Zero History

places in which to determine whether or not you were being followed. But he really
didn’t think that he was being followed, that way.
He walked through a grove of Ralph Lauren, then a thinner one of Hilfiger, to a
balustrade overlooking the central atrium. Looking down, he saw Foley crossing from the
direction of Boulevard Haussmann. Take off the cap, he thought. A professional would
have done that, at least, and removed the black jacket as well.
When Foley reached almost the exact spot where Milgrim himself had paused to look
up, he paused as well, just as Milgrim had, taking in the dome. Milgrim stepped back,
knowing Foley would scan the balustrades next, which indeed he did.
You know I’m here, Milgrim thought, but you don’t know exactly where. He saw Foley
speak. To Sleight, he imagined, via a headset.
A moment later, Milgrim was alone in an elevator, pressing the button for the top floor,
his improv module kicking in. Open to opportunity.
The elevator stopped at the next floor. The door slid open, and was quickly held by a
thick arm in charcoal gray, the arm of a large man.
“It’s a shame you no longer live here in the city,” said a tall blonde, in Russian, to
another young woman beside her, equally tall, equally blond. The second blonde rolled a
massive pram or stroller into the elevator, some sort of luxury baby-transporter on three
bulbous wheels, a thing made apparently of carbon-fiber and sharkskin, everything a gray
like the bodyguard’s suit.
“It’s shit in the suburbs,” replied the pram-driver, in Russian, setting the thing’s hand
brake with a flick of her finger. “A villa. Two hours. Dogs. Guards. Shit.”
The bodyguard stepped in, eyeing Milgrim darkly. Milgrim backed up, as far as
possible, a handrail digging painfully into his spine, and looked down at the floor. The
door closed and the elevator began to rise. Milgrim stole a look at the two women,
instantly regretting it for the attention it cost him from their looming guardian. He looked
back down. The mega-stroller looked like something from the cabin of a very expensive
airplane, perhaps the drinks trolley. Whatever infant it held was entirely concealed by a
sharkskin cowl or fairing, probably bulletproof. “Surely he can’t have lost that much,”
said the first blonde.
“It was all heavily leveraged,” said the pram-driver.
“What does that mean?”
“That we have no Paris apartment, and shop in Galeries Lafayette,” said the pramdriver,
bitterly.
Milgrim, who hadn’t heard Russian since leaving Basel, felt a peculiar enchantment, in
spite of the sullen presence of their guard, and the handrail in his back. The elevator
stopped, the door opened, and a tall Parisian teenager stepped in. As the door closed,
Milgrim noted the guard’s focus on the girl, no less sullen but absolute. Slender, brunette,
she looked from Milgrim to the two Russian women with a sort of benign disdain,
ignoring the guard.