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Marat Rahm. I hope you will not take offense, but you are not my first choice. I was duty bound to go to my pastor, first, of course, then, when he dismissed my concerns, to the bishop. As you might imagine, that did not endear me with Monsignor Barilla, going over his head to the bishop. I’m afraid my days at Our Lady of Solace are numbered. I was due to be put out to pasture, anyway. I’m 80 years old and only working part-time at Our Lady. There’s a shortage of priests, as you may have heard, so the archdiocese allowed me to keep working.  But I believe I have now greased the skids, as you say.”
    “What’s this about Marat Rahm?”
    Marat was Arman Rahm’s father, a former KGB agent who saw the writing on the Kremlin wall before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and used his money and contacts to bring his family to the United States, where he consolidated existing Russian expat gangs in Brooklyn into a businesslike crime family. With the weakening of the Italian Mafia on Staten Island, he sought greener pastures. Arman took over the operational duties of the family after the assassination of his older brother but Marat’s fiat was still respected on both sides of the law. Arman and I were almost friends growing up until our career paths diverged, when he became a crook and I became a cop. My recent dealings with the Rahms have been complicated. They involved me in one of their schemes, which almost got me chopped into pieces before they saved me at the very last moment. And when I was in a bind on my last case, their help was indispensible. The fact that Arman and Kalugin are also fond of Alice, and vice versa, has not hurt our détente.
    “After the police showed little interest,” Father Zapo continued, “I went to Marat. We are old adversaries, from the Communist days. I have forgiven him for having me imprisoned, and I also believe that he intervened to prevent me from being shot. He won’t admit that, of course. But our relationship has reached the point that we can drink the occasional vodka together. Alas, while he heard me out politely, he was not much more inclined to believe me than anyone else. But when his son said he had seen you working during the recent storm, Marat suggested that I contact you. He said you owed him a favor. He also said you were a miracle worker of sorts.”
    It would have been useless to discuss my relationship to the Rahms with the old fellow. I was his fifth choice, after all. He’d tried the Roman Catholic Church twice, the N.Y.P.D. and the Russian mob, and now I got him. After me, I suppose there was always Inspector Clouseau. I resigned myself. I didn’t know what the story was, or what was in the envelope, but if Marat Rahm, who I knew to be an atheist, thought the priest needed a miracle, I would at least listen. It was certain to be entertaining. I wasn’t going to blow the old fellow off, but this promised to be a quick and easy way to even things up between the Rahms and myself. Although to be honest, I had trouble understanding why I owed them anything.
    “What have you got, Father?”
    He lay documents in three small piles on my desk, all neatly held together by paper clips. The first page of each pile was a photocopied obituary from the local paper. I quickly scanned the names. John Clifton, Ralph Lydecker and Mario Spinelli. I looked at the photos of the men and read their obits.
    “Mr. Rhode, would you mind if I smoked while you read my files?”
    Smoking was prohibited in my building. In fact, it was prohibited in all New York City buildings, even those, like many on Staten Island, downwind of the chemical factories in New Jersey that spewed out carcinogens and other poisons in volumes that could knock a Pterodactyl out of the sky. I couldn’t see sending an 80-year-old priest down eight floors to smoke in the parking lot. I opened up a drawer on my desk, pulled out an old green ashtray that said “Henny’s Steak House” and placed it on the