The Collector
Page 72

He tucked her father away for now. He knew all about fathers who weren’t quite satisfied with their child’s career direction.
“I bought your book.”
“You did not.” Flustered, delighted, she studied him. “Did you?”
“And read it. It’s fun, and it’s clever—and it’s incredibly visual. You know how to paint a picture with words.”
“A huge compliment from someone who actually paints pictures. On top of the compliment of actually reading a young adult novel.”
“I’m not a teenager, but it hooked me in. I can see why Rylee’s jonesing for the second book. And I didn’t mention it before,” he added, “because I thought you’d figure I was saying it so you’d sleep with me. Too late for that now.”
“That’s . . . nice. I probably would’ve thought that—you’d still have gotten points. But you get more this way. This is nice,” she said, with a gesture that swept over the skyline. “Uptown, but normal. It makes Imperial eggs and ruthless collectors thereof seem like the fiction.”
“Kaylee could find one.”
Thinking of her fictional heroine, Lila shook her head. “No, not Fabergé, but some mystical egg of legend. A dragon’s egg, or a magic crystal egg. Hmm. That could be interesting. And if I’m going to have her do anything, I better get back to her.”
He rose with her. “I want to stay again tonight.”
“Oh. Because you want to sleep with me or because you don’t want me here alone?”
“Both.”
“I like the first reason. But you can’t set yourself up as my co-house-sitter, Ash.”
He touched her arm as she began to load the tray. “Let’s just leave it, for now, at tonight.”
Short-term plans worked smoother, to her mind. “All right.”
“And tomorrow you can give me a couple hours in the studio. You can bring the dog.”
“Can I?”
“We can take a walk by Luke’s bakery.”
“Cupcake bribery. My favorite. All right. We’ll see how it goes today. We’ve got Kerinov first on the list.”
He liked lists, and long-term plans, and all the steps it took to get from here to there. He liked being here, with Lila. But he was starting to consider what it might be like—and what it might take—to get there.
Lila returned with Earl Grey from his afternoon walk to find the doorman speaking with a spindly little man with a soccer ball paunch and a long, graying braid. He wore faded jeans, a Grateful Dead T-shirt, and he carried a battered shoulder-strap satchel.
She took him for a messenger, would have walked by with a smile for the doorman, but heard him say, with the faintest of accents:
“Alexi Kerinov.”
“Mr. Kerinov?” She’d expected someone older than what she gauged as mid-fifties—someone in a suit with white hair and maybe a natty little goatee.
He gave her a wary look from behind tinted glasses. “Yes.”
“I’m Lila Emerson. I’m with Ashton Archer.”
“Ah yes.” He offered her a hand, soft as a baby’s butt. “It’s good to meet you.”
“Would you mind showing me some ID?”
“No, of course.” He pulled out a wallet, offered her his driver’s license. Approved, she noted, for operating motorcycles.
No, she thought, he was nothing like she’d imagined.
“I’ll take you up. Thanks, Dwayne.”
“You got it, Ms. Emerson.”
“Can I leave my case?” He gestured to the wheeled suitcase beside him.
“Sure,” Dwayne told him. “I’ll put it away for you.”
“Thank you. I was in D.C.,” he told Lila as he followed her to the elevator. “A quick business trip. A teacup poodle?” He held out the back of his hand for Earl Grey to sniff. “My mother-in-law has one she calls Kiwi.”
“This is Earl Grey.”
“Distinguished.”
“So. Deadhead?” She nodded at his shirt, watched him grin.
“The first concert I went to after coming to America. I was transformed.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“I was eight when we left what was the Soviet Union.”
“Before the wall came down.”
“Yes, before. My mother was a dancer for the Bolshoi, my father a teacher of history, and a very clever man who kept his political leanings so close, even his children weren’t aware.”
“How did you get out?”
“We were allowed, my sister and I, to attend a performance in London, of Swan Lake. My father had friends in London, contacts. He and my mother planned for months, not telling Tallia or me. One night after a performance, we got in a cab—a late supper, my sister and I thought, but it wasn’t a cabdriver. This friend of my father’s drove us—like a madman—through the streets of London and to the embassy, and we were given asylum. And from there, we went to New York. It was very exciting.”
“I bet. As exciting for an eight-year-old boy as it must’ve been terrifying for your parents.”
“I didn’t understand the risk they took until it was all done. We had a good life in Moscow, you see, even a privileged one.”
“But they wanted freedom.”
“Yes. More for their children than themselves, and they gave us that gift.”
“Where are they now?”
“They live in Brooklyn. My father is now retired, but my mother has a little school of dance.”
“They left everything behind,” she said as they stepped out of the elevator. “To give their children a life in America. They’re heroes.”
“Yes, you understand. I owe them . . . Jerry Garcia, and everything else. Were you, too, a friend of Vinnie’s?”
“No, not really. But you were.” She unlocked the penthouse door. “I’m sorry.”
“He was a good man. His funeral is tomorrow. I never thought . . . We talked only days ago. When I read the documents, I thought, Vinnie will go crazy. I couldn’t wait to talk to him, to come back and meet with him and plan what to do. And now . . .”
“You have to bury your friend.” She touched a hand to his arm, led him inside.
“This is wonderful. Such a view! This is George the Third.” He moved straight in and to a gilded cabinet. “Beautiful, perfect. Circa 1790. I see you collect snuff bottles. This opal is particularly fine. And this . . . I’m sorry.”