Moscow Rules

for a while and think about it.”
     
     
    Lavon tossed the bone onto the pile and placed his chin in his palm.
     
     
    “I’ll help.”
     

 
    40
     
     
    SAINT-TROPEZ, FRANCE
     
     
    Next day, the heat arrived. It came from the south on a scalding wind, fierce, dry, and filled with grit. The pedestrians who ventured into the centre ville clung to the false cool of the shadows, while on the coastline, from the Baie de Pampelonne down to Cap Cartaya, beachgoers huddled motionless beneath their parasols or sat simmering in the shallows. A few deranged souls stretched themselves prostrate upon the broiling sands; by late morning, they looked like casualties of a desert battle. At noon, the local radio reported that it was officially the hottest day ever recorded in Saint-Tropez. All agreed the Americans were to blame.
     
     
    Villa Soleil, Ivan Kharkov’s estate on the Baie de Cavalaire, seemed to have been spared the full force of the heat’s fury. Immediately behind its twelve-foot walls lay a vast circular drive where nymphs frolicked in splashing fountains and flowers erupted in gardens groomed to hotel brochure perfection. The villa itself stood hard against the rocky coastline, imposing its own beauty upon the remarkable landscape. It was more palace than home, an endless series of loggias, marble corridors, statuary halls, and cavernous sitting rooms where white curtains billowed and snapped like mainsails in the constant breeze. Each wing of the house seemed to have its own unique view of the sea. And each view, thought Sarah, was more breathtaking than the last.
     
     
    They finally came upon Elena at the end of a long, cool colonnade with a checkerboard marble floor. She wore a strapless top and a floor-length wrap that shimmered with each breath of wind. Ivan stood next to her, a glass of wine sweating in his grasp. Once again, he was wearing black and white, as if to illustrate the fact that he was a man of contradictions. This time, however, the colors of his outfit were reversed: black shirt, white trousers. As they greeted each other with the casualness of an old friendship renewed, his enormous wristwatch caught the rays of the sun and reflected them into Sarah’s eyes. Before treating her to a damp kiss and a blast of his rich aftershave, he placed his wineglass carelessly on the plinth of a statue. It was female, nude, and Greek. For the moment, Sarah thought spitefully, it was the world’s most expensive coaster.
     
     
    It was immediately clear that Elena’s invitation to a quiet lunch and swim had been transformed by Ivan into a more extravagant affair. On the terrace below the colonnade, a table had been set for twenty-four. Several pretty young girls were already cavorting in a pool the size of a small bay, watched over by a dozen middle-aged Russians lounging about on chaises and divans. Ivan introduced his guests as if they were simply more of his possessions. There was a man who did something with nickel, another who traded in timber, and one, with a face like a fox, who ran a personal and corporate security firm in Geneva. The girls in the pool he introduced collectively, as though they had no names, only a purpose. One of them was Yekatarina, Ivan’s supermodel mistress, a gaunt, pouty child of nineteen, all arms, legs, and breasts, colored to caramel perfection. She gazed hard at Sarah, as though she were a potential rival, then leapt into the pool like a dolphin and disappeared beneath the surface.
     
     
    Sarah and Mikhail settled themselves between the wife of the nickel magnate, who looked deeply bored, and the timber trader, who was genial but dull. Ivan and Elena returned to the colonnade, where more guests were arriving in boisterous packs. They came down the steps in waves, like revolutionaries storming the Winter Palace, and with each new group the volume and intensity of the party seemed to rise a notch. Several frosted bottles of vodka appeared; dance music pulsated from invisible speakers. On the terrace, a second table was set for lunch, then a third. The vast pool soon took on the appearance of just another of Ivan’s fountains, as nubile nymphs were groped and tossed about by fat millionaires and muscled bodyguards. Elena moved effortlessly from group to group, kissing cheeks and refreshing drinks, but Ivan remained aloof, gazing upon the merriment as though it were a performance arranged for his own private amusement.
     
     
    It was nearly three o’clock