Page 47 of The Oligarch's Daughter

“Then I would like some of your luck,” Galkin said. “Come work for me.”

“Thank you, but no,” Paul said. “I like my job.”

“You haven’t heard my offer yet.”

*

When Paul told Tatyana about her father’s job offer that evening, she looked up from her iPad, where she was editing a photo. Her eyes widened. “What did you say?”

“Haven’t responded yet.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I like working at Aquinnah Capital. I like working for Bernie. He’s a decent guy, and he supports me. It’s a good job.”

Paul didn’t even tell her what kind of a deal her father had offered. It was admittedly pretty spectacular. Paul could easily double or triple his income, and that was just to start. He’d be jumping several rungs up the career ladder. He’d be Galkin’s head of all U.S. equities, a major promotion.

Tatyana nodded, rueful. “I get why working for my father wouldn’t appeal to you, sure. But I have to tell you, I’m actually shocked Papa made you the offer.”

“Why’s that?”

“Business is one thing he’s unsentimental about. So he must actually think you’re hot shit.”

Paul just smiled.

“Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Hot shit.”

Teasingly, he shrugged. “Why don’t you come find out?”

30

Tatyana’s gallery opening was on a Saturday night in May. She had to be there early to oversee the setup and make sure everything was hung in the right place. “You don’t have to be there until eight, Pasha,” she said.

“You sure you don’t want me to help?”

“You’d just be in the way, to be honest.”

The Argold Gallery was on Twentieth Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, on the third floor of an old warehouse. The walls were white and sparsely hung with Tatyana’s photographs in black frames. A lot of white space between them.

They were not what he expected. The shots of the Russian ladies he’d seen at her place, thebabushki, were excellent and moving, but these photos blew him away.

They were brightly colored portraits of what Paul thought of as street people, maybe homeless, standing in the glaring midday sun against white backgrounds that, upon closer examination, turned out to be the white walls of buildings. Sometimes the subjects looked directly at you; sometimes they looked away or inward. Their faces were weathered. The stark sun emphasized their physical imperfections, their wrinkles and scars, making them look both vulnerable and hardened. The portraits were powerful, original, beautiful, and sad all at the same time.

A few guests were at the gallery when he arrived, not many. A few limos idled outside. One of them was a silver Maybach Landaulet with its retractable roof open and Niko sitting in the back, smoking, chatting with his driver, a handsome guy with long black hair and blue eyes. Next to Niko was a woman whose face Paul couldn’t make out.

He found Tatyana inside, talking to the gallerist, a thin man in his late thirties with enormous black-framed glasses that dominated his pallid face. Tatyana was wearing a sharply tailored black suit with no shirt underneath. Her shoes were simple black suede pumps with a high heel. Her makeup looked minimal but no doubt had involved a lot of work: natural lipstick, cat’s-eye black eyeliner with rounded corners, perfect brows. She looked nervous.

“These are great!” Paul said. “Just fantastic.”

She hugged and kissed him. Then she introduced him to the gallerist and excused herself to speak to someone who’d just arrived.

“You know her work, of course,” the gallerist said.

“Of course,” Paul said. “But not these.”

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