocleidomastoid muscles… and gorged with the blood of fury.

“Korolyov!” he bellowed.

Sidney Munch and Ms. Zitzpoppen knew enough to get out of the way. The big rabid Russian headed straight for Sergei, roaring in Russian, “You miserable little viper! You insult me, you attack me behind my back! On the TV! For three hundred million stupid Americans!”

He thrust his big red apoplectic face right in Sergei’s. Barely six inches separated the two. Magdalena stared anxiously at her Sergei. He didn’t move a muscle, other than to cross his arms upon his chest. He wore a smile that said I hope you know you’re crazy. He couldn’t have looked more confident or more relaxed. Cool was the word for it. Magdalena was so proud of her Sergei! She was dying to tell him that!

Flebetnikov continued to yell in Russian. “You dare call me a fool! A fool who did a foolish thing and lost all his money! You think I’ll just take that?!”

Magdalena noticed that the two mobile cameras were right on top of them, and the cameramen had their heads practically socketed into the lenses, hungrily eating up the whole scene.

Still smiling his very cool smile, Sergei was saying in Russian, “Boris Feodorovich, you know very well that’s not true. You know very well that our masters of reality here”—he motioned toward Sidney Munch and at the knob-headed director, who was right behind Flebetnikov—“will tell you any lies.”

Flebetnikov went silent. Magdalena saw him flick a glance at Munch, the producer, and she saw Munch, his arms still at his side flapping his open palm upward upward upward upward. Keep it up! Munch seemed to be signaling, Don’t stop! Pour it on! Wipe that cynical look off his arrogant face! He’s mocking you! Go get him, Big Boy! Don’t stop now!

Flebetnikov continued in Russian, “You dare stand there and mock me, Sergei Andreivich? You think I am going to put up with your arrogance! Am I going to have to wipe that smug face off for you myself?”

In Russian, Sergei responded, “Oh, come on, Boris Feodorovich, we both know this is something cooked up by these Americans. They just want to make you look foolish.”

“Foolish, there you use that word again! You dare call me a fool in my face?! Oh, I’m sorry, Sergei Andreivich, but I can’t let you go that far! Obviously, I’m bigger than you, but now you force me to do what I have to do! If you won’t remove that insulting little smile from your face yourself, then you leave me no choice!”

Magdalena had no idea what they were saying—but look at Flebetnikov’s face now! It’s positively swelling up! It’s gorged with blood! He’s putting it even closer to Sergei’s! He’s close enough to bite his nose off! He’s reached the boiling point! And Sergei! She is so proud of him. He is a man! He doesn’t flinch, much less retreat. The cool look he gave Flebetnikov hasn’t changed at all since this whole thing began. She sees Flebetnikov flick another glance at Munch. Munch nods a quick yes and flaps the open palm up and down at a furious rate. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

In Russian, Flebetnikov said, “Remember, I don’t want to do this! You insist that I do it!”

With that, he stepped back to give himself room to do what he “had to do.” With a cross between a grunt and a roar, he swung at Sergei. It was a big ponderous right hook. Even someone not as young and fit as Sergei could have wrapped up a telephone call and said goodbye before it arrived. Sergei ducked it easily and countered by ramming his shoulder into Flebetnikov’s midsection. Grrrrooof!—between a grunt and a deflating belly… and the Master of Disaster keeled over backward, him and his great gut and fat bottom. He would have hit the floor with the base of his skull had it not hit the bald-headed director’s thigh on the way down. He lay on the floor with his chest and his belly heaving with shallow breaths. His eyes were open, but they focused on nothing at all and obviously saw nothing at all. Magdalena, being a nurse, knew about such things. Sergei had obviously meant only to push the big man away. But his shoulder had struck Flebetnikov squarely in the nerve bundle of the solar plexus and knocked him out.

Producer Munch wasn’t the slightest bit concerned about the fallen star of his reality show. His attention was devoted entirely to his two cameramen up on their rolling camera stands. He kept hurling his fist with the forefinger rampant toward Flebetnikov and Sergei and shouting, “Get it all! Eat ’em up! Get it all! Eat ’em up!” The only ones trying to help the fat man were Magdalena and Sergei. Sergei leaned over the prostrate hulk, looking for signs of life. “Boris Feodorovich! Boris Feodorovich! Can you hear me?”

Producer Munch and Director Koch were in the throes of a dream coming true.

“Fabulous!” said Munch, who was doing an odd hula inside his guayabera.

“Awesome!” said Koch, who was a generation younger than Munch and didn’t say “fabulous.”

