No mistaking that body language.
“You like women?” A definite come-on. Aimée wanted to crawl back into the limo and speed away. But it wasn’t her limo and it wouldn’t speed away.
Aimée nodded. “And men.”
“Bi, me too. Why frown on pleasure? A drink later, yes? I’m off tonight.”
Aimée had never been propositioned by a female Russian bodyguard before. Always a first time.
“Give me your number.” Aimée took Svetla’s cell phone and replaced it with hers before Svetla could object. “We’ll key each other’s number in. French numbers are so difficult.” As she keyed in a number that went to an answering service, she casually nudged her bag with her elbow so it landed on Svetla’s foot. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
As Svetla reached down, Aimée scrolled to the last three numbers dialed—all the same. Before she could memorize the number, Svetla palmed her phone. Shot her a look. “Tonight.”
By the time Aimée entered the lobby, there was no trace of Tatyana or the diva. Conversations buzzed from huddled groups of men in dark suits, blue shirts, and red ties—the Ministry uniform. Definitely something high-powered going on. A hovering man, obviously a plainclothes hotel detective, had glided toward her.
“May I help you?”
Get lost, she wanted to say.
“Madame Bereskova forgot something in the limo,” she said.
“I’ll make sure Madame gets it,” he said, blocking her way by the Hemingway Bar sign.
She brushed past him, flashing her father’s old police ID with her photo on it. The only way with minions like this.
Hurrying down the long, plush carpeted corridor, she heard a hiss. A snap of fingers. “You! Here!”
Tatyana, her eyes narrowed in anger, gestured at her from an alcove. Her long, red fingernails stabbed the air.
“What do you want, spy?”
“Simple,” Aimée said. “Call the Serb off.”
Tatyana’s mascaraed eyes crinkled. “Like I know what you mean? Get lost or I call—”
“Dmitri? I’d like to meet him.”
Tatyana’s thick foundation creased in a network of fine lines. Not as young as Aimée thought. Or else the woman had had a hard life.
“Maybe you want him and the flics to know you hired—?”
“Shhh.” Tatyana gestured to ladies’ restroom. “In here.”
Tatyana checked the cubicles, the closet with extra hand towels and soap, the dish with coins for the attendant. Empty. “I make it quick before the pipi lady come back,” she said, arranging her sleek blonde bob. “Quit hounding my husband.”
“Oleg called me.”
“I mean following us around, like yesterday and today,” Tatyana said.
Yesterday? “You’re paranoid, Tatyana. Give me the Serb’s number. The contact.”
“What do I know?” She shrugged. “It’s his brother. He’s pissed, out of my control. Right now you want a cut. Fine. Ten percent.”
“Quit haggling,” Aimée said. “Bereskova’s your buyer, right?”
“He has museum.” Tatyana pouted.
“He’s a Lenin stalwart, or an art connoisseur?”
“What he knows about art fits in my toenail. Maybe the babushkas in his orphanage idolized Lenin.”
“What does that mean?”
Tatyana’s eyes glinted. “Fifteen percent?”
Aimée tried another angle. “Why is your diva friend unhappy?”
“So much money and still unhappy. I don’t know.”
“Quit the act, Tatyana. Cooperate or—”
“Dmitri not big oligarch now. More like a gardener,” Tatyana said, glancing at her watch. A white Chanel. A gift from the diva or an imitation, Aimée couldn’t tell. “He needs art, this museum.”
“A gardener?”
“Dmitri plants seeds, adds fertilizer, water, like that.”
“I don’t understand.” She wished Tatyana made more sense.
“Dmitri grows connections, like you say. Needs to make himself legitimate again. Now he have so many little projects, all seeds he’s trying to plant to grow into something big, put him back on top. Museum is one seed.”
Then it fit together. Dmitri was the buyer.
“So Dmitri wants the Modigliani to legitimize his museum and gain connections?”
“Who knows? But he owes krysha, we call it in my country—it’s how you do business.”
“Krysha?”
“Protection and patronage.” Looking bored, Tatyana smoothed back an eyebrow in the mirror. “Maybe Lenin means something to him.” A short laugh. “Dmitri comes from nothing. He was raised in a collective orphanage. Worked at a factory all the way up the apparatchik ladder. A self-made man. But last year he backed the wrong—how you say—Eurocrat? I give him credit. He wants to be back at the top.”
Aimée’s surprise must have shown on her face.
A bitter laugh. “No secret. The price of doing business. That’s Moscow rules. Honor krysha if you want to stay alive.”
“So you furnish the Modigliani and he owes you, non?”
Tatyana’s cell phone rang. She checked the number. “I must go. He’s pressuring me.” Her tone went serious. “I need the painting. We make it work for everyone.”
Aimée blocked the door. “The Serb threatened my partner. You’re not leaving until I find him.”
Tatyana hesitated, considering. “Avenue Claude Vellefaux, a café-bar by the hospital. That’s all I know.” Her eyes narrowed. “All right, twenty percent. But furnish it tonight.”
“TATYANA GAVE UP the info too easily,” Aimée said.
Back at Leduc Detective, she’d finished her account and a bottle of fizzy Badoit after handing Saj his clothes and malware program. The office was filled with the scent of sage still smoldering in the incense bowl—Saj’s ritual of purification and cleansing of auras. After last night, she agreed to it. Aimée flicked her lighter and lit another bundled stick of sage, wishing she were lighting a cigarette instead.
“She sounds desperate if she offered you twenty percent,” Saj said, sitting on his tatami mat, a program running on his screen. “Or she’s playing the oligarch. On the other hand, he could be playing her, too.”