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night, locked him in Lubyanka or Lefortovo, and not let him sleep again until he confessed to whatever crime they were convinced he had committed. But this was America. Perhaps the Justice Department had its rules of etiquette. Bankers should not be busted prior to ten o’clock in the morning.
    Taylor took a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. Mulholland crossed the big carpet at his own pace, head high. I had to give him credit. He probably never in his life expected to be arrested, certainly not in his own home, and he was doing his damnedest to carry it off dignity intact. I had an unkind thought about how long he’d maintain the decorum once he got fingerprinted, mug-shotted, and stripped, then reminded myself that his impending humiliation was something millions of innocents had been put through—and worse. It was nothing to gloat over.
    Mulholland stopped at the desk to check the computer screen. He might have slumped a little then but recovered quickly. Bernie’s phone buzzed as the FBI men led Mulholland outside. He looked at the screen and grunted. The gears of his brain upshifted a speed as he opened the phone. Bernie doesn’t get angry often. This morning, he was seriously pissed off.
    “Goddammit, Victoria, what the hell is going on?… You can skip the goddamned pleasantries … I can see that, I’m right here with him. I thought we had a deal … What do you mean, changed? What the hell changed?”
    He listened for a few minutes, almost breaking in a few times, but thinking better of it. Finally he said, “Victoria, if you weren’t my former partner, I’d tell you exactly what I think of you. As it is, I’ll just say you’re full of shit, and we’ll prove it—to your embarrassment.”
    He listened again. Then, “Okay, do me a favor, huh? Take him in the back, skip the perp walk. He doesn’t deserve … Oh, come on, Victoria, you can make … What happened to innocent before proven … Goddammit!”
    He jammed the cell phone into his pocket, muttered, “Bitch,” and followed his client out the door.
    I hesitated. I’m no stranger to sudden arrests—no Russian of my generation is. Still, I was now an unwanted observer—no one had invited me to watch this. The last time I’d been witness to the authorities arriving unannounced, I’d been on the other side. I was the instigator then, but fate plays nasty tricks, and what I ended up instigating was the unraveling of my career, my marriage, and my family. I thought I’d locked that memory away, in the cell of unwanted reminiscences, but Mulholland and the FBI had set it loose. I had the unpleasant feeling fate was about to intervene again. If I’d had the slightest premonition of how, I’d have stayed right there and barred the door.
    Out in the entrance hall, Mulholland stood surrounded by the men in suits. Bernie pushed his way through.
    “Victoria says something changed, won’t say what. I tried to get her to forgo the perp walk, but—”
    “I understand,” Mulholland said. “We’ll beat this thing. They’ve got nothing because there’s nothing to have. This is just a feeble attempt at intimidation.”
    “I’ll call Tom and Walter,” Bernie said.
    “Let’s go,” one of the suits said.
    Having waited as long as they’d waited, the Feds now seemed in quite a hurry to drag Mulholland downtown. They were working to some kind of schedule. Had someone tipped off a local TV news crew or two to be ready outside Police Plaza at eleven o’clock or thereabouts? Bernie thought so, and he’d said as much on the phone. No question Mulholland in his Savile Row suit, tie, and handcuffs, being led inside for booking, would make a good clip for the evening news.
    Survivors learn early in the camps never to let anything occupy their full attention. Trouble was all around, and it could come from any direction, take any form—a malevolent guard, another prisoner with a grudge, a new arrival who coveted the patch of straw on the floor you