Author's Note: After some contemplation, I decided that this chapter needed to be re-written. There was something fundamentally wrong with Javert's phone conversation, and although it won't really matter one way or another to all of you readers, it bugged me to high hell. I've corrected it now, hence the re-post. Now I can forge on with the next chapter.

"Do you want tea?"

Valjean contemplated the half-crushed packet of Ceylon premium in front of him, shook his head and shut the cupboard door.

"I don't really have much else to offer you," said Javert, raising his shoulder to clamp the lacquered red receiver to his ear and untangling the kinks in the phone cord. "I've pretty much emptied my stocks this morning. There might be some canned mushroom soup under the sink, if you dig deeply enough." He pressed the speakerphone button and hung the receiver back up at the beep.

The phone rang four times before it was picked up.

"Hello?" said a polished, youthful baritone.

Javert grinned, took in a lungful of air and suddenly growled out in Russian:

"Citizens-bandits!"

Valjean started.

"You are surrounded! Both exits have been blocked!"

There was a brief pause, and then a rather different voice - flatter, throatier and higher-pitched - sneered back, also in Russian:

"Who's that barking up there?"

Javert's back muscles relaxed visibly under the white tank top.

"With you, pig," he continued in the same hoarse, menacing tone, "is not barking but speaking Captain Zheglov!" He lifted his eyes briefly from the speakerphone and winked at Valjean. "You've heard of him perhaps?"

The person on the other side of the line fell silent. Javert waited, eyes big and teeth bared in anticipation. Several seconds passed, and then the polished baritone heard earlier said breathily and once again in English:

"Perfect."

Javert threw both arms up into the air, let out a wild whoop and stomped out a brief but enthusiastic chechetka on the kitchen floor tiles.

"I mean… wow. Spot on. You could've been a recording... Wait, did you?.."

"No no, it was all me. Adsum qui feci. Unassisted by modern technology."

The voice on the other line paused.

"Say something else then," it demanded peevishly. "Say the line about Sharapov's scary face."

Javert cleared his throat, closed his eyes briefly and rumbled another Russian sentence into the speakerphone:

"What a mug you've got on you, Volodya... it's scary to see."

"That wasn't bad, but it was nowhere near the other lines," pronounced the baritone, after a moment's contemplation. "Admit it, you were holding the phone near a computer speaker that first time."

"I swear to you it was me."

"Hmm… Well, in that case, you better tell me what calamity has transpired."

The corners of Javert's mouth dropped. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, something obviously must've happened to upset you. And given that you're not upset too easily, it must've been something big. Think about it: you nailed Zheglov's lines when he's going out of his mind with worry over Sharapov' fate in the nest of thieves and murderers, but did only a passable job on the ones he speaks in relief when Sharapov emerges from the basement unharmed."

Javert listened on with a grave face.

"So I'd say tha… whoev… you're worried about is …till in the ba…ment," continued the British accent blithely over a slight hiss of static. "Well? Did I …et it right?"

Javert glanced in Valjean's direction and admitted:

"Yeah. He's still in the basement."

"And …ow may I be of s…rvice in the …atter of getting him out?"

"You're breaking up a bit," frowned Javert. "Where are you?"

"...anhattan, Union …uare. Hold on, I'll move…"

It was becoming difficult to tell whether the poor sound was due to bad reception or the speaker's full mouth. It sounded like both.

"There's reception at the station now?"

"No, I'm on a bench outside. Can you hear me now?"

"Yes, much better."

"Something must have been blocking the reception, then. You know, for the past ten minutes I've been fighting off sparrows fixing to dive-bomb my sandwich. I think they're following me to this new bench. Yep, here they come. They've been hopping and flitting around me ever since I'd sat down, and now it looks like they're getting ready to launch a full-scale aerial assault."

"That is unfortunate."

"No kidding. Little feathered thugs. Not that I don't understand them, mind you, it's an excellent sandwich."

"I meant you being outside. I was hoping to talk to you in private."

The sparrow-beset baritone held an ominous pause – possibly to swallow the rest of the food in his mouth.

"About your friend in the basement, I presume?"

"Yes. And possibly myself as well."

"Well, fuck. Fuck, I tell you! This is not a good time. I've got a prior engagement uptown, and it's not really one I can afford to miss… Could this possibly wait a couple of hours? Let's say, three hours, to be safe? Or are both of you liable to get your heads sawed off between now and one o'clock?"

"Oh, yeah, no problem. I mean, no one is breathing down our necks yet."

There was a slight emphasis on "yet" that Valjean didn't like at all.

"When will they start?"

Javert glanced at the flat plastic clock mounted next to the patio door. "Uhm… about 7 p. m. your time."

"Oh goody, I'll be done way before that," said the speaker with blatantly false cheer. The message was obvious: you're screwed either way, but at least this way I get to be entertained by the story of your woes before they kill you. "Let's see, it's ten oh seven now… I'll ring you back at thirteen hundred, all right? That's eight in the evening your time. Is that okay?"

"Excellent. Ring this number though, not my mobile."

"All right. I hope it's nothing too serious?"

What unspeakable horrors had to lurk behind that little adverb "too", Valjean preferred not to ponder.

"It probably isn't, but I want to make sure."

"Talk to you soon then. 'Byvaj zdorov, grazhdanin nachal'nik.'"

"Bye."

The line disconnected.

"What now?" asked Valjean.

"Now…" Javert drawled, clasping his hands in a "lock" above his head and stretching languidly. "Now we wait for him to call us back. You can stay down here and do whatever… Improvise us a supper, if you want, although I've already cleaned all the perishables out of the fridge, so there's just dried and canned stuff left in the cupboards. The books are in the living room… there's a yoga mat rolled up behind the refrigerator. Kill time in whatever manner you please, as long as it's on the premises. Make yourself available by eight. And I'm going to the living room for a nap."

"Why the living room?"

"Because it's too bloody hot upstairs, and I'm not turning on central air - I've already settled the electricity bill."