“Good for you. You’ve earned all this! And never mind that you’re a thief or a spy or some kind of terrorist—someone who bullies old men, and kidnaps girls from the streets of Rome.”

“I’ve told you, Felicia, your friend Abe is fine, and I am no spy. I have no taste for politics at all. If I had to describe my profession, I’d say I was a broker. I match buyers with sellers, and take a fee. A modest fee, all things considered.”

“Buyers and sellers of what?”

Faust shrugged. “This and that. Odds and ends.”

“Like stolen music manuscripts?”

“The manuscript is in the closet, Felicia, behind lock and key. My own musical inclinations run more to Sinatra than Mozart.”

“Not music, then what—drugs, guns? Whatever it is, I’m sure it makes your family very proud.”

Kaminski felt the air change, going silent and thick around her. The smiling Mr. Faust was no longer smiling, and those dark eyes seemed to look right through her. Defiance and anger drained from her, replaced by choking fear. This time, the knock on the door was a relief.

It was the squat man again, and he looked nervously at Faust. Faust said something to the man—she didn’t know what—and walked out the door. The squat man turned to her.

“Come,” he said in gravelly English.

She was not inclined to argue.

Faust hadn’t lied about the trip. It was a short one in the back of the big BMW, through sodium-lit nighttime streets. Kaminski looked for signs and landmarks: Light Street, East Lombard, a big stadium off to the left, bathed in light and carpeted in impossible green, then a tangle of narrower streets, and old brick buildings. In 10 minutes, they pulled up in front of one of them.

Four stories and broad, the building looked to her like a warehouse or an old factory. And so it had been once upon a time, as she read on the shiny brass plaque near the modern glass entry: The Sail Cloth Factory—1888. Just above that plaque another, with the address: 121 South Fremont Avenue.

Home, she thought, her anger returning as she followed Faust inside.

Exposed brick and ornamental wrought iron whispered of the building’s industrial past; otherwise, the rest of the lobby—gleaming brass, etched glass and marble—proclaimed its current incarnation as a luxury apartment building. Faust crossed to the elevator and Felicia followed him in and then, on the fourth floor, out again. Around a corner, down a pale gray corridor, and to a black door at its end; Faust knocked twice. Then he took a key from his jacket pocket, worked the lock, and stepped inside. And stopped short.

Kaminski didn’t see the wiry, bearded man pointing a Glock 30 at Faust’s chest until she bumped into Faust’s back. Then she gasped and gripped Faust’s bicep.

“Jesus,” she whispered.