Now Sergei was kneeling beside Flebetnikov, speaking in Russian. Concern that he might have delivered a mortal blow to the fat man was written in anguish on his face. The fat man’s eyes looked like two lumps of milk glass… no irises… no pupils…

“Boris Feodorovich! I swear I wasn’t trying to hurt you! I was only trying to separate us from one another, so we could talk about all this like friends! And I still want to be your friend. Speak to me, Boris Feodorovich! We are proud Russians and we have let these slimy Americans make fools of us both!”

That word—fools—cut through the fat man’s fog. All by itself it created a stimulus response bond. At last, a sign of life! Trying mightily but incapable of anything beyond a gravelly whisper, Flebetnikov kept saying something over and over.

Oddly, he didn’t appear angry at all… merely sad…

Magdalena and Sergei both knelt by Flebetnikov’s belly-up bulk. Sergei’s head was very close to the fat man’s. Then a third pair of knees appeared in their little huddle, knees in a pair of clean, smartly ironed khaki pants… flawless creases… Magdalena and Sergei looked up. It was a thin, pale young Anglo with neatly trimmed, carefully combed blond hair. He had a spiral notebook in one hand and a ballpoint pen in the other… not an ordinary ballpoint pen—no, a ballpoint pen with a digital recording microphone built into the upper part, the wider part. He wore a navy blazer and a white shirt. He looked like an Anglo college boy, the kind you saw pictures of in magazines.

He stared at Sergei and said, “Mr. Korolyov? Hi!” He sounded friendly and shy. He blushed when Sergei stared back at him. “I’m John Smith from the Miami Herald,” he said lightly. “I’m covering Mr. Flebetnikov’s party—or reality show or whatever it is—and suddenly there was all this commotion over here.” He looked down at Flebetnikov, then back to Sergei and said, “What happened to Mr. Flebetnikov?”

::::::The Miami Herald. John Smith… Why does that ring a bell?::::::

Sergei eyed the boy blankly, but not for long. Now he gave him a look that said, in no uncertain terms, “Disintegrate!” What the boy’s arrival on the scene meant—it took Sergei a moment or two to size it up—Oh, great… this whole stupid business could wind up in the newspaper!

“Happen?” said Sergei. “Nothing happen. My friend Mr. Flebetnikov fell down. It was an accident. We call the doctor, for the safety. But Mr. Flebetnikov was stunned only a few seconds.”

“But this gentleman over here”—John Smith looked back over his shoulder vaguely—“told me that Mr. Flebetnikov tried to hit you.”

“He trip and fall,” said Sergei. “It’s nothing, my friend.” Eets nozzing, my fran.

“Golly…” said John Smith, “I need some clarification. This gentleman back here”—another vague nod over the shoulder—“he saw the whole thing and he said Mr. Flebetnikov swung at you. But you ducked the punch—‘just like a professional boxer,’ he said. You ducked the punch and countered with a blow to the body that knocked Mr. Flebetnikov out! He said it was really cool!” He put on a big awed smile, probably figuring Sergei would melt from the flattery. “Have you done much box—”

“What do I tell you? Do you hear? Nothing. I tell you nothing happen. My friend here, he trip and fall. It was an accident.”

Meantime, the fat man had begun groaning, and his whisper rose to a low mutter mutter mutter.

“What did he say?” said John Smith.

“He said, ‘That is true. It was an accident.’ ”

A voice from directly above them: “I only wish it had been an accident. But I’m afraid it was no-oh-oh-oh accident!”

Sergei, Magdalena, and John Smith looked up. Sidney Munch was standing over them… in his grossly outsized guayabera… so long, it looked like a dress. He peered down at them intently.

“This is him!” said John Smith. “The man I was telling you about!” He glanced at his spiral notebook. “Mr. Munch! He was here the whole time and told me what happened!”

“It was not a pretty sight,” said Munch. He began shaking his head. He pursed his lips and turned them down glumly at the corners. He expelled a profound sigh. He addressed his words to John Smith: “I don’t know why, but suddenly”—he motioned with his chin to indicate he was talking about Flebetnikov—“he started bellying his way through all these people”—he gestured at the mob of guests—“and came straight at Mr. Korolyov. They exchanged a few angry words and then”—he did the number with the chin again—“swung at Mr. Korolyov, and Mr. Korolyov ducked just like a prizefighter and gave”—the chin again—“such a shoulder in the midsection that”—again the Flebetnikov semaphore—“went down like six sacks a fertilizer!”

Out the corner of her eye Magdalena could see one of the mobile camera units barely four feet away with its red eye on, recording it all all all. She nudged Sergei. He pulled out of the huddle and saw it for himself.

