The Family Hightower Read online

  They’re still going a hundred miles an hour when they reach the giant sign welcoming them to the outskirts of Kiev. There’s a little more woods. What looks like a tiny village by the side of the highway, all white plaster walls and tile roofs. A man in a black leather jacket strolling down the dirt streets between them, waving to a woman with a headscarf and a brown coat. Then there’s a long, open field, and the city begins, the things the Soviet Union built. They pass by the outermost ring of apartment towers for what feels like miles of cold neon in the gray early morning while thousands of people wait for buses, walk to the entrances to train stations. The impossible apartment buildings rise behind them like an army of giants. The concrete’s streaked with stains and every corner seems to be chipped. The tiles glued to the outside walls are coming off, the geometric designs, the modernist blocks of color put on them for decoration. All those clean, simple lines are getting more crooked every year, as if the buildings were sending a message, that the dream that all could be equal and all could be planned couldn’t last. You can’t make people all move in the same direction for long, no matter what you give them for a reward, no matter how bad the punishment is. It’s one of the beautiful and maddening things about us, isn’t it? The simple shapes are a crime against nature, an unstable state. The broken pieces lying on the ground are the natural outcome, the bodies at rest.

  Then the SUV they’re riding in breaks free and they’re on a giant metal bridge crossing over the Dneiper, and the city spreads out all around them. The factories and refineries stick out over the low rooftops. More apartment blocks on the horizon. The river and its islands curve underneath them and away, far to the north. For Curly, it’s all a little too much to handle for a minute. You are going to Kiev? his aunt in Parma said, when he told him what he was doing. So many emotions rolling around in her voice. A surface concern, because they all knew that the fourth wave of immigration had to have started for a reason. What are you going over there for, when most people seem to be leaving? But a much deeper, stronger current of something else, the pull of the mother country, even though nobody in the family has been back to Ukraine for a hundred years. Say hello to the place for us. Tell everyone we’re all right, at least for now. Curly wishes now that he’d talked to his aunt more when he had the chance. I’m back, I’ve come back. Is it like you heard?

  Because the center of Kiev is something to see. I mean, Curly and Petey are from Cleveland; they know what big buildings look like. They’re just not used to seeing so many people out. The giant expanse of Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the central square, is mobbed in the morning, people weaving in and out of each other’s way, dodging the orange and brown electric trolleys that crackle along their sagging wires. In the afternoons, they’re lounging on the steps of the plaza in front of the Hotel Ukraina, though they’re not sleeping; they’re waiting for the nighttime, when the long strip of walkways and benches and trees along Khreshchatyk Street is just packed with people in skinny jeans and jackets, screwing around, chasing each other. The girls are so cool it’s almost impossible. They put on sweaters and jackets with very short skirts and long stockings, and put their arms around lucky boys, kissing, kissing again, still kissing. The Americans have never seen so many people kissing in public, for so long, while the guitarist in a busking surf band revs up a battery-powered amp and, fifty yards down the street, a bunch of thin blond kids break-dance on cardboard boxes like they did in New York ten years ago. The underground passages to get under intersections, or to the metro, are lined with dozens of tiny kiosks lit by naked bulbs, and there are people selling watches, alarm clocks, clothing, flowers, fried dough, sandwiches. A man in an old army uniform encrusted with medals, his hair gelled into a shape you don’t see in nature, plays a harp and belts out folk songs. Another couple does duets for voice and accordion; he’s on one side of the hallway, she’s on the other, and they’re staring into each other’s eyes as they perform. A young man plays Depeche Mode songs on an acoustic guitar in front of the entrance to the metro. All those voices echo off the bricks and tile, a mash of Russian and Ukrainian—the language of the schools and street signs and the language everyone still knows how to speak—sprinkled with a little English. At night it gets frantic. The neon from the casinos comes on; people park their cars all over the sidewalk, drive down it to get back on the road. The music starts blaring, that pulsing, throbbing, four-on-the-floor beat you hear everywhere in the northern hemisphere. Someone closes the street and sets up a stage, and there’s a giant crowd in front of it, dancing with their hands in the air. It goes until three in the morning; at four there are still people out, smoking and drinking coffee in a café. There’s so much energy here, the same energy that got people to vote themselves out of the Soviet Union just before it dissolved; in less than a decade, even the West will know Maidan Nezalezhnosti—Independence Square—because it’ll be jammed with hundreds of thousands of people, enough of them wearing orange to give the revolution its name. They’ll be there because they’re tired of it, because the government that comes in after the Soviet Union falls looks too much like the Soviet Union. Maybe because it looks worse. In 1995, there’s the hyperinflation, the obvious corruption. People moving to the black market just to make a living. The general breakdown in order; the creepy sense that the criminals own this place. People keep getting shaken down; people keep getting killed. At the birthday party of an oligarch on the banks of the Dneiper, there are seventy-two bodyguards, some of them water-skiing the perimeter with their Kalashnikovs in their hands. Years later, though, there’ll still be the people kissing all along Khreshchatyk Street, and the musicians busking Western pop music of every era, as if they discovered it all at once when the walls came down and the country opened up, and now one beautiful note keeps getting played and the kiss goes on forever.

