“Sure, I was afraid. You know that. I wasn’t being a coward about it, though. It’s more as if I was putting off the inevitable. I’ve felt like Hamlet a lot lately. Even when you admit that the thing you fear is inevitable, you’re not sure it’s still the correct thing to do. Maybe Hamlet could have solved things with less bloodshed another way, without forcing his uncle’s hand. Maybe getting my brain amped only seems right. Maybe I’m overlooking something obvious.”

“If you just diddle with yourself like this, more people will die, maybe even yourself. Don’t forget, if half the Budayeen knows you’re on the killers’ trail, the killers know it, too.”

That hadn’t yet occurred to me. Even the sunnies couldn’t buoy me up after that piece of news.

An hour later I was in Lieutenant Okking’s office. As usual, he didn’t show much enthusiasm when I looked in on him. “Audran,” he said. “Collected another dead body for me? If all’s right with the world, then you’re dragging yourself in here mortally wounded, desperate for my forgiveness before you kick off.”

“Sorry, Lieutenant,” I said.

“Well, I can dream, can’t I?”

Ya salaam, he was always so goddamn amusing. “I’m supposed to work more closely with you, and you’re supposed to cooperate willingly with me. Papa thinks it best if we pool all our information.”

He looked like he’d just sniffed something decomposing nearby. He muttered a few words unintelligibly under his breath. “I don’t like his high-handed butting in, Audran, and you can tell him that for me. He’s going to make it harder for me to close this case. Friedlander Bey’s only endangering himself more by having you interfere with police business.”

“He doesn’t see it that way.”

Okking nodded glumly. “All right, what do you want me to tell you?”

I sat back and tried to look casual. “Everything you know about Lutz Seipolt and the Russian who was killed in Chiri’s club.”

Okking was startled. It took him a moment to compose himself. “Audran, what possible connection could there be between the two?” he asked.

We’d been through this before; I knew he was just stalling. “There have to be overlapping motives or some broad conflict we don’t understand, being played out in the Budayeen.”

“Not necessarily,” said the lieutenant. “The Russian wasn’t part of the Budayeen. He was a political nobody who set foot in your quarter only because you asked him to meet you there.”

“You’re doing a good job of changing the subject, Okking. Answer the question: Where is Seipolt from and what does he do?”

“He came to the city three or four years ago, from someplace in the Fourth Reich, Frankfurt, I think. He set himself up as an import-export agent — you know how vague a description that is. His main business is food and spices, coffee, some cotton and fabrics, Oriental rugs, junk copper and brass pieces, cheap jewelry, Muski glass from Cairo, and other minor things. He’s big in the European community, he seems to turn a nice profit, and he has never shown any signs of being involved in any high-level illicit international trade. That’s about all I know.”

“Can you imagine why he pulled a gun on me when I asked him a few questions about Nikki?”

Okking shrugged. “Maybe he just likes his privacy. Look, you aren’t the most innocent-looking guy in the world, Audran. Maybe he thought you were there to put the arm on him and run off with his collection of ancient statuary and scarabs and mummified mice.”

“Then you’ve been to his place?”

Okking shook his head. “I get reports,” he said. “I’m an influential police administrator, remember?”

“That’s right, I keep forgetting. So the Nikki-Seipolt angle is a dead end. What about the Russian, Bogatyrev?”

“He was a mouse working for the Byelorussians. First his kid went missing, and then he had the bad luck to stop this James Bond’s slug. He has even less of a connection to the other murders than Seipolt does.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Lieutenant. Friedlander Bey wanted me to make sure you hadn’t turned up any new evidence lately. I really don’t want to disrupt your investigation. Just tell me what I should do next.”

He made a face. “I’d suggest that you go on a fact-finding mission to Tierra del Fuego or New Zealand or somewhere out of my hair, but you’d only laugh and not take me seriously. So check on anyone who had a grudge against Abdoulaye, or if anyone particularly wanted to kill the Black Widow Sisters. Find out if any of the Sisters had been seen with an unknown or suspicious person just before she was killed.”

“All right,” I said, standing up. I’d just been given a first-class runaround, but I wanted Okking to think he had me snowed. Maybe he had some definite leads that he didn’t want to share with me, despite what Papa had said. That might explain his offhand lying. Whatever the reason, I planned to come back soon — when Okking wasn’t around — and use the computer records to dig a little deeper into the backgrounds of Seipolt and Bogatyrev.

When I got home, Yasmin pointed to the table. “Somebody left a note for you.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Just slipped it under the door and knocked. I went to the door, but there wasn’t anybody there. I went downstairs, but there was nobody on the sidewalk, either.”

I felt a chill. I tore open the envelope. There was a short message printed out on computer paper. It said:

“What does it say?” asked Yasmin.

“Oh, nothing,” I said. I felt a little tremor in my hand. I turned away from Yasmin, crumpled the paper, and stuffed it in my pocket.

Chapter 15

Since the night Bogatyrev had been killed in Chiriga’s place, I had felt almost every strong emotion a person can. There had been disgust and terror and elation. I had known hate and love, hope and despair. I had been by turns timid and bold. Yet nothing had filled me so completely as the fury that surged in me now. The preliminary jostling was over, and ideas like honor, justice, and duty were submerged beneath the overpowering need to stay alive, to keep from being killed. The time for doubt had passed. I had been threatened — me, personally. That anonymous message had gotten my attention.

My rage was directed immediately at Okking. He was hiding information from me, maybe covering up something, and he was endangering my life. If he wanted to endanger Abdoulaye or Tami, well, I guess that’s police business. But endangering me — that’s my business. When I got to his office, Okking was going to learn that. I was going to teach it to him the hard way.

I was striding fiercely up the Street, seething and rehearsing what I was going to say to the lieutenant. It didn’t take me long to get it all worked out. Okking would be surprised to see me again, only an hour after I’d left his office. I planned to storm in, slam his door so hard the glass would rattle, shove the death threat into his face, and demand a complete recitation of facts. Otherwise I would haul him down to one of the interrogation rooms and bounce him off his own walls for a while. I bet Sergeant Hajjar would give me all the help I wanted, too.

As I got to the gate at the eastern end of the Budayeen, I faltered a bit between steps. A new thought had rammed its way into my mind. I had felt that little tickle of unfinished business this morning when I’d talked to Okking; I’d felt it after seeing Selima’s corpse, too. I always let my unconscious mind work on those tickles, and sooner or later it puzzled them out. Now I had my answer, like an electric buzzer going off in my head.