“So,” Alekseevich said to Boldt, “you were saying?”

“No. I was asking,” Boldt corrected. “A certain individual-and to humor me, let’s just say that individual is you, and that I can prove it-assaulted a man named David Hayes, and later, a state Bureau of Criminal Investigation officer by the name of Foreman. Tonight we got word that a man named Paul Geiser lost a few fingernails, and that Foreman was on the list again as well.”

Alekseevich shook his head in denial and looked to Olson for help. “What is this?” His indignant tone fell falsely flat.

Olson said, “This is you talking to them. This is me buying you a break, and risking my assignment to do it. You’re supposed to be the wise guy, right? So wise up.”

“I’m not asking if you did those assaults,” Boldt said. “I know you did. What Detective Olson knows is that regardless of your arrangement with other law enforcement, I now have enough evidence to arrest you for those crimes.”

Alekseevich tried to look as if this didn’t surprise him or upset him, but an actor he wasn’t.

“What I need to know is if you did David Hayes night before last. And I urge you to think real clearly on this matter. In terms of your discussions with Foreman and Geiser, I want it verbatim if possible. Word for word,” Boldt explained, in case his vocabulary went over the other’s head. “What I’m offering you, and Detective Olson and her colleagues, is the chance to keep this little charade of yours going. This snitching of yours for the government.” Olson looked troubled. Boldt said, “I have two options. One, as I mentioned, is to arrest you. The second, less ideal for you, is to tell Svengrad who his mole is and let him discuss this with you directly.”

The waitress returned with the drinks and practically put her breast into LaMoia’s face while leaning over the table. Boldt waited for her to leave. The ginger ale smelled of dishwasher soap and tasted flat. He pushed it aside.

“It lays out pretty simple,” Boldt continued. “So why don’t you start talking right now.”

“Five minutes,” LaMoia said, turning Alekseevich’s own arrogance back onto him.

The room’s shifting neon lights threw red across their table. Alekseevich’s skin took on a crimson tone, nearly matching the leather.

Boldt looked at his watch and said, “Four minutes.” He then met eyes with the Russian. “You’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

Alekseevich looked over at Olson as if maybe she could fix this. Boldt hated to burn her goodwill, as it had gotten him to this point, but for him it came to Liz against Alekseevich, and that made it no contest. Olson sat back in the red leather, heaved a sigh of disgust, and said, “Start talking.”

“Call them,” Alekseevich instructed Olson.

She looked across at Boldt, her anger building. Boldt shook his head. She told the man next to her, “I can’t.”

“Call them,” he repeated.

“This meeting isn’t happening,” Boldt reminded. “Not in her world, not in ours. So how can she make a call? She’d have to acknowledge arranging the meeting, and she’s not willing to do that. Neither are we. By the time she places the call, we’re out of here, and you’re left with either arrest or Svengrad.”

Alekseevich’s blue eyes jumped between the three, his indifference losing some of its starch.

“Care for an extension?” LaMoia asked.

Boldt pulled out his detective’s notebook and a pen, in an act of overt confidence.

Alekseevich began his debriefing, “I do what I am told. I am immune as long as I give report.”

“Immunity,” Olson provided for Boldt and LaMoia.

“Not from us,” Boldt repeated.

“We’re running out of time, here,” LaMoia reminded.

Boldt took a risk. “Let’s do it this way. I’ll fill in the blanks and you’ll stop me when I’m wrong.”

Behind them some patrons cheered. Boldt didn’t want to know why, but he briefly could imagine it was for him, given the choice he’d just offered Alekseevich.

Alekseevich pursed his lips and nodded slightly. Olson pulled out a narrow pad of notepaper, versions of which were in both LaMoia’s and Boldt’s coat pockets. Birds of a feather, he thought. LaMoia signaled the waitress, accomplishing what the Russian had failed to do. He ordered a vodka on the rocks for their subject.

Boldt translated what he’d brought in his head as questions into statements, and carefully laid them out like a card dealer turning over cards in a poker game. Both he and LaMoia looked for “tells”-tics or mannerisms indicating the suspect’s knowledge of events, or his reluctance or unwillingness to share. Few were practiced enough not to involuntarily reveal something of their inner workings. Alekseevich had a language to overcome, the late hour, the few drinks he’d already consumed. Boldt worked him slowly, focusing almost entirely on Paul Geiser and Danny Foreman. Alekseevich tried to mask his curiosity-he’d clearly been expecting questions about David Hayes.

“Foreman’s on Svengrad’s payroll,” Boldt stated for the man, about halfway into his laundry list.

“No.” Alekseevich was working through the vodka a little quickly, a tell that revealed his discomfort.

The answer surprised Boldt. It had seemed the most obvious explanation. “You know this, or you’re guessing?” But when Olson shook her head, he realized he’d asked a question, not made a statement.

“Hayes disappearing. You tried Geiser, thinking he was behind it, and got it wrong. Geiser gave you Foreman.”

“Yes.”

This reminded him of the game Twenty Questions that he’d played as a kid on long car rides with his parents. Thinking of his parents made him think of his sister, and thoughts of his sister made him think of his children. He didn’t like doing business this way, but he stayed with it because Olson wasn’t objecting. He stated, “Foreman threatened Svengrad. Extorted him for Hayes’s return.”

“I not know about that,” Alekseevich said, breaking away from his monosyllabic answers-an extremely good sign that he was either growing more comfortable with the process or was becoming more drunk.

LaMoia looked ready to say something, thought better of it, and whispered into Boldt’s ear. Boldt felt bad about using his friend, about not revealing the bigger game he had planned, but only he and Liz could later be held responsible. He wasn’t dragging LaMoia into the consequences of what he had planned. He believed Liz’s safety depended on this secret.

“You found Foreman,” Boldt stated. “Tonight, I mean.”

“Yes. Geiser was persuaded to make a phone call for us. Foreman took the bait.”

“Foreman gave you the location of the warehouse-where to find Hayes. And your guys pursued it.”

“Yes.”

“Who tortured Hayes out at the cabin, if not you?”

“Not me,” Alekseevich confirmed. “I don’t know who.”

“Someone else you work with?”

“No. It would have been me,” the man said, indirectly confirming he’d done the others.

Regardless of gaining some clarity, Boldt felt pushed more deeply into the labyrinth rather than finding a clear way out. He then asked the question that LaMoia had posed to him, converting it into a statement. “Paul Geiser is on Svengrad’s payroll.”

Alekseevich hesitated, looking over at Olson.

She said, “You’re dipping into privileged territory, Lieutenant.”

“It’s not privileged because it’s not on the record, Detective.”

She nodded back to Alekseevich.

“Perhaps,” the Russian said.

“That’s not good enough.”

“It is best I can do. I have seen this man, Geiser, only but once, out at the Whidbey house.” Alekseevich was slowly working away from plain answers, and Olson, to her credit, was making no attempt to stop him.

Boldt asked Olson about the Whidbey house and she informed him this was the Svengrad residence, a palatial estate on the southwest shore of Whidbey Island.

Boldt said, “Geiser was supposed to help get the injunction lifted-get Svengrad’s caviar out of federal impound.”