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The next evening, I went back to the Coq d’Or and had a meal of geschnetzeltes and rösti then lingered over coffee and cognac.
A bit before 11:30, Illya wandered in, looking like himself in his usual black, and took a seat facing the door. He had barely ordered a beer, when a woman, perhaps nineteen or twenty, blonde, and very pretty, entered and took a seat near the front window. She fidgeted a bit with the red flower pinned to her dress and looked jumpy.
Illya spotted her and walked over. A few words were exchanged, and then they left together. She almost forgot her purse, but Illya picked it up off the table and returned it to her. I couldn’t tell if that was a hand-off or not, but since they were leaving together, I decided it was more than a simple information exchange.
I threw down enough money to cover my meal and followed discreetly. I could tell Illya was on high alert and the woman was nervous, but didn’t seem to know I was tailing her. He said something to the woman, but she shook her head, like she didn’t know the answer.
It was only a short walk before we came to a run-down neighborhood where many of the houses looked abandoned. Illya and the girl entered one such place, with Illya looking around as though for a trap and making a quick hand signal in my direction that meant “wait outside”.
A few minutes later, the young woman came out holding the hand of a little girl with bright red hair. The child was babbling something about how well she had “acted sacred” and “fooled the bad man”, but the woman was not paying attention, just pulling her along quickly and looking frightened and upset. A couple blocks later she flagged down the first cab to come along and they got in.
I went back to the house and did a careful recon of the outside. The back door was boarded up as were the windows on the first floor, but the second and third floor windows were uncovered and there was a light on the third floor.
I had a bad feeling about the whole thing, and decided it was time to go inside. I climbed up a handy drainpipe that went close to a window. Climbing pipes is more Illya’s thing, but I can manage when I have to. At least I wasn’t wearing a good suit or handmade shoes.
The second-floor window closest to the pipe had had all the glass broken out some time ago and I didn’t see any sign that anyone had been in the room for a very long time, so I decided to enter there and make my way to the third floor from inside.
The second floor was as empty as it looked. I could hear voices coming from the floor above, mostly a stranger’s, with only an occasional comment from Illya. I couldn’t make out words but the tone sounded like the traditional Evil Villain’s Monologue About His Cunning Plan that usually gives us time to foil said plan. If Illya could just keep him talking a bit longer, I could get to him before the villain did whatever horrible thing he was planning.
I snuck up the stairs to the third floor. I didn’t want to spook whoever was with Illya if they were giving him legitimate information, but I couldn’t shake a bad feeling about the little girl who left. If she wasn’t his daughter, why would she be here? If she was his daughter, why leave?
The third floor had two attic style rooms and the light and voices were coming from the one on the right. I carefully checked the left room from the doorway to be sure it was empty and then eased an eye around the edge of the right one.
Illya was bound to a wooden armchair: arms bound to the chair arms; ankles tied to the front legs with wire. Almost impossible to get free with no tools. His gun was on a broken side table.
His captor was waving a gun around and ranting about how Illya had ruined his previously perfect reputation and cost him half a million dollars. That sounded like this was a personal grudge. It was when he explained that he had the filled house with incendiaries and was going to set them off with the remote switch he was holding, letting Illya roast as the fire took him “to his reward in the flames of Hell” that I started sweating.