To start at the beginning of the story go here.

Rotella drove along the long green pitch that separated Mitnick’s house from the road, slowly curving towards the white steps that led up to the house. The statue of Athena was still out front, holding spear and shield as if calling ghostly legions to battle. Rotella parked in front of it.

Brick and Whip were waiting at the stairs. Brick as quiet as his namesake with Whip curling his lip in a familiar expression of contempt. I couldn’t help but smile at him, unable to resist the urge to egg him on, but also weirdly happy at being back on familiar territory.

Bulges under their sports jackets told me they were armed, but it was nice no one was waving a gun around. Stepping out of the car, I waited for Rotella to come around from the driver’s side before I said, “This is Inspecteur Rotella.” Unable to resist treating them like fools, I added, “The man Mitnick wants to meet.”

Whip’s mouth curled further in preparation for some insult, but Brick only gestured to Sophie as Rotella opened the door for her. As she uncurled herself from the automobile, Rotella said, “She is with me.” This statement caused me some perverse joy at the sensation of possessiveness it sparked.

Whip and Brick stared at us, evaluating the new and unexpected addition. After a moment, Rotella asked, “Does Mitnick wish to speak? Or no?”

Whip took control of the situation with a dismissive snicker and led the way up the stairs. Brick fell in behind us. We fell into line, reminding me very much of Capanne and its routines.

Through the big brass front doors, we were escorted past the antechamber fountain. The house showed no sign of the raucous party.

In the library, Mitnick sat behind his desk between his globe and his books, reading a newspaper with Cyrillic letters. At first we could only see the expensive brown shoes he had propped up on the desk. Then his big white smile came out from behind the paper, flashing in the room’s sedate light. He set aside his paper and gestured for us to enter. “Come in.”

I led the way, relieved to see there weren’t any of Mikhail’s vory in the room. “This is Inspecteur Rotella,” I told Mitnick as Brick and Whip positioned themselves behind us.

Mitnick’s gaze landed on Sophie. Looking like the statue of Athena had somehow become animated and walked into his house, she was impossible to ignore. Regardless of her resemblance to statuary, Mitnick showed his easy confidence. “And you are…?”

Sophie gave her name and nothing else. Mitnick nodded, immediately switching back to me and Rotella for further information.

“She is a professional friend,” Rotella answered.

As if she had disappeared, Mitnick extended his hand to Rotella with his usual warmth and grace. He gave Rotella’s reciprocating hand a single pump, his palms, I’m sure, being free from the sweat that began to cover mine. “It is good to meet you, Inspecteur. It gives me great pleasure knowing the city has such a competent officer watching over it.”

Rotella’s chuckle was more cynical than friendly, escaping him before the handshake was even complete. “Why would you think I was competent?”

Mitnick walked to the globe next to his desk. “I have heard many things,” he said. He touched the sphere and it glided open, revealing a bevy of crystal decanters filled with variously colored liquids. “From friends, you see. The city has many people that depend on you and your compatriots to keep them safe, yes?” Mitnick moved three glasses to this desk and took out a bottle that was filled with an amber liquid. “Politicians, developers, bankers. None of them could do business if they did not feel safe.”

“I mostly work in the outer banileue beyond the periphérique.” I don’t know why Rotella told this lie, but he did.

Mitnick knew as well as I did (I had told him, after all) that Rotella was investigating him, but he didn’t contradict the inspector. Instead, he poured liquor. “Ah, yes, the barbarians beyond our gates. No wonder you make the politicians feel safe, then.” He handed Rotella a glass and the other to me, and I felt it burn a hole in my hand. “Perhaps I should make a donation to the city, to better arm the gendarme that protect us from the insatiables.”

Rotella removed his sunglasses, carefully folding them up in his free hand and slipping them into his breast pocket. He stared openly at Mitnick, evaluating him and the Big Boss cliché that his actions were meant to evoke. It clearly wasn’t Rotella’s first time seeing someone put on this routine. “Will you not offer my companion something?”

Mitnick’s eyed Rotella as if he were on the other end of a chessboard. When the Inspector’s impassive expression didn’t change, he asked Sophie, “Would you like something? Some wine? Or perhaps champagne?”

The contempt Sophie harbored for Mitnick completely submerged beneath the smile she returned to him. “Champagne would be lovely.”

Mitnick gestured and I heard Brick’s heavy footfalls leave the room. Rotella sipped his liquor and also smiled at Mitnick, tinged with the scorn that the French reserve for people they have to remind of their manners. Sophie moved to one of the room’s sofas.

As Sophie left our orbit, Mitnick said to me, “You have done well to bring him.” He sipped his own drink, then said, “I do not believe the Inspector’s claims to incompetence.”

“Very kind,” Rotella responded, his tone absent of kindness.

