“Would a Pan American Airlines flight bag be suitable, do you think?”

“I don’t know. Can that hold fifty thousand dollars?”

“I should say so.”

“In which case, use it. Either way, have the money ready by seven o’clock. The meet is at eight. I’ll bring the negative and the photograph straight to the Villa Mauresque, as soon as I have them.”

“Fifty thousand dollars,” he exclaimed grumpily. “Must be the most expensive fucking photograph in history.”

“A picture can tell a thousand words. Isn’t that what they say?”

“Christ, I hope not. Otherwise I’m out of f-fucking work.”

“Look, sir, it’s probably best that none of the words that this particular picture can tell are ever heard outside of a Turkish bathhouse or a novel by Marcel Proust. So you’d best reconcile yourself to paying up.”

“That’s easy for you to say, Mr. Wolf. Fifty thousand dollars is fifty thousand dollars.”

“You’re right. And I’ll admit, fifty thousand pictures of Washington are fifty thousand stories I’d love to hear. So, don’t pay him. Tell him to go to hell and take the flak. It’s up to you, sir. But sometimes, when it’s absolutely necessary, everyone has to eat flies.”

“Suppose I give you the money and you drive straight for the Italian border? You could be in Genoa before midnight and on a boat to fuck knows where.”

“And leave my wonderful job here at the Grand Hôtel? I don’t think so. Every man likes to delude himself that he has some moral standards. For years I told myself that I was the most honest man I’d ever met. Of course, that was easy enough in Nazi Germany. But why take my word for it? Mark a few bills. Take a few serial numbers. I’d be easy enough to trace. I daresay even the French police wouldn’t have too much of a struggle to find me or it. Come to think of it, do that anyway. You never know.”