Igor put down the F-head pipe wrench used to force the rusty valve that fed fuel oil into the motel boiler. Clean fetish? Here? At this hour of the night? He was suspicious. It was trained into him, years before, when he was a young recruit for the NKVD, long, long ago. He raised his graying, bushy eyebrows. Maybe this was the one he'd been told to look out for. He peeked through the aged crack in the cheap siding between the boiler shed and the reception area and observed the dishwater blonder in the sleazy outfit. Something didn't add up.

He slipped to the back of the filth-encrusted boiler room and brushed the grime and dust off an antique Bakelite rotary telephone. He dialed a number, patiently waiting for the crusted rotor to return slowly to its home setting after each number was dialed, and listening to the far-off ring somewhere in Colorado. He whispered a few words into the handset, and hung up, and returned to his sagging overstuffed EZ-Boy, vintage 1961, next to the boiler.