“No, they torched it before we arrived.”
“Then they weren’t trying to kill you,” she pointed out calmly. More running footsteps and more puffing.
“Have you considered a little cardio? Maybe a mini-trampoline. You could keep it under your desk,” I suggested.
“Screw you, Webster,” she said before returning a volley of gunfire. “Got him. That’s right, you little bitch. Stay down.”
“You better be talking to your target,” I said mildly.
“Keep your panties on. I have to finish him.” A patter of running footsteps, another volley of gunfire, and some muffled whimpers. Naomi gave a grunt and then came back to the phone. “Sorry about that.”
“Shootout?” I asked. The sounds were familiar.
“Church league paintball,” she said. “We’re undefeated. But damn, I’m hungry now. I should have put a Luna bar inmy purse. I’m going to treat myself to a bacon cheeseburger on the way home. Double fries.”
“Get a milkshake too,” I urged. “You earned it.”
“Look, I’ll chase down anything else I can find on Pasha Lazarov’s known associates,” she promised. “But the files were pretty thin. The only relative we have on record is his aunt Evgenia, and she’s in an old folks’ home somewhere. Switzerland, I think.”
She sounded a little too offhand for my liking. “Naomi, we’re stuck in a safe house with our nearest and dearest and a couple of cats who aren’t any happier about the situation than we are. Put this at the top of your basic bitch Rae Dunn to-do list.”
I punched the “end call” button but it wasn’t nearly satisfying enough. I missed receivers you could slam down. Hell, I even missed flip phones you could snap shut.
I went back to the dining room where the others were waiting.
“She’ll look into it,” I said.
“That’s all?” Mary Alice demanded.
“She had her hands full when I called,” I explained.
“So we’re just going to sit here?” Nat asked.
“If you’ve got a better idea, I’d love to hear it,” I told her. “Until then, we have no leads on who Pasha’s associate might be. There’s no point in chasing our tails.”
“Maybe we know more than we think we do,” Nat pushed.
“Like what?” Helen asked.
“I don’t know,” Nat replied. “Let’s just throw spaghetti atthe wall and see what sticks.” She rummaged in her backpack and emerged with a green eyeliner pencil. She uncapped it and cleared a space on the table. Then she started scribbling on the oilcloth roses of the tablecloth.Pasha Lazarov, she wrote in block capitals. She drew lines out for his family members and jotted their names. Father, Boris Lazarov. Mother, Irina Dashkova. Sister, Galina. Aunt, Evgenia Dashkova.
Helen plucked the eyeliner from her hand and started crossing people out, starting with Pasha’s parents. “Lazarov is an orphan.”
“Thanks to us,” Natalie pointed out.
Helen went on, slicing lines through the names. “Father, mother, and sister dead. He’s been on his own for a long time.”
“No wife?” Akiko asked. “Girlfriends? Boyfriends? Partners for furry sexcapades?”
“Funny you should mention furries,” Mary Alice said. She started to describe Lazarov’s devotion to his teddy bear, but Nat stopped her.
“I can’t with the teddy bear, Mary Alice. It’s too sad.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what happened to him? Did they put him in the coffin with Lazarov? Did they pack him up for the next of kin?”
“God, thatissad,” Helen put in.