He was smiling broadly at me, and I couldn’t help smiling back. He was one of the merriest people I knew with a cherub face and sparkling eyes to match his go-happy personality. He was also one the most fashionable people I knew. Today’s statement was a banana-yellow Oxford shirt open at the throat, a purple blazer draped over the shoulders, a polka dotted handkerchief poking from the blazer pocket, fitted purple slacks creased and rolled up at the cuffs, and a white belt and matching loafers, sans socks.

We embraced, patting each other on the back.

Pepper always liked people commenting on his outfits, so when I stepped away I said, “I like the jacket, just on your shoulders like that. Very Ralph Lauren.”

“Jack,” he said, clearly thrilled with the compliment, “the chicest way to wear a coat is not to, don’t you know that?”

“Hi, Eliza,” I said, pecking her on the cheek. She smelled of flowers and still wore the sunhat and oversized sunglasses. Combine those with her pink top, white shorts, bangles, wedge heels, and leather shoulder bag, and she and Pepper could have just come straight from lunch at the St. Regis.

Elizaveta slapped me lightly on the chest, then waggled her index finger. “You are crazy,” she said in her Russian accent, which was slightly masculine, broad and bold. She dropped the cigarette she was smoking and toed it out. “Do you know that? Very crazy.”

“So I’ve been told already.”

“You want to kill us?”

She was trying to be mad at me but failing. She clamped her lips against a silky smile.

“Jesus challenged me,” I said. “Did you get mad at him too?”

“Very mad. I think he’s crazy too.” Very med. I zink ees crazy too.

“Where is he, by the way? And Pita?”

“They went to restroom.” Elizaveta frowned in concern at the bandage on my forehead. She took off her sunglasses to see it better. She had emerald-green eyes, aristocratic features with prominent cheekbones, thin lips, and long dark hair. While she was likely white as a snowflake when she’d lived in Saint Petersburg—or “Sankt Peterburg,” as she would pronounce it—her skin was now brown from the tropical sun.

She’d been in Mexico for four years or so. She worked as a governess for a wealthy Russian family, homeschooling their two daughters. Her employer, a consultant for a Mexican state-owned oil company, ran in the same circles as Jesus, who she met at a neighborhood picnic. Jesus spent several weeks wooing her before they started dating roughly one year ago.