  But again, Petey’s disappointed. He expected more of a welcome from the criminals he’s come to work with. Hugs, drinks, all that. A warm smile, showing their eagerness to be friends. They check into the Hotel Dnipro, a place that makes Curly think of nothing but James Bond movies from the 1970s, from the clacking buttons for the elevator to the wood paneling in the hallways, the phone and TV lines running along the tops of the walls. The industrial tiling in the bathrooms, the giant heated towel rack. It’s too easy to imagine the room being bugged. He remembers a friend of the family who made good a couple decades ago and went to Moscow just a few years ago. They got into the bathroom and checked out the amenities. Gee, I wish these towels were a little bigger, the wife said out loud. Three minutes later, there was a knock on their door, a friendly bellboy with linens in his arms. You wanted larger towels, madame?

  The first meeting is in a casino, where it’s all about black. Windows tinted so black you can’t see in. A row of black Mercedes-Benzes parked at a forty-five-degree angle on the sidewalk outside, their windows also tinted so black you wonder if the driver can see out. A huge man at the door at first won’t let them in, no matter what Curly says, until a short buzz-cut man in a black leather jacket and designer jeans opens the door, gives the bouncer the nod.

  “Sorry,” he says in Ukrainian. “We weren’t sure it was you.”

  He leads them through the games, the bar, fast, to a quieter back room. It’s small but screams money to blow: dark wood paneling, leather chairs. A glass coffee table with marble feet. Good booze, booze from all over the world. Espresso. Cigars. Curly can see from Petey’s smile what he’s thinking: This is more like it. But Curly’s nervous.

  “You speak Russian?” the buzz-cut man says, in Ukrainian.

  “No. Just Ukrainian.”

  The man smiles. “How charming,” he says. Now Curly’s more nervous, and he knows the man can tell. “So,” the man says. “I hear you are interested in investing in Ukraine.”

  “Yes,” Curly says.

  “You didn’t have to come here to do that.”

  “It seems better this way.”

  “Is it?�
�� the man says. “I suppose it’s easier in some ways. More complicated in others. But we are interested in your interest.”

  “Are you the Wolf?”

  “Of course.” Then he laughs. “No, of course not. Call me Dino.”

  “That sounds Italian.”

  “Do I sound Italian to you?”

  “No,” Curly says.

  “You didn’t have to answer that. It was a joke.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You seem nervous,” Dino says. “You should be more like your friend here. He doesn’t seem nervous at all. He must be the one with the money.”

  “You shouldn’t talk about him like he’s not here,” Curly says. “He understands more than he lets on.”

  “I don’t believe you. But I’m impressed. He must really trust you. Which means he’s not very bright. Would you say that? That he’s not very bright? I’m not judging. I’m just trying to understand the man for the purposes of entering a business relationship.”

  “He’s not stupid, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “According to you.”

  “Of course according to me. You’re asking me, aren’t you?”

  “You’re smarter than he is.”

  “That’s for you to judge, isn’t it?”

  Dino laughs, and it makes Petey want to talk, though Curly knows that when he does it’ll blow his cover; Dino’ll know he doesn’t understand a word. Curly puts his hand on his friend’s knee, says in English, “I’m glad that bullshit’s over.” Then to Dino: “Mr. Hightower would prefer to do the rest of this in English.”

  For the first time, Dino frowns. “I’m not as comfortable in English.”

  Now it’s Curly’s chance to smile. He puts on his courage. “Well, isn’t that too bad.”

  The idea is pretty simple. The organization, Dino explains in Ukrainian, is involved in a very large number of enterprises, all of them designed to take advantage of what the man says are lowered barriers to free enterprise. A certain freedom of goods, people, and currency across borders. Like any business enterprise, however, it always needs capital—or could use more—to expand its reach, to strengthen its existing operations. To make what it does more efficient and effective at bringing higher returns to its investors. Dino makes an expansive gesture, as if all the world will benefit from the things he does.

  “The free market is a wonderful thing,” he says. “But in our operation, there is”— he falters, then chuckles, because he’s already seen enough American movies to know that what he’s about to say is a serious cliché in English—“there is a catch, which I understand you may be uncomfortable with, because we do not operate as you do in the United States. There, buying into the organization gives you access to the organization. Here, it does not.”

  Curly’s been translating all this. “What does he mean?” Petey says.

