Solomon extends a hand, which Gorev doesn't take. "Steve Solomon. I'm a lawyer."

Gorev scowls. He is a heavyset man in a black suit with a bloodred silk shirt open at the neck. Black curly hair on his chest, a shaved head. Diamond rings on each pinky, a diamond-encrusted watch, and two diamond earrings. Diamonds seem to be the order of the day.

"We don't need no stinking lawyer." Gorev plops into a cushy chair behind a cluttered desk. Red velvet drapes cover the rear wall, except for an open space that holds a kitschy black velvet painting of Lenin's tomb. Solomon and Nadia take seats in front of the desk.

"Nice artwork," Solomon says, gesturing toward the velvet painting.

"Is joke, idiot!" Pronouncing it ee-dee-oat! "I hate Lenin. And Stalin. Putin is okay. Knows how to make a buck."

"Nicolai's personal heroes are both Americans," Nadia said.

Gorev nodded. "Donald Trump and Bernie Madoff. True capitalists!"

A speaker plays a distinctive jazz tune. It only takes a few seconds of the sax for Solomon to recognize Dave Brubeck's "Take Five." Somehow, the song seems out of place here.

"Solomon is very big man in Miami," Nadia says. "On the television."

"Who gives a dump? Why are you here, gerla?"

"I want my passport and my back pay."

"Why? You are not going back to Russia."

"I am leaving club. Getting married."

Gorev's laugh sounds like a bulldog sneezing. He even slobbers a little. "Who is the lucky son of bitch?"

"Not your business."

Wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his suit coat, Gorev turns to Solomon. "You, lawyer. Are you marrying my best B-girl?"

"No. I have a girlfriend."

"So? Maybe you keep girlfriend as mistress." Gorev laughs again, this time without the moisture.

"You do not know the man I am marrying," Nadia says.

"Of course not because there is no such man. You just want to quit."

As he listens to them argue, Solomon nods in tune to the drum solo.

"You know this music?" Gorev asks.

"Everyone knows 'Take Five.'"

"And the five-four meter? Do you know where Brubeck learned it?"

Solomon shakes his head.

"From street musicians in Turkey. Americans are very smart that way. You call it American jazz, but you steal from your black slaves and from Eurasians and everyone you can."

Solomon shrugs. "I just like the music."

"But this is why I love America. World's greatest thieves!" He turns to Nadia. "Are you going to work for that bastard Bebchuk in Brooklyn?"

"I am not going to work. My husband will support me."

"Such bullshit."

Just as the repetitious two-chord piano vamp beats into Solomon's brain, he puts on his lawyer's voice and says, "Mr. Gorev, you are wrongfully holding my client's passport. We could get a writ of replevin to force you to return it. Then there is the matter of withheld wages."

"I wipe my ass with your writ." He turns back to Nadia. "Tell me, you little shlyukha, what is going on?"

"I'm not a whore, you svoloch bastard!"

"Tell that to the police in Riga. You just weren't very good at it."

"I leave because I will not be part of your wire fraud and money laundering anymore. Or the racketeering."

Gorev freezes. "Where did you learn these words?"

"Nowhere." Panic crosses her face.

"You, lawyer! Did you teach this stupid girl those words?"

"If I did, I wouldn't tell you. And don't talk to her like that."

"Or what? You will sue me." Gorev opens a desk drawer and comes out with a Beretta semiautomatic. Aiming at Nadia, he says, "Take off your dress."

"I have taken off my clothes for you for the last time."

"I am not going to screw you. I am looking for wire."

"I would never-"

"Are you working for the government or for the jeweler?"

"I work for you only."

Gorev swings the Beretta toward Solomon. "What about you, lawyer? Are you wearing a wire?"

"I never work for the government. And I have no idea who the jeweler is."

"Nadia, my little Nadia. Why make me do this?" Gorev sounds truly sad, as if he has to put down a beloved old dog.

"I will go. Forget everything."

She starts to stand, but Gorev shouts, "Nyet! Sit!"

She sinks back into the chair.

"Do you know my brother Alex used to fly helicopters in the army?" Gorev says.

"Of course. It is all Alex talks about. That and the hockey."

"Alex loved dropping captured Chechens out of the helicopter and watching them hit. Splat! He was very happy when I asked him to help me with a girl who betrayed me in Russia. He took her up in a helicopter and dropped her into a giant pit. Six hundred meters deep. Nadia, you know the place. The jeweler knows the place. But Alex was so disappointed. The fall was so far and the pit so deep, he could not see her hit the ground."

