“Speaking of which,” Grolin said, “one more run-through, and I’ll have every last word on this tape popping out at us like braille.”

Noriko’s fingertips rapped an impatient quintuplet against the back of Barnhart’s chair.

“Come on,” she said. Thinking: Aggravating twerp.

Grolin rewound, paused, played, tinkered with his MIDI controls.

“Why are you here?” Nick Roma said to the woman unbuttoning in front of him. “You know Zachary won’t have your papers ready until tomorrow. And I don’t suppose you’ve just come to say good night.”

“By Jove, and fucking-A, I think we’ve got it,” Grolin said. “Who’s Zachary, by the way?”

Nimic was looking at Barnhart. “You think that’s a first or last name?”

Barnhart shook his head. “Could be either, but I’ll ask around. My guess is he’d be one of Roma’s forgers. Or somebody who works for one of his forgers. Roma’s steadiest, ugliest source of income is the flesh trade. Smuggling desperately poor women from Russia to America as prostitutes ... essentially sex slaves ... with fraudulent visas and identification. That’s also how the organizatsiya imports its soldiers and hit men.”

“The bunch that did the job in Times Square would have wanted out of the country pronto,” Noriko said. “We find this Zachary, seems logical he’d be able to lead us to them.”

“Or steer us in their direction, anyway,” Barnhart said. “And that’s providing we can get him ... or her, now that I think about it ... to talk.”

“Leave the second part to me,” Nimec said, his eyes still on Barnhart. “How soon can you dig up the information we need?”

“Won’t take long, assuming we’re right about this person’s specialty and connection to Roma. I know G-men, detectives on the NYPD, even people in the Attorney General’s Office, who keep tabs on every player of importance in Roma’s outfit. And who’ll talk to me no questions asked.”

“Make sure that’s the way it is,” Nimec said. “I’ve been pulling strings for two days to see that the record of your ER treatment gets erased before it’s released to the police. I don’t want anybody tumbling to our investigation.”

Barnhart nodded, started to push himself up off the chair, but then sank back into it, obviously hurting.

“If one of you’d give me a hand, I’ll head upstairs to my office and start making some calls,” he said.

“And miss the climax to the flick?” Grolin said. “I plan on repeating it in its prurient entirety.”

Noriko looked at him with sharp irritation.

“Jeff, trust me,” she said. “You’ll have a much better time watching it alone.”