The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [142]
He dropped his robe and settled his fat, round belly on the deck-chair. He pulled out a cigar from his robe pocket. ‘Now, where’s that cigar?’ Stevie could hear him fumbling about, the crackle of cellophane.
‘So, how’s business?’
Now it was Dragoman’s turn to speak. ‘That is my business.’ His voice was slick and dangerous. It made Stevie think of an eel. ‘I hear you had a problem in Novgorod Oblast . . . ‘
‘A minor flutter of a sparrow’s heart. Nothing serious, Felix.’
‘Sixteen infants dead. The authorities must want you badly. Very bad for international relations with our country if those in power don’t squash you very, very publicly. We are on our way to becoming a world power again. The eyes of the world are upon us.’
Heini belched softly. ‘Heh. I didn’t know the milk powder was poisonous. Who could know that? Stinking great Chinese factories— can’t understand a word they say, hate the place. I am just the middle man, passing on the product, trying to butter my crust, if you know what I mean.’
‘You’re a profiteer, Heini. Don’t operate under any illusion. No one else does.’
Heini lit a match; Stevie could smell his cigar, hear him puffing out clouds of tobacco smoke. ‘Do I care about anyone else? Don’t be ridiculous, Felix. Anyway, the right people have been, shall we say, rewarded to make me vanish from the scene like a whore’s panties, heh. The Chinese are in the bad books. They made the stuff. It’s not my responsibility if no one tests it at the other end.’
He cleared his throat noisily. ‘My only problem has been that sonofabitch Kozkov shutting down my bank and freezing my money— my money!’ Heini was sounding furious and getting loud. ‘If you hadn’t got to him first, I would have gone and done it myself!’
Dragoman’s voice was quiet, soft, dangerous. ‘I had nothing to do with it. It came as a great inconvenience to me. I needed him alive.’
‘Well I need my money and your friends in the Kremlin have a lot to answer for, letting this happen. Kozkov should never have got that far!’
‘Control yourself. What’s done is done.’ Dragoman’s voice was ice.
‘Why don’t you share your contacts with me? Turn your marriage, heh, into a ménage à trois?’
‘We have no need for a third party.’
Stevie could hear Heini puffing angrily now. ‘My business isn’t good enough for you and your Kremlin friends?’
‘Stop talking and listen. I have an opportunity for you to make at least three times as much as you lost. But you need to be invisible and untraceable.’ Dragoman’s voice was low and Stevie, in front, had to strain her ears to hear.
Heini calmed down a little. ‘I can do anything for the right price.’
‘I need anti-malarials, as many as you can produce. I have a contract to supply the entire UN mission in Africa.’
Heini seemed to be digesting this for a moment. ‘Under a front, I presume. Heh heh. The UN wouldn’t do business with a man like you.’
‘You may be attributing scruples where there are few—it’s a simple case of supply and demand. The market has no morals, only people do. And they are getting fewer. You, Heini, know that as well as anyone. But my contracts are not your concern. And get me anti-retrovirals, as many as you can manufacture in those vile Chinese hell-pits of yours.’
Heini tried to whistle but it came out like a wet, whooshing sound. ‘As well? You must be making quite a fat chunk of elephant out of those contracts. Bravo, Felix. But it will be expensive for you . . .’
‘Don’t get greedy, Heini. I won’t pay real medicine prices for fake pharmaceuticals. And I don’t have patience for games. Or do you want to follow Yuschenko in the beauty pageant?’
Heini was quiet. Stevie, engrossed in a gossip magazine, winced at the memory of the poor Ukrainian and his cyst-pitted face.
Dragoman continued in his strange, breathy voice. ‘Let us not quarrel when there is no reason to. Our interests are aligned.’
He coughed. Stevie smelt rubbing alcohol. ‘I even have a birthday gift for you, Heini, to show my good intentions in bringing you this deal.’
‘I am more interested