Inside the courtyard the palace grounds were clustered with the black limousines of Party notables. The Boss’s customary caravan of brushed-aluminum tour buses was parked on the lawn, next to a gaily frilled pavilion with picnic tables and fire-blackened shish-kebab pits. It was very late, and a meeting was in the final throes of dissolution. Vomiting Azerbaijani bigwigs tottered to their limos, assisted by mistresses and functionaries.