"Just so we're clear," Solomon says. "You have committed a variety of felonies under Florida law. Reckless display of a firearm. Assault. Terroristic threats."

Gorev makes a snorting sound and dismisses Solomon with a wave of the gun. "Gerla, you have been talking to government."

"No. I swear."

"Did they ask you about Aeroflot 100?"

"They ask nothing. I say nothing. I know nothing."

"If either of you is wearing a wire, I will kill you both," Gorev says matter-of-factly. He points the gun at Solomon. "I have a feeling it is you. Lawyer, your clothes."

"I have nothing to hide."

Solomon starts unbuttoning his shirt. He senses movement in Nadia's chair. Forces himself not to look in her direction. Keeps a steady gaze on Gorev, but still, from the corner of his eye, he sees: Nadia reaching into her purse.

Pulling out a handgun!

Gorev sees or senses something. He swings the gun back toward Nadia.

Half a second late.

The gunshot hits him squarely in the forehead, snapping his head back, and then forward again. He topples face-first onto his desk, blood oozing from his ears and over those diamond earrings. Steve is frozen in his chair.

Nadia leaps up, dashes to the rear wall of the office behind Gorev's desk. Pulls at the Lenin's tomb painting, which is on a hinge and swings away from the wall. A combination safe is behind the painting. She expertly twirls the dial, this way and that, and within seconds, the door is open. She reaches in and digs around, flipping through a dozen foreign passports. Finds the one she wants, tosses it into her purse. Then pulls a gallon-size freezer bag from the safe and puts that into her purse, too.

Steve's ears are ringing from the gunshot, but now he hears shouting outside the office door. Gorev's name is being called. More shouts in Russian. Banging on the door, but it's bolted from the inside.

"Nadia, we need to call the police," Solomon says. "Right now."

"No police!"

"It was self-defense. I can't be your lawyer, but I'm a helluva good eyewitness."

Nadia rifles through Gorev's desk drawers, finds something. A key. Then she slips Gorev's Beretta into her purse.

"No!" Solomon yells. "Don't touch that. Gorev's prints are on it. We need it."

She points her own gun-a Glock nine millimeter-at Solomon. "I am sorry. You should have had gun."

Still holding the Glock on him, Nadia takes the key and slides open the red drapes behind the desk, exposing a hidden door. She unlocks the door and tosses the Glock at Solomon. "You may need this," she says as she exits into a rear alley.

Steve catches the gun, goes to the drapes, and tries the door. Locked!

More angry shouts in Russian from inside the club.

Then the gunfire starts from the corridor. Bullets thudding into the outside of the thick wooden door they had entered. Instinctively, Solomon raises the Glock and fires two rounds into his side of the door. That stops the incoming gunfire long enough for him to grab his cell phone and dial 9-1-1.

As the phone rings, he looks down at the Glock. He has no idea how many rounds are left in the magazine. But he knows two bullets are now in the door. One is in Gorev's brain. And the gun is in his hand.

"I am in deep shit," Steve Solomon says aloud.

-8-.

Where Is Nadia?

I guess there's no sense in my telling you how reckless you were," I said.

"None," Solomon said.

"Steve knows," Victoria agreed.

We were still in the claustrophobic confines of the jail's lawyer visitation room. Chairs and a metal table were bolted to the floor. Victoria made notes in neat block printing on a legal pad. I preferred working without notes, studying Solomon, looking for any trace of prevarication. So far, nothing. He told the story with apparent sincerity. Hell, it was such a bad story, if he were lying, he'd have a better one.

"Wandering clueless into the cave of the Russian bear," I continued. "Gorev was probably Bratva. Russian Mafia."

"I guess," Solomon said.

"I mean, taking a big lead off third base is one thing, but this . . ."

"I thought you weren't going to bust my chops, Lassiter."

"You're right. Let's just sum it up. The cops find you in a locked room with a dead man. Your fingerprints are on the gun used to kill him, and gunpowder residue is on your right hand."

"Nadia was wearing those Holly Golightly gloves or her prints would have been on the gun," Solomon said in his own defense.

"But Nadia can't back you up because she's disappeared," Victoria said. "And even though she has a strong self-defense claim, which you could corroborate, she's unlikely to show up voluntarily."

"Because even though she's likely innocent of murder," I chipped in, "she's probably guilty of robbery. Any idea what was in that freezer baggie she took?"

"None."

"Cash?"