The door, festooned with climbing clematis, of Au Petit Tonnelier was low. So low that Attila thought that the building must have been erected for very short people centuries ago. Or, it could have been the plan that anyone entering would be at a disadvantage when those waiting inside with their swords drawn were ready for a bit of carnage. A perfect ruse for your enemies. Attila ducked his head and stepped inside.
Except for one large, elegant Russian, the place was empty. He had chosen a corner table with a small window and a tall potted plant in the window’s alcove. Alexander, too, preferred to have his back to the wall.
He loved clothes. Today, he wore dark brown Hugo Boss chinos, a black wool jacket with a high collar that would have looked fine on a nineteenth century Hungarian aristocrat, and a pale pink shirt with long white cuffs that peered out of his jacket sleeves. On the table, there was a basket of rolls, an open bottle of red wine, and two glasses, one of which was already half empty. When he saw Attila, he poured wine into the other glass. “A modest Pomerol,” he said, “but you’ll be impressed with its pretensions. Sit. Please.”
“Why are you in Strasbourg?” Attila asked.
“And I thought you would be pleased to see me. Disappointing, dear friend,” Alexander continued in Hungarian.
“I am usually happy to see you, but I would be much happier if I knew what you are doing in Strasbourg,” Attila persisted, as he swallowed a mouthful of wine.
“You like?” Alexander inquired.
“It’s okay, but didn’t you know Strasbourg is famous for its craft beers? Please don’t tell me you are here for the wine.”
Alexander patted the plant and gazed at the ceiling next to the entrance. “You know it’s wired?” he said.
Attila saw the tiny camera next to the door. It was pointed at the kitchen area. “The door?”
“Yes, but it’s just an ordinary CCTV, more interested in who is coming and going than in us.”
“The plant?” Attila asked.
Alexander hummed. “I think I got that earlier,” he said. “but there must be more. This city lives on information. All those Europeans can’t resist their desire to know more than other Europeans and the rest of us, who are not in the ‘club.’ All those groups, all those secrets they try to hide from one another and the press. The jockeying for positions.”
“Is that why you’re here? To find out what the Council of Europe is planning?”
“Not the Council,” Alexander said. “We have someone else on that. I am sure you’ll like the veal here. It’s not as spicy as in Budapest, but it is excellent. The boeuf bourguignon is a specialty of the maison.”
Attila didn’t respond. He stared at Alexander and waited while the maître d’ hovered and his friend ordered — in perfect French — the “boeuf bourguignon avec le choucroute pour deux personnes.”
“We have a problem,” Alexander began. “It’s about a woman who is a master of martial arts, a talented fighter with an uncanny ability to spot Renaissance art and to distinguish between the real and the fake. She is not so discerning about people, but hey, I am happy for you both, long as you keep her well away from me and everyone I report to, because some of us are not keen on having our balls shot off.”
“She didn’t.”
“That’s not what I heard, and I had my information from the guy who was shot. Poor bugger, he shat his pants when she shot him. I got there the same time as the ambulance. Not a pretty scene.” Alexander finished his wine in one gulp and refilled his glass. “There was blood everywhere and he was crying and the stench . . . you can imagine. They got him undressed and this doctor who didn’t speak Russian tried to tell him in Hungarian that he had lost only one, that he could still have children, if he wanted. All that before the guy passed out from the pain, and I doubt he would have been thinking about having children just then.” He drank a bit more wine and tore a bit of bread from one of the rolls in the basket. “I waited in the hospital till they stitched him up. That’s when he told me he had been attacked by a woman.”
“There are a lot of women in Budapest,” Attila said.
“Yes, and some of them are still holding a bit of a grudge against Russians — I don’t blame them, really — but very few of them could get into a fight with a trained man and win.”
Still admitting nothing, Attila gazed at the CCTV camera with a vague smile.
“I know it was her, so why not cut the crap, stop playing around, and let’s talk about this thing as if we were adults.”
“What makes you think it was her?” Attila persisted.
“She showed the guy a drawing she had made of someone involved with this art thing in Strasbourg. It was a pretty good likeness. The woman can draw. Better than what the Russian guy had, and there was no mistaking this is the man who shot the lawyer in Strasbourg.”
“And this man, does he work for you?”
“Neither man works for us, but the man who now has one ball does work for one of our beleaguered country’s good friends, a very refined Russian who is close with our czar and hates this sort of violence. He is, after all, an art collector. You remember, he was trying to buy that Titian. He likes fine old paintings.”
“And his man. FSB?”
“Used to be. Retired.”
“He was sitting in a car outside the home of our minister of industry and
