Moscow Rules

disk trying to hoist it out. He’s a Russian anvil salesman and he’s brought along a case filled with samples . By the time he had managed to heave the bags into the lobby, Lubin was slowly reciting his confirmation number to a perplexed-looking Ricardo, who, try as he might, had been unable to locate the reservation in question. The problem was finally resolved— “A small mistake by one of our staff, Monsieur Lubin. I’ll be certain to have a word with her” —only to be followed by another. Due to an oversight by the housekeeping staff, the room was not yet ready. “It will just be a few moments,” Ricardo said in his most silken voice. “My colleague will place your bags in the storage room. Allow me to show you to our lounge bar. There will be no charge for your drinks, of course.” There would be a charge—a rather bloated one, in fact—but Ricardo planned to spring that little surprise when Monsieur Lubin’s defenses were at their weakest.
     
     
    Sadly, Ricardo’s optimism that the delay would be brief turned out to be misplaced. Indeed, ninety additional minutes would elapse before Lubin was shown, sans baggage, to his room. In accordance with Plan B, there was no bathrobe for trips to the wellness center, no vodka in the minibar, and no remote for the television. The bedside alarm clock had been set for 4:15 A.M. The heater was roaring. Philippe covertly removed the last bar of soap from the bathroom, then, after being offered no gratuity, slipped out the door, with a promise that the bags would be delivered in short order. Ricardo was waiting for him as he came off the lift.
     
     
    “How many vodkas did he drink in the bar?”
     
     
    “Seven,” said Ricardo.
     
     
    The concierge put his teeth together and hissed contemptuously. Only a Russian could drink seven vodkas in an hour and a half and still remain on his feet.
     
     
    “What do you think?” asked Ricardo. “Mobster, spy, or hit man?”
     
     
    It didn’t matter, thought Philippe gloomily. The walls of the Grand had been breached by a Russian. Resistance was now the order of the day. They retreated to their respective outposts, Ricardo to the grotto of Reception, Philippe to his pulpit near the lift. Ten minutes later came the first call from Room 237. Ricardo endured a Stalinesque tirade before murmuring a few soothing words and hanging up the phone. He looked at Philippe and smiled.
     
     
    “Monsieur Lubin was wondering when his bags might arrive.”
     
     
    “I’ll see to it right away,” said Philippe, smothering a yawn.
     
     
    “He was also wondering whether something could be done about the heat in his room. He says it’s too warm, and the thermostat doesn’t seem to work.”
     
     
    Philippe picked up his telephone and dialed Maintenance.
     
     
    “Turn the heat up in Room 237,” he said. “Monsieur Lubin is cold.”
     
     
    Had they witnessed the first few moments of Lubin’s stay, they would have felt certain in their belief that a miscreant was in their midst. How else to explain that he removed all the drawers from the chest and the bedside tables and unscrewed all the bulbs from the lamps and the light fixtures? Or that he stripped bare the deluxe queen-size bed and pried the lid from the two-line message-center telephone? Or that he poured a complimentary bottle of mineral water into the toilet and hurled a pair of chocolates by Touvier of Geneva into the snow-filled street? Or that, having completed his rampage, he then returned the room to the near-pristine state in which he had found it?
     
     
    It was because of his profession that he took these rather drastic measures, but his profession was not one of those suggested by Ricardo the receptionist. Aleksandr Viktorovich Lubin was neither a mobster nor a spy, nor a hit man, only a practitioner of the most dangerous trade one could choose in the brave New Russia: the trade of journalism. And not just any type of journalism: independent journalism. His magazine, Moskovsky Gazeta , was one of the country’s last investigative weeklies and had been a persistent stone in the shoe of the Kremlin. Its reporters and photographers were watched and harassed constantly, not only by the secret police but by the private security services of the powerful oligarchs they attempted to cover. Courchevel was now crawling with such men. Men who thought nothing of sprinkling transmitters and poisons around hotel rooms. Men who operated by the creed of