***

In the event, Henry didn’t go talk to the Belorussian opposition leader. He let Nate do it. He stayed at the bar, standing, while she wandered over, sat down, took the shoulder strap off over her head, let her arm stay resting on the bag between her left thigh and his right. Henry heard them laugh and looked over. Saw not the tawdry machinations of empire, but a bored, intelligent girl sitting with a buffer of money between her and a supplicant in a suit. An unremarkable bar scene, unnoticeable.

She stayed 20 minutes, maybe a little more. Henry didn’t wonder what they were talking about. He looked out at the cityscape, and found his apartment building, which was on an upslope from the bowl-bottom at the center of town.

Nate came back without the bag, her face expressionless.

“How much longer should we stay?” Henry asked. “For appearances’ sake, I mean.”

“No hurry,” she answered. “Let’s have one more drink.”

He nodded. “Will you go somewhere with me after this?” he asked.

“You’re a gentleman for asking, Henry,” she said. “Did you forget you’re my control? I go where you go.” She took a drink, and stared into the middle distance.

***

Henry’s apartment was about a fifteen minute ride back across the river. Henry told the driver the address, and they rode there in silence. Nate’s eyes closed a couple times, as did Henry’s. It was close to 5 a.m. when they arrived. They took the elevator up to the fifth floor, and Henry fished his key out of his suitcoat pocket.

Henry’s dog, an attentive, brindled mutt, good-sized, short-haired, met them at the door, nails clacking on the hardwood floor. He decorously sniffed Nate’s leather pants and she let him.

“Hey,” she said to the dog. ‘What’s your name?’

“Jake,” Henry answered.

Henry told Jake to sit and Jake sat. Henry snapped his fingers and pointed at the ground—Jake lay down.

“Wow,” Nate confessed.

“It isn’t hard,” Henry answered. “Let me get his leash, I’ll take him out to pee.”

“What should I do?” Nate asked. She was heavy-lidded, suggestible.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Henry said. “There’s cold coffee from this morning in the kitchen. Microwave if you want it.”

Outside, in the weeds and gravel behind the building’s parking lot, Jake peed with alacrity and gratitude.