He was seething. He straightened himself up fully erect, looked down at Munch, and stiffened his arm and forefinger and aimed them at the camera and said in a steely voice, “You filming this, too—you ubljúdok!”

His steely voice rose to a shout: “This is your little play! You send your little director over to tell lies to Flebetnikov—to make him mad! Flebetnikov didn’t do this! I didn’t do this! You did this! You make up this lie! This is not reality—this is a lie!”

Munch put on the face of a man who has been terribly wounded by a cruel remark uttered for the sole purpose of hurting his feelings. “But Mr. Korolyov, how can you say this isn’t reality? All of this just happened! Once something happens, it becomes real, and once it’s real, it becomes part of reality. No? Mr. Flebetnikov didn’t pretend to be angry. He was angry! Nobody told you that you had to defend yourself. You decided to defend yourself! And quite rightly! And quite beautifully and athletically, if I may say so. Have you ever been a prizefighter? In the ring did you—”

“THAT IS ENOUGH!” said Sergei. “You listen to me! You don’t run anything that shows me, and you do not use anything I say! You do not have the right! I will sue! And that is only where we begin. You understand?!”

“But Mr. Korolyov, you signed a release!” Munch said in his same hurt voice. “You gave us permission to record whatever you did and whatever you said on our show. We proceeded on your word. We accepted you as a man of your word. You signed the release. It couldn’t have made it any clearer. And certainly what we filmed will show you in a positive light. Mr.”—he gave the Flebetnikov semaphore—“attacked you and you defended yourself with courage and strength and speed and athletic sureness when a man”—Flebetnikov semaphore—“double your size, double everybody’s size, launched a surprise attack, a physical attack. Please think about it! You will want to appear on Masters of Disaster. Miami knows you as a noble, immensely generous benefactor of the museum, of all of South Florida. This program will show the man behind the great generosity. This program will show the world… a real man!”

Magdalena noticed that the reporter, John Smith, was recording all with his digital-recorder ballpoint pen. He was eating it all up every bit as much as Munch. And Sergei? He was deflating before Magdalena’s very eyes. His big powerful blood-gorged neck was shrinking… likewise his marvelous sculpted chest—even his strong, wide shoulders were deflating rapidly. His jacket seemed, to Magdalena, to be sticking inches out beyond those once-strong, once-wide shoulders of his and drooping down. Magdalena could tell: Sergei realized that this little Sidney Munch had outsmarted him… him, the mighty Russian who could handle anybody, and certainly a little con man like Munch… and now Munch had tricked him into performing precisely the self-abasing, humiliating dancing-bear number he wanted him to perform—

And he had signed the release! He had surrendered his rights like the most pathetic mark who ever lived!

Sergei shot Munch one last malevolent stare and said in his low, seething voice, “I hope you heard me. I didn’t ask you not to show that film. I said that you will not show it. Suing is not the only thing that can happen. Other things can happen. You will never see that film on television.” Magdalena couldn’t see Sergei’s face, but she could see Mr. Munch’s as he looked at Sergei. His face was frozen, except for his eyelids, which blinked blinked blinked blinked.

“Mr. Korolyov! Mr. Korolyov!” It was John Smith, coming up behind them. Sergei gave him a look that could kill, but the pale reporter, thin as an earphone wire, was relentless. “Mr. Korolyov—before you go! You were awesome just now! You—well, I know you’re leaving, but could I give you a call? I’d like to give you a call, if that’s—”

John Smith recoiled in midsentence. The look on Sergei’s face seemed to take his breath away. This was not the mere look that kills. This was the look that kills and then smoke-cures the carcass and eats it.

They left the mansion and began walking back to the gatehouses. Sergei stared straight ahead—at nothing. The look on his face was as morose as any Magdalena had ever seen on a human face, even at Jackson Memorial Hospital in the moment of freefall that precedes death. He began muttering to himself in Russian. He was still walking beside her, but his mind had departed to another zone.

“Muttermirovmutterlameimutternesmayamuttermilayshmutterkhlopovmutter—”

Magdalena couldn’t stand it. She broke in: “Sergei, what’s wrong? What are you muttering about? Come baaaaaack!”

