"No."

"It figures." Pak turned to me. "Go get it before those stone heads think to collect the damned thing from the hotel."

"The clerks won't hand it over." I didn't bother getting up. "'You lack authorization,' they'll say, if I can even rouse them at this hour of the morning. I may not even be able to get in the door. They lock it, and there's no bell."

"Be charming, Inspector." The foreigner handed me a hundred-dollar bill. "Be very charming and give them this as authorization. It might even open the door."

Pak grunted. "They might not take it…"

I put the bill in my pocket. "Though, then again, they might. Of course, as soon as they give me the passport, they'll make a call to our grinning friends." I stood up to go. "Incidentally, keep your honorary citizenship." I looked at a notch at the top of the window frame and said very deliberately, "I don't need it."

"You know, O, you might have been a Jew." The foreigner craned his neck at the corners of the ceiling and then settled his gaze on the top of the window, which was rattling in the wind. "You see Cossacks everywhere."

4

Wednesday morning, the two men from the special section were back, carrying a piece of paper and accompanied by two other men, from where they wouldn't say.

"What do you mean, he's gone?" The ugly one growled and narrowed his eyes. "I told you, if he left this place, you'd be sorry."

Pak tipped back in his chair. "Did you? I don't remember that. Do you remember that, Inspector?" I was standing in the doorway.

"No. I don't recall."

The others turned to look at me. One of them licked his lips. "You, of all people, O. It figures, our paths would cross again, someday." I didn't recognize the face, but his left hand was missing two fingers. He held it up for me to see.