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Arkady Galkin led Paul to the built-in illuminated glass museum display case in the hallway that Paul had seen the last time he’d visited the town house. A spotlight shone on a large gold egg encrusted with sapphires and diamonds. The egg was being pulled by a chariot and an angel. Inside the open egg you could see a miniature clock.

“This,” Arkady said, tapping on the glass, “is most famous Fabergé egg. Cherub with Chariot . I buy from guy who buy it from industrialist Armand Hammer for a million bucks. Money went right to Kremlin. See, Fabergé made fifty jeweled eggs for last two czars of Romanov dynasty. All worth tens of millions of dollars now, at least. Eight of them once believed missing. But this is one of the eight. And I have it.” He smiled like the proverbial cat that ate the canary. “And people complain about price of eggs. They have no idea.” He laughed, and Paul smiled.

“Please come with me,” Galkin said, and he ushered Paul into his study and offered him a cigar.

Paul didn’t smoke, and he particularly didn’t smoke cigars, but he thought the right thing to do was to accept the offering and fake his way through it. So he took the cigar, clipped its end, and lit it using Arkady’s gold lighter. He sucked in, brought the cigar to life, and puffed out without inhaling.

He looked around the room. It was a two-story library with walls paneled in rich mahogany and lined with old books in Russian. Paul wondered if Arkady had actually read any of the books. The two men sat down in high-backed green tufted-leather easy chairs.

Wreathed in smoke, Arkady said, “So you are marrying my daughter. I am very happy for you both.”

“We’re both happy, too.” And relieved , Paul wanted to say. “Happy to join the family.”

On Arkady’s desk, atop a pile of papers, was a briefcase. It was made of elegant cinnamon burnished leather, with the manufacturer’s name, Berluti, on the brass clasp. Paul rarely noticed briefcases, but this was the most beautiful one he’d ever seen.

“You understand, please, that you will need to sign prenup.”

No surprise. Paul nodded, said nothing.

“You studied Russian in college?”

“Just for two years.”

“Enough to understand, I see. Please, pay no attention to my son. Everything will be okay.”

Paul nodded, smiled politely. Niko was going to be a problem, he knew.

“Tatyana tell me you are good investment adviser. She say you make two hundred million at work in one week. This is true?”

“Months ago,” Paul said, shaking his head. “And for the firm. Not for myself.”

Arkady emitted little smoke rings into the air. “But you get piece of this.”

“Sure. I mean, it gets figured into my bonus at the end of the year. You know . . .”

“You outperform benchmark all the time, yes?”

“Well, yeah, I guess I do, come to think of it,” he said modestly.

“I want to invest with you,” Arkady said. “Just small amount.”

Surprised, Paul said all he could think of at the time, which was “We have a five-million-dollar minimum.”

Arkady snorted. “How you say the money you find in your pockets or under cushions of couch?”

“Spare change. Pocket change.”

“Yes, pocket change,” Arkady said with a smile. “I have for you fifty million.”

Paul tried to look cool. “For how long?”

Arkady played with his cigar, looked up at the chandelier. “Until you double it.”

“We might do a couple percent in a month, if we have a great quarter. You know how it goes.”

“There is Yiddish saying, ‘ Der Mensch tracht, un Gott lacht. ’”

Paul cocked an eyebrow.

Galkin translated: “Man plans, God laughs.”

“Isn’t that a hip-hop album?”

Galkin ignored Paul’s crack. “You may have every plan in world, and nothing goes like plan,” he translated. “Life unpredictable.”

“Well, be that as it may, you’re just going to have to trust me. Give us some time. Are you talking about investing in the fund or . . . ?”

“No, you. You manage it. My people will contact you in morning. We have deal, yes?”

Perspiration broke out on Paul’s forehead. He swallowed. He offered a hand to Galkin. “We’ll see what we can do.”

As he left Arkady’s office and walked back to find Tatyana, Paul felt an immediate flush of regret. What a mistake he’d made, agreeing to invest any money at all for Tatyana’s father—his future father-in-law! Even “pocket change” of fifty million. He should have politely, respectfully refused. Because even if fifty million was genuinely insignificant to the old Russian, Paul had a feeling he would care very much if he lost any of it.