Gala gasped and showed her paper to Stone. In the lower left-hand corner of the front page was a headline: FILM PRODUCER CHARGED WITH MURDER. That gave him a little thrill. He read the article, which after two paragraphs was continued on the entertainment page.

The article reproduced all the allegations in Felicity’s document, plus the writer, James Towbin, film critic of the Los Angeles Times, had sought comment from members of the management of the studio with which Tirov was about to sign a production deal. They professed themselves shocked and appalled at the news of the murder charge and said that any projected deal with Mr. Tirov would be held in abeyance until the producer had had an opportunity to clear his name.

“Good God! Is this stuff true?” Gala asked.

“It is, according to the Los Angeles Times,” he said. “And that is a credible newspaper.”

“Boris never mentioned any of this to me. Now I understand why he never had any interest in returning to Russia, even for a visit. He was afraid of being arrested.”

“It would appear so. It would also appear that he is going to have his hands full for the next month, trying not to get returned to Russia, where a trial and a long prison sentence might await him, so he will have little time to devote to harassing you.”

“Well, that’s a good thing,” she said. “I don’t think I understood until this moment how preoccupied I have been with his stalking of me. I feel an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders.”

“I’m glad you feel that way,” Stone said.

“Can the U.S. government really do this to him?”

“Certainly, if he lied on his application for a green card about his legal problems in Moscow. That’s probably a felony, as well, and even if he manages to stay in the country, he might be prosecuted for that.”

“Then he is either going to be in a U.S. jail or a Russian one?”

“Very likely,” Stone said with some satisfaction.

Gala sat up in bed and looked Stone in the eye. “Tell me the truth, did you have anything to do with this?”

“Are you sure you want the truth?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Yes, I did.”

“How on earth did you manage it?”

“First, I asked a friend with connections in Moscow to research Boris’s background. Then I sent the resulting report to James Towbin, the film critic of the L.A. Times, who, you may remember, had an unfortunate confrontation with Boris in the bar at the Arrington, resulting in a sore jaw for Mr. Towbin and the ejection of Boris from the hotel’s grounds. The rest is journalism, and no doubt Mr. Towbin and his editors investigated the truth of the allegations and found them not wanting.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were doing this?”