Sergei looked at her crossly, but at last he began speaking English. “This little midget, this bastard, this Munch—I can’t believe I let that happen! That little ball of American scum—and I let him trick me! He knew exactly how to put ‘me’ into his stinking reality show—and I didn’t see it coming! He makes me look like some idiot brawler from the streets! One minute I’m the big—what is the American word? donor?—and they honor me for giving tens of millions of dollars’ worth of paintings to a museum—and now I’m a fool who sinks so low as to appear on this garbage ‘reality show’! Do you know what Flebetnikov said when I leaned over him to see if he was still breathing, still had a heartbeat—I was afraid he was dead! But thank God he’s still alive. He can barely talk at all, but with this pitiful voice he whispers into my ear, ‘Sergei Andreivich, I did not mean it.’ He didn’t have to say any more. The look in his eyes—he was pleading. ‘Sergei Andreivich,’ he’s saying, ‘please forgive me. They tell me, “You got to go start a fight.” ’ Poor Boris Feodorovich. He’s broke, he’s desperate. He needs the money they offer him. Then they start making hints. If he performs well on this show, maybe they give him a ‘reality show’ of his own. Maybe they call it The Mad Russian?—I don’t know, but now I see how these slimy Americans work. They force Boris Feodorovich to drag me into their cesspool by attacking me—physically! Once he swings his pathetic punch, I’m in their filthy show, like it or not. I, who showed such contempt for this Munch—he tricks me like any other poor lokh. I can’t believe this! Some slimy little American!”

They were now at the end of the walkway, approaching the twin gatehouses. The gatehouses looked enormous in this dim electric dusk. It didn’t so much illuminate them as suggest their size… an edge of slate on the roofs… the white architraves around the windows… the shadows in the deep relief of some sort of plaster medallion with fanciful figures in it.

At the very end of the walkway, the big blonde, “Savannah,” was still at the card table. The light was just enough to illuminate her as she sat with her back toward them… her sleeveless dress, the whiteness of her broad, bare shoulders, the streaks of blond highlights in her hair… Sergei stopped in his tracks and said to Magdalena, “That kvynt… look at her. She’s the one who started it all.”

He didn’t say it loudly. In fact, he didn’t so much say it as seethe it. But it was loud enough for this woman, Savannah, to hear something. She rose from her chair and turned about. Magdalena’s heart began racing. Sergei had the same look on his face he had just before he tore into the poor Number Five chess player at Gogol’s. ::::::Dear God, spare me! I can’t take another appalling scene like that one!:::::: She held her breath in absolute fear.

The woman, Savannah, broke into a smile. She sang out, “Hi! How did it go?”

A furious Sergei stared death rays at her for one beat, two beats, three beats, far too many beats… then… “It was amazing—wonderful!” It came out Eet vas amazing—vonderful!—but his great joy was unmistakable. “I am so glad we listen to you!”

Magdalena couldn’t believe her ears. She took a half step forward and glanced ever so quickly at Sergei’s face. ¡Dios mío! Could that smile possibly be as sincere and… and… and as heartfelt as it looked? “Yes, we have you to thank, Savannah!” Oh, the comradeship, even love, he bathed her name in! “That was not a show,” said Sergei. “It was an experience, a—a—a lesson in the life itself! Flebetnikov—Boris Feodorovich—he demonstrate us what bravery”—came out brafery—“is made of!”

He was giving Savannah a look of not mere happiness… but enchantment. He was Goodwill and Gratitude walking this earth in shiny leather shoes. So successfully did he personify these things, a remarkable smile came over Savannah’s face. It was huge, and it gleamed. Her teeth sure were long… but they were also perfectly even… and so white and bright, they overwhelmed the dim electro-gloaming out here on Flebetnikov’s front lawn.

“Well, thank you,” she said. “But I didn’t really do very much—”

“But you did! You did! You suffer my grumbles so patiently. You encourage me so much!” Sergei began walking toward Savannah, holding out both hands, the way one does when he offers his affection to a dear friend. The delighted, brightly luxodontic Savannah held out both hands to him, and he clasped them with his the moment he reached her.

“Suddenly he has lost everything,” Sergei went on, “but he wants the world to know”—he gave his grip on her hands a good pump to underscore know—“to know that when the worst happens to a brave man, he has a strength inside him”—he gave inside a good pump—“and it is the power of the heart—the human heart!” He gave Savannah’s hands two pumps, one for the heart and another for the human heart.

::::::Talk about enchanted. Look at the expression on her face. She’s the very picture of a woman wondering if—barely able to surrender herself to the possibility that—this vision is real. This incredibly handsome celebrity with a European accent is holding both her hands in his and squeezing them—and pouring his soul into her wide eyes. Could this be true? But it is true! She can feel the touch of his very hands! Her eyes can’t gulp down his deepest emotions fast enough!::::::

“He discover a power greater than what he live for these so many years, the power of money.” A couple more pumps. “I am so sorry you were not with us”—he gestured toward the house—“to see it, but I am sure that Sidney—Mr. Munch—a man of great talent and sympathy, by the way”—sympazy, by se vay—“will show you the film with haste. But please, I must ask you to check one thing”—von zing—“I told him I am at his service any time he have a question about Boris Feodorovich and what he did these years in Russia or anything else. But I want to be certain I put all the information on this form. I was in such a rush! The e-mail, the cell phone number, the address, all these things.” He gave her hands one last pump, then released them.