“There is very little kindness in the house of Belarus,” replied Mitnick with as much honesty as I’d ever heard. “But there is patience. I have, as an example, been very patient with your snooping around me.”

Rotella was unmoved by the barb. “It is standard to investigate individuals that arrive with odd passports.” He gestured with his glass from Mitnick to his mahogany desk around to the finely crafted bookshelves with their leather-bound editions. “Particularly when they arrive with much cash.”

“Understandable. But the same men you protect, the bankers, developers, politicians, are the ones I befriend. And your investigation into my affairs makes them nervous. I need them to do business, you see.” Mitnick grinned. “So this means we need to do business.”

“If my snooping,” Rotella pronounced the words like flicking a bug off his sleeve, “finds that no one is acting out of order, business always proceeds. It is the way of things.”

“Ah, but this France, not Russia. Even the appearance of impropriety can make a politician here blush.” Mitnick continued to smile, but it became conspiratorial as he gestured slightly to Sophie. “Unless it involves the fairer sex, of course.”

Rotella nodded, acknowledging this reality. “True. Rumor, though, says your trouble involves the fairer sex.”

Mitnick leaned forward, joking amongst the boys. “I can assure you, Inspector, I am a happily married man.” From the background, Whip dutifully chuckled.

Rotella smiled mirthlessly, then drained his glass. Whatever was in it must have been good; he glanced with surprise into the cup’s emptiness, as if its quality had caused it to evaporate. Mitnick was prepared with a, “Would you like more?”

“Perhaps in a bit,” Rotella responded, sounding very much like a corrupt cop that was starting to loosen up. “But as you say, no one in my country cares what men and women do in their bedrooms. Unless, of course, someone is there against their will.”

Mitnick transformed his face into polite confusion, then glanced at me, pushing the unspoken question of, “Do you know what he’s talking about?” I shrugged. With this exchange complete Mitnick said, “I hold no one against their will.”

“But there are rumors,” Rotella persisted. “And these rumors make the men you desire the friendship of much more nervous than any snooping I may do.”

Mitnick’s imperturbable cool rippled as this statement landed, a barely detectable change in his exterior. “What rumors?”

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To start at the beginning of the story go here.

We left Lanzo with Sartre and a reminder to meet at the Distributeur International warehouse the next evening. The two had matters to discuss; funeral arrangements for Moreau and whether to involve the police.

I had Atwell drop me off at the telephone booth near the cathedral. I used it to check the messages on the mobile and was happy to see there weren’t any. That meant Rotella and me were still on to meet Mitnick tomorrow afternoon.

Back at the tenement, I climbed the stairs, kicking trash out of my path and pumping my legs to clear my mind. When that didn’t work, I sat down in the apartment to inspect the revolver.

I had it disassembled and laid out on the coffee table when Sophie arrived home. She breezed in with her quiet grace, standing at the coffee table before I really knew she was there. By way of greeting, she said, “You are on the map.”

Startled and confused, I followed her gaze to the table and realized her map of the brothels must be under the tablecloth. Not a particularly complex way to hide it, but simple and effective. I nodded and began to scoop up the pieces of the revolver into the dishtowel they were on. As if remembering some point of protocol, Sophie bent over from her great height and kissed the top of my head as I moved out of the way. Closer now, she noticed the black metal pieces I was working with and asked, “What is this?”

“It’s a pistol.” Sophie stared at me, her level gaze telling me she was expecting a more in-depth answer. “It’s broken. I’m trying to fix it.”

Sophie’s eyebrows went up and the corners of her mouth went down indicating some perverse interest. “Can you?”

I shook my head. “The firing pin is busted. Without a new one, I can’t.”

“Where would you get this?”

“No idea. If we were in the States I could pick one up anywhere.”

“But you are in a civilized country,” Sophie replied with the wriest of smiles.

I pulled the tablecloth up, revealing the map underneath with its scattering of dots. “Yeah. Civilized.”

Sophie didn’t need to look at the map with its pink and blue to understand the jab. “You have a point.”

As she moved to sit in front of the map I asked, “So how’s it going?” Pulling solely from her memory of the last 24 hours, she began to color in new circles. Watching the muscles in her back move as she dug the pen into the paper, I heard Cheryl whistling a low, idle tune, something she did when pretending to ignore the obvious. I resisted the urge to tell the imaginary incarnation of my deceased wife to shut up.

Fortunately, Sophie put actual sound into the air by answering, “It has been busy.”

Watching her dot the map, almost all in blue, one after another, I said, “I can tell.”

Whatever depravities Sophie had witnessed in her travels across the city had clearly not improved her mood. She continued to work in silence. Her usual graceful curves became sharp angles as her jangled nerves flowed into her scrawling.

I thought about asking her more questions about her investigations. Instead I remembered the inspector and my promise to him. “I spoke with the cop, Rotella.”

“Si?”

