A basket of warm bread arrived. Alex made herself busy with it. What she was hearing was deeply disturbing, but she listened intently and absorbed everything.

“Look,” said Rizzo. “Politkovskaya’s murder even agitated strong public disgust over what was seen as a blatantly political assassination. Politkovskaya was one of the most trusted journalists on the subject of Chechnya. She had many ties to moderate Chechnyans and wrote scathing articles critical of the way Putin dealt with the secession crisis. Politkovskaya had survived a previous attempt on her life: someone attempted to poison her as she prepared to cover the siege and massacre in Beslan in 2004. So her funeral turned into a powerful outcry against the brutality of Russia’s politics. She was buried at the Troyekurovsky Cemetery in Moscow. Before Politkovskaya was buried, two thousand anti-Putin pro-democracy Russians filed past her coffin to pay last respects. No high-ranking Russian officials could be seen at the ceremony. Eventually, there were some suspects charged, but a jury refused to convict them.”

“So the police and the judicial system are useless once again?” Alex said.

“Completely. The assassins sent forth by Putin operate with impunity. No one in Russia or Europe or the Middle East is surprised at anything. Saddened, maybe. But shocked, no. Listen, this month marks the anniversary of the murder of Dmitri Kholodov. Kholodov was an investigative journalist killed while he was investigating corruption in the Russian army. His attaché case had been booby-trapped. The trial of his alleged murderers ended in acquittal. A colonel charged with the murder won compensation for his forced retirement and pretrial confinement. He was rewarded, in other words, and given decorations by the Putin government. Kholodov’s friends complain but nothing will be done. The murder goes unpunished like thousands of similar crimes under Putin and Stalin.”

At the next table, a champagne cork popped with all the proper subtlety of five-star dining.

“Five years ago, for a final example,” Rizzo said, “my acquaintance Yuri Shchekochikhin mysteriously died. He was a member of the Duma, the Russian parliament. He too was poisoned. Putin’s people love poison and give it to people they wish to be rid of because the poisons they use cause slow, horrible, painful deaths. Officially Shchekochikhin died of an allergy, but his body was cremated before an independent analysis could be done of his remains.”

For a moment, Rizzo seemed to be thinking of several other stories to add but then preferred to leave them out of the evening’s chat.

“The Russian gangsters who now run the country are a blight upon the civilized world,” he said. “There is no defeating them because we are limited by our democratic means. Thousands of crimes are committed, never to be resolved. You know, my uncles were Communists in the auto factories of northern Italy. They were foolish in their time, though their foolishness was understandable. They idolized Lenin and Stalin and that pig Khrushchev. They were workers, my uncles, and they reacted against the fascisti here in Italy. I loved my uncles, but I was forced to hear quotes from those old red bastards. Here’s one I remember. Stalin once theorized, ‘No man, no problem.’ You see what that means?”

“Eliminate the man and you’ve eliminated the problem,” said Alex.

“Not only are you very intelligent but you understand too well the basest forms of human behavior,” Rizzo said. “I don’t know if that is good or bad for you, Alexandra LaDuca, but it is what it is. And you are correct. Stalin spoke of killing the man who causes the problem in order to kill the problem. The Putin management style is exactly the same. In the latest government-sanctioned high-school history text, Stalin is described as someone who used ‘terror as a pragmatic means of resolving social and economic problems.’ Understand that? Russian society under Putin now sees individual murder as a means of social management. Want to call it, ‘godless neo-Stalinism’? I would.”

Alex nodded. “I would too,” she said.

“Putin is Stalin’s disciple, just as John, Mark, and Paul were disciples of Jesus. Now,” he said, his eyes flicking away for a moment, “have I answered your question?”

“More than adequately,” Alex said. “Thank you.”

“Good! Here’s Mimi.”

A smile swept Rizzo’s face, and Alex quickly located the indiscreet object of his desire.

A young woman of about twenty had entered the room. She had Technicolor hair, chopped short in a trendy fashion. It was streaked with blue, green, and yellow in a blend of Japanese schoolgirl and manga fashion. She was trim and lithe and wore a snug red miniskirt. Most of the male eyes in the room followed her as Carlo, the starchy maître d’, led her to their table.

Rizzo embraced her with a long hug and a kiss on each cheek. Then he introduced her to Alex. She giggled slightly, flirted with him outrageously, and Rizzo held her chair as he seated her. It wasn’t a matter of her being half his age; she was closer to a third.

“Now,” he said. “Where were we?”

The topics of Russia and Putin did not come up again over dinner.

Alex dined amiably with her old friend and his new friend. They switched into Italian after Mimi joined them, but during the meal Mimi demonstrated a thorough ability in English. Alex’s instincts told her that she could like the young girl and trust her. She, Mimi, seemed to have one foot in several different cultures, or perhaps one long sleek leg if Rizzo described it, and reminded Alex of herself. Alex brought them both up to speed on her assignment in Egypt. Alex also wondered if there would be a way she would work them into the equation. Mimi could easily be an asset. One never knew.

Rizzo and Mimi listened carefully as Alex briefed them, interrupting occasionally to ask questions. Rizzo offered suggestions about dealing with Arabs and Russians: useful stuff such as, with a smile, “They’re cutthroats. Don’t trust any of them.”

At the end of the evening, Rizzo insisted on paying. He tipped generously and, again demonstrating his legère de main, if not his outright kleptomania, pocketed a blue and white porcelain ashtray in front of his headwaiter friend, Carlo, who rolled his eyes and suppressed a laugh. Later, in the hotel lobby, Rizzo gave the ashtray to Mimi as a souvenir of the evening. She made a complex verbal joke out of her previous knowledge of Rizzo’s light fingers and deft touch. Having consumed perhaps too much wine, they all exchanged a bawdy laugh. To end the evening, Rizzo walked both women, their combined age not quite approaching his, to the elevator that led to Alex’s suite. He held Alex’s hand and had his other arm wrapped around Mimi’s waist.

He gave Alex a kiss on both cheeks to wish her a good night, turned, and headed toward where he had left his car as Alex rode the elevator up to the fifth floor.