is the favored form of criminal nickname humor. Any guy with the words “tiny” or “little” in his moniker was certain to be six feet plus. Obviously the Nikolaevs didn’t share the usual sense of mob humor.

Like many undersized criminals, Little Joe had over-compensated in the weight room. He’d pumped iron for so many years that even now, stuck in a rest home, his biceps would be the envy of a man a quarter his age. He had, however, neglected the lower half of his body, which left him looking like a balloon character squeezed from the bottom, a massive chest topping spindly legs. His eyes were sunken brown dots that glittered when he saw me. He smiled, revealing a perfect set of fake pearly whites.

“Is this her?” he asked, his gaze dropping to my chest and staying there.

“Jess,” I said, stepping forward and extending my hand. “But my friends call me Jezebel.”

He wheezed a laugh. “I bet they do.” He vice-gripped my hand. I squeezed back and he fairly licked his lips, eyes never rising above my neckline. “I bet you are very good at your job, no?”

“The best. No one ever complains.”

I extricated my hand from his and sashayed to the sofa. Evelyn tried to take the seat beside me, but Little Joe slid into it with the speed of a twenty-year-old.

“Now this, Evelyn, this is how a hitwoman should be,” Joe said, waggling a finger at her. “Not dressing up like a man, running around, shooting people. She must be subtle. Use her assets.” A sidelong look at my “assets.” “Yes, this is how it should be.”

I wriggled like a praised puppy. Joe sidled closer.

“Evelyn tells me you’re a very important man,” I said.

My use of the present tense didn’t go unnoticed. Joe preened and regaled me with a few glimpses into his former life. As he talked, I was aware of time ticking past, but also knew this wasn’t someone who could—or should—be rushed into answering questions. I took my cue from Evelyn, who settled into her chair as if not expecting to rise for a while.

Little Joe was the older brother of Boris Nikolaev, long-time head of the Nikolaev family. To hear Joe tell it, he’d voluntarily abdicated his role as heir because he didn’t want the responsibility. My guess was that he’d been passed over, like a Fortune 500 CEO’s screw-up son—given a big corner office and invited to all the meetings, but never asked to actually do anything.

After about a half-dozen surprisingly boring mob stories, Joe made the segue himself.

“So you girls need help, you come to Little Joe. This is good. I may be old, but I can still help. You said it was about a former associate of my family?”

“A man who worked for you. Leon Kozlov.”

“Kozlov?” Joe’s face screwed up and I expected him to make the connection with the Helter Skelter victims, but instead he said only, “From the seventies?”

“Late seventies, maybe early eighties. He seems to have parted ways with the family. Kicked out, probably. His fortunes didn’t exactly improve after he left you.”

“Kozlov. Leon Kozlov.”

Joe’s eyes rolled back, as if searching his mental files. Then he turned his head and spat. Didn’t just make the motion. Actually spat. Fortunately, in the opposite direction. He muttered something in Russian. I didn’t need to know the language to know it wasn’t a compliment.

“The Fomin hit,” he muttered. “Sasha Fomin.”

Evelyn frowned. “Kozlov was a hitman? I don’t think—”

“No, no. Kozlov, he was not a hitman. He was security. A bodyguard. Not for the family, but for our associates, people we wanted to protect. Only he didn’t do so good a job.”

“So this Fomin got whacked on Kozlov’s shift?” I said.

Joe squeezed my thigh. My upper thigh. Upper inner thigh, to be precise. I resisted the urge to squirm back into the sofa cushions…or break his fingers.

“Smart girl,” he said, kneading my thigh. “I said she was a smart girl, no?”

“How did the hit go down?” Evelyn asked.

“Hit-and-run. Looked like an accident, and this Kozlov tried to tell us that is what it was, but we were not fooled. The Nikolaevs know accidents. Remember that senator? From Texas? Now that, that was genius. First, we—”

“About Kozlov,” Evelyn said. “Do you remember anything else about him?”

Joe puckered his lips, obviously displeased with being cut short. I turned toward him, pulling my elbows in to spring my breasts up closer to the old man’s face. His eyes zeroed in on target, lips smoothing