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“You know of these rumors,” Rotella waved his empty glass, indicating the invisible currents that swirled around Mitnick. “That you made your fortune through ill-gotten gains, that you are a dangerous man who hides from his enemies in our peaceable Republic, that your troubles will follow you to our shores.” Rotella spoke like he was reading from yesterday’s newspaper. “The usual rumors that come with a man who arrives with an odd passport and much money.”
Mitnick leaned back onto his desk. “If these rumors are typical, then surely a knowledgable man such as yourself knows how to combat them.”
Rotella stepped towards Mitnick and held out his glass, which Mitnick dutifully took to refill. “You already do all a man can to swat aside such controversies. You have shown yourself to be civilized, spent money in our struggling economy, reached out and offered gifts to politicians who rely on such things.”
“Then why does your investigation persist?”
“Because it must. If anyone notices your appearance on our shores, then those politicians cannot feign ignorance. They must be able to point to me and tell the nosy journalist or citizen, ‘L’Inspecteur Rotella is looking into such matters.'”
“And what has the inspector found in his investigations into such matters?” Mitnick handed the refilled glass back to Rotella.
Rotella swirled the amber in his glass around, moving it with anticipation, savoring the small joy of good liquor. “Nothing unforgivable, no refugee or terrorist connections. But there is a rumor, blacker than the rest, a tiny malignancy that threatens all of it.”
Mitnick looked at Rotella as one merchant watching another try to drive up the price. “What is this blackest of rumors?”
Rotella heaved a sigh and barely raised his eyes to Mitnick as if liquor and shame had their own gravity. “There is gossip that you hold a woman here against her will. A prisoner.”
Mitnick stared like the words had been pronounced in a language no one understood. The tension only ripened as Mitnick leaned forward from his desk, eyes urging Rotella on, clearly expecting more. When nothing came, the intensity popped with a laugh from Mitnick. “There is no prisoner here. I’m not some kind of kidnapper.”
From behind us, Sophie’s voice pierced the booze and testosterone bubble with a simple question. “Then there is no woman you keep in your house?” All eyes moved to Sophie. “Besides your wife and children?”
“I would not keep another woman in the same house as my wife.” The words, “another woman,” came steeped in a second meaning of “mistress.”
Sophie proceeded without care. “No other family but her and your children?”
Mitnick straightened in a way that caused me to remember how fast he had moved at the cathedral, that he could launch his body into dangerous action. I don’t know if this was because he was being questioned by a woman or because the nature of the question, but he clearly didn’t like it. “I have guests in the house. Visitors from the homeland.”
“Is one of your guests named Nika?” The question sucked all the air out of the room.
That vacuum took all of the warmth from Mitnick. “How do you know this?”
“These are the rumors that the Inspecteur speaks of. That this young Nika is here and cannot leave.”
Mitnick’s drained warmth became an icy carapace. “Nika is a guest in my home, not a prisoner. I do not know how such foul rumors came to be, but she is well taken care of, not shackled to the wall.”
“Prisoners can be well taken care of. They just cannot leave.” Sophie’s words held the truth of experience.
Mitnick stared at Sophie with an intensity earned through hundreds of dangerous encounters, a promise that an invisible line existed and she was coming very close to it. When this bounced off her, Mitnick returned to Rotella and myself.
Gazing into his glass, Rotella responded with, “There are such rumors.”
Mitnick drained his own liquor. Then, “Nika is a…in-law, from the old country. Who is staying with us. Nothing more. She will return home at the end of the summer.
“Sometimes Russia can be a dangerous place. It is better for our loved ones not to be there.”
At this common pull on our humanity we nodded. Rotella proved his bravery by persisting. “But the rumor we must dispel.”
Mitnick paused as a door opened and Brick returned. Oblivious to the tension that had gathered in his absence, he crossed the room with a champagne flute and offered it to Sophie. She thanked him. I think I saw the big lug blush.
While Brick returned to his corner Mitnick continued. “And how would we do this? Dispel these rumors?”
Gesturing to Sophie, Rotella said, “Our friend would speak with her.”
“What would this prove?”
“Prove?” Rotella asked, the concept of an absolute truth slightly absurd. “It would prove nothing. But she is friends with many of the men you wish to be friends with. If she goes to them and says your house is a place of solace for a young lady waiting for danger in the homeland to pass? They would believe her and know that this place is a home and not a bomb waiting to explode.”
Mitnick stared at Rotella, his brain translating what he had said. When this process finished he grinned at me, his fellow emigrant. “This is such a strange country.”
I couldn’t disagree with him, so I didn’t.
Mitnick shook his head then glanced at a wristwatch that could have defined the word bling. “Nika keeps odd hours, but she is usually awake by now.” He gestured to Whip. “I will need to ask if she wishes to speak.” He stared pointedly at Sophie. “It is her choice. You understand?”
“I will need to speak with her alone.”
That stopped Mitnick. “Pardon?”
Sophie repeated herself and took a sip of champagne.
Mitnick stared at Sophie with an intensity that made me want to impose myself between the two. I didn’t. I was glad to see to this side of Mitnick. Despite my knowledge of how he made his money, there was a part of me that liked him. Seeing this casual misogyny, though, made it easier to mentally connect him to the cathouses and the systemic brutality that kept them going.
With a sound like escaping pressure, Mitnick asked, “Why?” Rotella shifted his weight into what I hoped wasn’t an impending white knight transformation.
“I must know,” she answered, “that she speaks the truth. And in the presence of the master of the house, she may not feel free to do so.”
Sophie referring to him as the ruler of his domain calmed Mitnick. He broke eye contact to smooth his tie, his smile tainted with a bit of sheepishness. “Nika is mischievous. She may not speak the truth.”
Sophie laughed indicating she understood Mitnick’s concerns about the duplicitous nature of women. It settled both of the other men, Rotella practically winking at her with admiration. Mitnick’s usual confidence returned, this deference clearly the treatment he expected from the women in his life.
Sophie’s laughter trailed off like wind chimes settling. “I will tell you everything she says, of course.”
The implication of Sophie’s words calmed Mitnick further. Putting aside the pretense that he needed Nika’s permission, he said to Whip, “Go and bring Nika to us.”
Sophie leaned back into her chair, demonstrating Mitnick’s decree resolved all of the questions swirling around. Whip moved quickly, leaving only the sound pleated cuffs in his wake. I stared into my untouched drink, wondering how to pass the minutes it would take to bring Nika.
Unsurprisingly, Mitnick took the lead, asking Rotella, “So when this silliness is resolved, we will have no issue between us?”
Rotella replied, “The matter that makes the men you wish to know nervous will be resolved, surely. My friends and I can make certain of that.”
“You can? Or you will?” Mitnick asked, his smile returning to it full wattage.
“We can. Whether they will listen is another matter.”
“And what determines if they will listen?”
They danced around each other like that for awhile and I tuned it out, not caring about the international intricacies of graft. Eventually, Whip returned with Nika. He held the door for her and she swept in. She was short with dark, shoulder-length hair over smooth, pale skin. She didn’t let the strangers in the room slow her down. She came in to stand in front of Mitnick.
I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the dark-haired young woman wasn’t it. In her sweatshirt and shorts and Converse shoes she looked like she should be getting ready for her college classes, not some rich kid who spent nights partying at the Factory. Whatever eating disorder I had conjured for a Russian princess wasn’t there either as she was a healthy weight with full cheeks and slightly puffy lower lip. She stuck a button-sized nose at Mitnick and asked a simple, imperious, “What?”
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