Our DivSix group, led by Gleason, dismounts now from its vehicles onto a sweltering Brighton Beach sidewalk, one long block from the beach, and troops up to the warped and paint-peeling doors of the steam emporium.

Gleason leads us in. Manning takes off his dark glasses, squinting into the gloom. I follow. Is it my imagination, or did some species of glossy rodent just scamper along the entryway floorboard? I feel a noxious drop of liquid strike my forehead, as if falling from a ceiling stalactite.

Caesar’s Sanctuary? The place is the skeeviest, most unsanitary hellhole I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t touch a wall or a doorknob without rubber gloves.

Gleason, flashing his gold shield, blows past the reception desk, if such a term may be applied to a trio of pseudo-Roman columns glistening with condensation, topped by a faux-marble slab that looks like it was stolen from a Hollywood prop house, and manned by a white-haired Slavic gentleman, clad in a terry-cloth toga, who looks exactly like Charles Laughton as the Roman senator in Spartacus.

I look up and we’re entering a locker room.

A men’s locker room.

MANNING

(to me)

Wait outside.

GLEASON

No. She goes in.

I smell steam and male sweat. From a cloud of vapor emerge two burly pink humanoids, both bald as cue balls, shod in flip-flops, with towels wrapped around their bellies. One looks like Winston Churchill, the other like Nikita Khrushchev.

MANNING

Dewey’s a woman, Gleason.

GLEASON

She’s a law enforcement professional.

Gleason leads our party through the changing area and down a dingy tile-walled runway that opens into a slightly brighter (from a skylight) steam room.

Half a dozen Roosky-looking gentlemen sit naked in various postures on multileveled, mold-infested tile platforms. One rises immediately to confront us.

RUSSIAN MAN #1

What the fuck is this?

The man clearly recognizes Gleason.

GLEASON

How’s it hanging, Yoo-hoo?

I’m cringing. Manning has stepped in front to shield me from this sight that, once seen, can never be unseen. The denizens of the steam room, realizing a female has entered their sanctum, without haste tug towels over their privates.

“Yoo-hoo” is Alemany Petracek, the assassin with his own Wikipedia page.

We have invaded the Russian Mafia at lunchtime.

YOO-HOO

What bullshit are you pulling, Gleason? If you ain’t got a warrant, take a fucking hike.

Gleason orders Yoo-hoo to sit. The Russian in no hurry pulls a towel around himself. He nods in my direction.

YOO-HOO

Get this bitch outta here. This is a men’s steam!

Manning strides a step closer to the assassin, still shielding me. I understand now why I have been brought along—to humiliate the mafiosi in their most occult sanctuary.