“Another secret?”

“Location. The Swedes have poured millions into an eighteen-hole resort outside town. It’s going to have conference facilities, communications center, super security so that businessmen and tourists can come without ever really staying in Moscow. In comparison, we’re downtown, right on the river, practically across from the Kremlin. Look what it took—a little paint, AstroTurf, clubs and balls. We’re in guidebooks and foreign magazines, and all of it was Rudy’s idea.” He looked Arkady up and down. “What sport did you play?”

“Football in school.”

“Position?”

“Mainly goal.” Arkady wasn’t going to claim any athletic distinction in Borya’s company.

“Like me. The best position. You study, see the attack, learn anticipation. The game comes down to a couple of kicks. And when you commit, you commit, right? If you try to save yourself, that’s how you get hurt. For me, of course, playing was a way to see the world. I didn’t understand what food was until we went to Italy. I still referee some international games just to eat well.”

“To see the world” had to be a mild description of Borya’s ambition, Arkady thought. Gubenko had grown up in the concrete “Khrushchev Barracks” of Long Pond. In Russian, Khrushchev rhymed with slum, giving bite to the title. Borya would have been raised on cabbage soup and cabbage hopes, and here he was talking about Italian restaurants.

Arkady asked, “What do you think happened to Rudy?”

“I think that what happened to Rudy was a national disaster. He was the only real economist in the country.”

“Who killed him?”

Without hesitating, Borya said, “Chechens. Makhmud is a bandit with no concept of Western style or business. The fact is, he holds everyone else back. The more fear, the better—never mind that it closes a market down. The more unsettled everyone else is, the stronger the Chechens become.”

On the tees a tier overhead, the Japanese hit a unified salvo, followed by excited shouts of “Banzai!”

Borya smiled and pointed his club up. “They fly from Tokyo to Hawaii for a weekend of golf. I have to throw them out at night.”

“If Chechens killed Rudy,” Arkady said, “they had to get past Kim. For all his reputation—muscleman, martial arts—he doesn’t seem to have been much protection. When your best friend, Rudy, was looking for a bodyguard, didn’t he come to you for advice?”

“Rudy carried a lot of money and he was concerned about his safety.”

“And Kim?”

“The factories in Lyubertsy are closing down. The problem with interacting with the free market, Rudy always said, is that we manufacture shit. When I suggested Kim to Rudy, I thought I was doing them both a favor.”

“If you find Kim before we do, what will you do?”