Marbot looked like he’d been having a bad morning. He summoned up that old phony charisma. “There’s a lot of money. You can have it. I don’t care anymore. It was never about the money.”

Nazari stepped closer to look at the computer screen. The mayor held up one hand. “First we deal. If you come any closer, I’ll press this little button and all the money disappears, forever. First we deal.”

He had a finger hovering above the delete key.

I said, “I’ve never heard of disappearing money.”

Nazari was reading the screen from around fifteen feet. Outstanding vision. She said, “It’s crypto, it can disappear alright. Why should we care?”

The mayor said, “You should care because of the amount. It’s a life-changing sum of money.”

I said, “How’s that going to disappear if I shoot you in the head right now?”

The guy was a politician. He thought that he’d save his neck by talking his way out of it. “This is a wallet address and private key, you imbecile. It’s the only copy. If I press this button, even accidentally, as a muscle reflex, the address disappears and ten million turns to dust.”

I’d heard of crypto currency, but I’d never been interested. Some kind of computer money, is all I knew. I said, “Address for what?”

Nazari said, “Crypto currency address. It’s a unique record of the funds, like a code for an anonymous Swiss bank account. Don’t worry about the technical details, the scumbag’s right.”

“You learned that in the BRI course too?”

She nodded. “Yup.”

I said to Marbot, “So, you’re sitting there looking at your money and we’re supposed to be impressed?”

He went for an authoritative tone. “No, you fool. I’ve been consolidating the information and the funds in one place. I’m ready to cooperate now.”

“You mean you’re ripping off your partners, now that they’re dead.”

Marbot laughed. “Partners. More like puppets. The puppets were all very happy with the money and the girls, very happy indeed. Then, one by one they began having moral qualms. Hypocrites.” The mayor was nodding like a crazy person, eyes wide, face red and fleshy jowls bouncing. “Bonnet, Rigalle, Houdin, you think of a name that means anything in this town and they were involved.”

Nazari said, “What about Vaugeois?”

“That idiot? He was just a pretentious old fart who got in the way. I’ll tell you everything. I’ve got dirt that goes all the way up to Paris if they want that.”

She said, “In exchange for what?”

Marbot spit out an arrogant laugh. “Immunity of course. For what I’ve got, they’ll give me a deal. They’ll hush it up. They always do.”

I looked at Nazari. “Think that’s true?”