  “I mean,” Dino says, “that the way our organization works, the less you know about it—who is involved, what is being done—the better. The best scenario involves you never meeting anyone but me.”

  Curly doesn’t translate that just yet. “Are you sure you mean to say it that way?” he says. “It sounds like you don’t want our money.”

  “I mean every word,” Dino says. “Just tell him what I said.” Curly does.

  “What if I want to know where my money is going?” Petey says.

  “You can’t. As in, we won’t tell you, except perhaps in the most general terms. And I would advise you, in the strongest terms possible, not to try to figure it out yourself. It’s for your own protection, in several different ways. I’m sure you understand from your dealings in the United States that certain of our operations are not, well, legal in the strictest sense. In the United States, your business associates respond to that by making a tight network, a family, where everyone knows everyone. Here, we are doing the opposite. No one knows anyone, let alone what anyone else is doing. That way, if something goes wrong and the police—or anyone else—come along asking questions, you do not know enough to implicate yourself, let alone anyone else.”

  “But someone must know,” Petey says. “Someone must be coordinating things.”

  Dino smiles. “If there is, I do not know who it is.”

  “So if I can’t see the operation, what guarantees do I have that you’re not just going to walk off with my money?” Petey says.

  Dino’s smile doesn’t break. “What guarantees do you ever have?” he says. “Newspapers around the world, every day, are full of stories of legitimate businesses walking off with other people’s money. You could say that’s the whole point, right? They’re always just trying to get your money from you. The only question is what they give you in return.”

  “And what kind of return do you give?”

  “It varies, of course. But the way business is going right now, I would say it’s very likely that you’ll be quite pleased. Most quarters, I would say we—what is the phrase you like to use?—beat the market.” He says that in English. Then he’s back to Ukrainian. “If you’re not happy with the way things are going, you can always pull out.”

  “So you say, except that there’s no guarantee.”

  Dino shrugs. “Of course not. You just have to trust us. Or maybe double-digit return rates are enough that you don’t have to.”

  “Double digits?”

  Dino nods. “For the past few years, yes.”

  Petey is quiet then, and Curly can tell he’s not sure what to say.

  “Mr. Hightower needs a day or two to think about it,” Curly says.

  So Curly and Petey are sitting in Curly’s room in the hotel, Curly on the hard bed, Petey in a curving wooden chair. They’re drunk and wired and jetlagged, and they can’t sleep. It’s 2:37 in the morning. The TV’s on but it doesn’t work very well; a man is reporting the news from somewhere, but they can’t tell where. Behind the hotel, two guys are giving yet another black Mercedes sedan the washing of its life. Petey’s pouring another drink while Curly looks down at them through the thin curtain. What makes a guy wash a car in the middle of the night? he thinks. Then Petey hands him his glass.

  “Well? What would you do?”

  “It’s your money, Petey. Your inheritance.”

  “Well, pretend it’s yours.”

  Curly thinks about that. Pretend it’s his money? If he had Petey’s money, he realizes, he wouldn’t be here right now. He’d be back in Parma, having bought a house for himself and his parents free and clear. Maybe he’d be loaning a bit to his cousins to help them out with their places. He’d have a little store, some kind of business, he doesn’t know what. He just knows that it’d be his. Something to do with the trades, something that lets him give a few guys jobs. After that, he’d see about getting married, having a couple kids. Oh, he’d travel, too, maybe come to Ukraine, but it wouldn’t be for business. He’d walk around this city, get out in the countryside with his family, and tell them all the stories he knew from his great-grandparents. This is where you came from. This is what happened here. Don’t forget. Otherwise, how can you know where you’re going? How will you know how to get there?

  Curly shakes his head. “No, Petey. It’s your money. It’s always been your money. What are you going to do with it?”

  A look passes over Petey’s face that makes Curly regret asking. He’s an arrogant young man and a child all at once, with no sense of gravity or responsibility, the ugly side of the party boy Curly liked so much at first. This business of making big money is a game to Petey, the numbers almost meaningless to him. There’s no inner monologue, no self-reflection. If Curly were to ask Petey why he wants to make all this money, he’s afraid of what the answers would be. Because it’s money. Because we can. Because it’s fun. Never stopping to consider how big the numbers are, or what they mean to everyone else around him. It’s Curly’s first warning that he needs to watch out
for himself, though even now, it’s a little late.

  “What do you think I should do?” Petey says.

  “My honest opinion? Petey? I don’t like it. I’m sorry we came all this way, but I don’t like it.”

  “Double-digit returns is a lot of money. We could make a fortune,” Petey says.

  “You already have a fortune.”

  “I haven’t made my fortune. I could make enough to set myself up forever. Me and you too, Curly. Don’t think I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Well, thank you so much.”