“All right,” said Savannah, “let’s check.” She sat back down in her chair, reached under the table, and came up with a metal file box and put it on the tabletop. She produced a key from out of her handbag and opened it. “It should be right here on top…” With that, she withdrew a sheet of paper and said, “Here it is. Now what was it exactly you wanted me to check—e-mail did you say?”

“Let me see it for a moment,” said Sergei, who was standing beside her. She handed it to him, and he gave her the warmest and most grateful smile yet… and folded the form in two the long way and in two again and slipped it into a pocket inside his jacket… smiling smiling smiling to beat the band.

Savannah’s bright luxodontic glow dimmed a bit. “What are you doing with that?”

“I must examine it in the better light.” Still smiling smiling smiling, he motioned to Magdalena, took her by the arm, undid the velvet rope, and headed toward the big gatehouse. “Thank you, dear Savannah, for everything.”

Savannah, honey’s, glow now dimmed a lot, and her voice rose. “Please—Sergei—that mustn’t leave here!”

::::::Sergei, she calls him! All that talk—he must have put her under a spell!::::::

Sergei quickened their pace and sang back over his shoulder in the cheeriest voice Magdalena could imagine, “Oh, my dear Savannah, don’t worry! Everything is for the best!”

“No! Sergei!—Mr. Korolyov!—you mustn’t!—you can’t!—please!”

Sergei smiled back at her as he walked, and he was walking fast. They didn’t follow the wiggly-curving walkway but cut straight across the lawn. He hailed a valet.

“Mr. Korolyov! Stop! That’s not yours!” Her voice had reached a shrill, panicked level—and it seemed closer. She must be coming after them. And then, “Oh, shit!”

Magdalena glanced back. The woman had tripped. She sat on the grass with one shoe on and one shoe off, rubbing her ankle. The pain distorted her face. Her high heel must have sunk into the lawn. No more glow at all.

The valet pulled up in the Aston Martin. Sergei smiled at Magdalena and chuckled and laughed and said something and laughed and chuckled some more. Any normal, unbriefed onlooker—such as the valet—would think here was half-a-drunk who must have had a cool time at the party… and got himself sloshed enough to give a valet a fifty-dollar bill. As they pulled away, Magdalena could see Savannah hurrying back to the house barefoot—with a very contemporary high-heeled kind of limp.

By the time they crossed the little bridge from Star Island to the MacArthur Causeway, Sergei was laughing so hard, he could barely catch a breath. “I wish I can stay and see the look on the face of that little toad, Munch, when the woman tell him what happen! I would give anything!”

As he drove, he put his hand on Magdalena’s knee and left it there for a while. Neither of them said a word. Magdalena’s heart was beating so fast and she was breathing so rapidly, she knew she couldn’t have said a word without her voice quavering. Then he slipped his hand three-quarters of the way up her thigh.

Now Sergei had reached Collins Avenue. Magdalena stayed absolutely still. If he turned right, it would be toward her apartment. If he turned left, it would be toward his… He turned left!—and Magdalena couldn’t help herself. Immediately she telepathed Amélia over the fiber-figmental chimericoptic connection she had left on all evening, “I told you! It depends, it depends!” Very gently Sergei slipped his hand all the way to her crotch and began stroking it. She felt a rush of fluid rising up in her loins and telepathed Amélia again. “I swear to you, Amélia, I’m not making a decision. It’s just happening.”

Sergei’s apartment was grander than anything she could have imagined. The living room was two stories high. The place had a very modern look but not modern in any way she had ever seen before—walls of glass so extravagantly etched with surreal swoops and swirls of women in phantasmagorical gowns, you could barely see anything through them. Sergei took her to the second floor up a curving staircase with a dark wooden banister inlaid with could-that-be-real ivory. He opened the bedroom door and bade her enter first… an enormous room lit by the sort of downlights she had seen in clubs… the bed—it was gigantic… walls of is-that-velvet—she didn’t absorb another detail, for at that moment he embraced her from behind, so powerfully she could feel the overwhelming strength of his arms, not to mention his pelvic thrust. He buried his head in the crook of her neck and with a single motion just like that swept her dress clear off her shoulders and down as far as her waist. ::::::Amélia’s dress—did he rip it?:::::: The V of the dress was so deep and so wide, it wasn’t made for wearing anything under it, and there she was… he slid his hands up her rib cage—

The line to Amélia went down, vanished, became irrelevant from that moment on.