“Okay, now we smash it,” Mrs. Gorkin said. “So no one ever sees it.”

“Uh, we don’t have to do that, Momma,” said Ludmilla.

“I smash it!” Mrs. Gorkin said, and grabbed a stapler off the desk and used it to shatter the computer monitor. Shards of glass littered the top of my desk.

To me, Ludmilla said, almost apologetically, “Momma doesn’t understand that it could still be there in the computer. She thinks, you smash the screen, it’s gone.”

I smiled. “That’s sweet,” I said. “So, you’ve done what you came to do, the file is gone, so don’t even worry about the monitor, I can get another one of those. Don’t worry about it.”

“You come,” said Mrs. Gorkin. “Come to restaurant.” She smiled, showing off a brown, crooked tooth. “We make you lunch.”

“Listen,” I said, “that would be great, but I have this thing I have to go to. Maybe, later, I could drop by. Love to get an order of fries. Honestly, terrific fries.”

Gavrilla had hold of my arm. “Momma wants you to come with us.”

I had a mental image of Brian Sandler, the twins dipping his hands in first, then pushing his face into the fryer. If I could just break free of Gavrilla’s arm, get out the study door and down the stairs, I could be out the front door in a shot. The girls were strong, but they didn’t look as though they were built for speed. I was sure I could outrun them.

Then Mrs. Gorkin pulled some sort of short-barreled pistol from the bag hanging over her shoulder. “You come back with us,” she said, pointing the weapon at me. I could outrun the twins, but a bullet was something else altogether.

The phone rang.

I looked at Mrs. Gorkin. “I should answer that,” I said.

“No, it can ring,” she said.

“But there are people who are expecting me to be here, who might wonder why I’m not coming to the phone.”

“The bullsheet,” said Mrs. Gorkin. “You could be in bathroom, having crap. Let it ring.”

And it rang. Once, twice, three times. And then it went to the machine.

“Hi, Mr. Walker? This is Detective Herlich returning your call about the Brian Sandler investigation. Feel free to try me again, or I may try you again, too.”

The message ended. Mrs. Gorkin looked very displeased with me. “So you don’t know anyting. But you call police to tell dem what you don’t know?”

I couldn’t think of anything to say. Especially with the pistol pointed at me.

“We go back,” Mrs. Gorkin said. “Ludmilla, go down street and bring up car.”

We were going down the stairs, Gavrilla in front, then me, followed by Ludmilla and Mrs. Gorkin, when there was a knock at the front door. Everyone froze.

“Sheet,” whispered Mrs. Gorkin.