“He’s going to help me get a message to Nika. To get her out. I offered him a copy of the map in exchange.” This sparked enough interest in Sophie that she lifted her gaze to me. “He wants to bust open Mitnick and Sartre’s operations. I figure we let him. We just have to time him right.”

Sophie leaned away from the map and into my American-sized indentation on the couch. She idly placed the pen she was holding to her lips, eyes resting on me. “How is he going to see Nika?”

“Mitnick wants to meet him. See if he can be bought. Somewhere in there we’ll get her a note that Lanzo wrote to her. Tells her where and when to meet.”

Sophie tapped the pen twice against her lips. “How will this happen?”

“We’re meeting at Mitnick’s place. Nika should be there. Rotella’s going to say he needs to talk to her if Mitnick wants him to play ball, that he’s heard rumors she’s being held against her will.”

Sophie blinked as the implausibilities started to pile up. “Then how will she escape?”

As usual, Sophie had managed to isolate the weak spot in any plan. “Well, that’s up to her. She did it once before.”

Sophie arched an eyebrow. “Before she was let out to play. Now the man who allowed this is dead, newcomers from the old country swarm the city. They will not simply let her go.” Sophie’s own considerations caused her to lean forward, rapping the map in pangs of thought. “Mitnick’s home is far from town. How will she make her way to the city?”

Sophie was pointing out a series of uncertainties I had been glossing over since speaking with Rotella. Not particularly pleased at having my brilliance questioned, I replied, “She’ll have to figure it out.”

Sophie smiled in the same way as when she had first asked if she should visit Mitnick. “I will go with you.”

“What? Where?”

“With Rotella. To visit Mitnick and this Nika.”

“Mitnick isn’t expecting anyone else.”

Sophie leaned back into the couch again, this time languidly unfurling her long form, the curves of her body stretching the light sweater she was wearing. “Do you think he would mind a visitor from such as me?”

“Yes,” I said emphatically, “I do.”

“Then you will tell him I am an associate of Rotella’s. He wishes me to speak with the girl.”

“What if someone recognizes you from the party?”

Sophie raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Rotella is the first police to consort with lucciola? We will merely say that I am a…” She paused as she found the English words she was searching for, “A professional friend.”

“And you think that Mitnick and his people will just accept this?”

Sophie returned to her map with a simple, “Si.”

Sophie’s insistence on coming along had supplanted the rancor she had brought home with her. I sat down next to her on the couch, the resulting rocking taking her attention away from the map. “If you’re going to come along we’re going to have to nail down some details.”

Vagaries always allowed Sophie to play the mysterious card, to avoid commitment, to allow a sphere of control that she never had to explain to anyone, including me. So forcing her to sit and talk about details was perhaps one of her least favorite things. But we did talk – we talked about the map, the Inspecteur, and how she would get the note to Nika. How Lanzo might bring her to the hutch.

We walked through it as carefully as setting up dominos, with Sartre and Mitnick at one end. In the middle were the police raids on the cathouses. At the finish were Lanzo and Nika disappearing under the resulting cloud of war.

Realizing we might be up late, I went into the kitchen and made some coffee.  Sophie hummed happily on thecouch until I heard Cheryl’s voice as if she were there with me. With a teasing lilt that she knew always irritated me, she asked, “So y’all gonna talk about fuckin’?”

From the corner of my mouth, hopefully low enough that Sophie couldn’t hear, I let out a slow, “Shut up.”

There was the echoing laughter that told me I was being a fool and it faded like it was falling down a well, a happy suicide that took my wife away again for the millionth time. I ran from that and strode into the other room, vibrating with an intensity that only Sophie could ignore.

I reached out and took her by the wrist, pulling her attention away from the map. Touching her without permission got me a reflexively sharp stare, one dangerous enough that I was glad her Opinel knife wasn’t within easy reach. Her expression mellowed, though, when she saw my eyes, uncertainty in a man that usually moved with purpose. Her free hand floating to gently land on my cheek.

Unsure of how to address the enormity of everything in front of us, particularly right there in that small apartment, I could only think to say, “I’m not sure how to do this.”

Sophie gave me a small grin, pulling me closer by the hand I held her by. With a twist and a pull she easily freed her wrist and placed its palm on my other cheek, tilting her forehead to mine. The hard edges of the small space between us softened as she said, “I miss her too.”

I wanted to lash out at that statement, to say that I had lost more, to point out that she had only known Cheryl a few weeks. As her hands guided my bulk into the bedrooom, though, I let that selfishness go, melting instead into the warm comfort I had retreated from it almost every other time I had felt it with Sophie.

We lay like that until a fart escaped me much louder than I expected. Sophie giggled. I couldn’t help but laugh as well, using it as a signal to get up and get moving. But Sophie pulled me down again and, eyes flicking towards the fading of the sun through the window, said, “We have the time.”

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