In front of the KaDeWe department store he found two Chechens resting on the fender of an Alfa Romeo. Up the Ku’damm, outside the great glass rectangle of the Europa Center, four Lyubtersy mafiosos were squeezed together in a Golf. A side street called Fasanenstrasse had elegant restaurants with French doors and wine stands, and also small, hairy Chechens tucked in a booth of one of them. On the next block a Long Pond mafioso patrolled the boutiques.

Arkady hit Zoo Station again. The telephone books and the operator had no listings for TransKom or Boris Benz. There was a number for a Margarita Benz. Arkady called.

On the fifth ring Irina answered, “Hello?”

“This is Arkady.”

“How are you?”

“I’m fine. I’m sorry to bother you.”

“No, I’m glad you called,” Irina said.

“I was wondering when this event was tonight. And how formal it is.”

“At seven. You’ll come here with Max and me. Don’t worry about formality. Do what German intellectuals do: when in doubt, wear black. They all look like widows. Arkady, are you sure you’re all right? Is Berlin completely confusing?”

“No, actually it’s starting to look familiar.”

The address for Margarita Benz was only two blocks away on Savigny Platz. On the way Arkady passed a commercial section of electronics stores with notices in Polish. Polish cars were parked in front. Men unloaded aromatic bags of cheap Socialist sausage and loaded VCRs.

He found the address at a genteel doorway just off Savigny. The legend below the third-floor button was GALLERIE BENZ. He hesitated, then turned away.

Savigny Platz itself was a square with two matching miniparks, each surrounded by a tall box hedge. A formal garden was laid out with marigolds and pansies. Set deep into the hedges were arbors designed for trysts.

Something about the neatly trimmed palisade of the hedge made him walk through the park and to a corner. Across the street were the outdoor tables of a restaurant under a filigree of shade lent by a beech. As he crossed, he heard the chatter of cutlery. A waiter poured coffee at a sideboard framed by honeysuckle grown over a yellow wall. Four tables were occupied, two by executive types efficiently eating, two by students resting, heads in hands. The tables inside were hidden by reflections of the street. In the windowpanes the box hedge of the park looked like a solid wall of green.

It was the Bavarian beer garden from Rudy’s tape. Arkady had thought it was in Munich because it had been inserted into a travelogue of the city, an assumption so stupid in retrospect that it made his stomach hurt.

A waiter was staring at him. “Ist Frau Benz hier?” Arkady asked.

The waiter checked the end table, the same one she sat at in the tape. Her regular table, obviously.

“Nein.”