Aino shook her green-braided head. "We have serious political and economicinterests in the Alands. Fluuvins are silly books for children."
"What's 'serious?' I'm talking plastic action figures! Cartoon drinking glasses.Kid-show theme songs. When a thing like this hits, it's major revenue. Factorieschurning round the clock in Shenzhen. Crates full of stuff into mallanchor-stores. Did you know that the 'California Raisins' are worth more thanthe entire California raisin crop? That's a true fact!"
Aino was growing gloomy. "I hate raisins. Californians use slave ethnic laborand pesticides. Raisins are nasty little dead grapes."
"I'm copacetic, but we're talking Japan here," Starlitz insisted. "Higherper-capita than Marin County! The ruble's in the toilet now, but the yen issky-high. We get a big shakedown settlement in yen, we launder it in rubles, andwe clear major revenue completely off the books. That's serious as cancer."
Aino lowered her voice. "I don't believe you. Why are you telling me suchterrible lies? That's a very stupid cover story for an international spy!"
"You had to ask." Starlitz shrugged.
They found the safehouse in Ypsallina. It was a duplex. The other half of theduplex was occupied by a gullible Finnish yuppie couple with workaholicschedules. Starlitz produced the keys. Aino went in, checked every room andevery window with paranoid care, then went back to the Fiat and woke Raf.
Raf wobbled into the apartment, found the bathroom. He vomited with gusto, thenturned on the shower. Arno brought in a pair of bulging blue nylon sports bags.There was no phone service, but Khoklov's people had thoughtfully left aclone-chipped cellular on the bedroom dresser.
Starlitz, who had been in the safehouse before, retrieved his laptop from thekitchen closet. It was Japanese portable with a keyboard the length of a cricket