everyone coming and going. There are two elevators serving the building, both very slow, and there’s always one boyevik at the street entrance and another on the ninth floor, where the Pakhan and his people live. Also, Dzabrati is never alone in his apartment. There’s always a bodyguard. Add in family members, kids… It’s not impossible, nothing’s impossible, but there have got to be easier options.”
“OK. Zoya’s place.”
“Possible. He’s driven there two or three times a week, usually in the late evening. A bodyguard takes him up to Zoya’s apartment, waits outside while he does whatever he does to her, and then walks him back to the car.”
“That’s so disgusting. He’s what? Forty-five years older than her?”
“Poverty’s disgusting, Eve. Believe me, I’ve been there. As well as the flat she probably gets a generous allowance, like thousands of dollars a month, and instead of working as a cleaner or a cam-girl in some shithole in Ukraine, she gets to spend her day getting beauty treatments and buying nice clothes.”
“Yeah. Except that she has to be available to creepy old rabbit-face whenever he feels like sex. And I truly hate to think what kind of sex he likes.”
“I doubt he’s up to anything too heavy. He’s got that heart thing, and if she’s smart she’ll be able to control him. I knew this girl at university who had a rich sugar daddy. He gave her everything: money, clothes, holidays… And he never even touched her. She just had to do herself with sex toys while he watched, and that was it. Like she said, she’d have been doing that stuff anyway.”
“Still gross.”
“Says the born-again bisexual.”
“Is that what I am?”
“Isn’t it? We’ve both had sex with men, after all.”
“But is that how you think of yourself? As bisexual?”
“I don’t think of myself as anything, but technically, I guess, yeah.”
“So what are you saying? That you still want to have sex with guys?”
She shrugs. “There are worse sensations.”
“Fuck you, Oxana. Seriously, fuck you.”
“So you don’t want to have sex with a man again? Ever?”
“I don’t want to have sex with anyone except you.”
“Interesting.”
I fall for it, of course, as she knows I will. “Why can you never, ever, ever say anything nice?”
She flicks a glance at me. “Because it’s so much more fun bullying you, obviously. You know I asked Dasha to ask around about Lara?”
I don’t answer. The only news I want to hear about Lara is that she’s dead.
“I did, anyway. And apparently she’s been released from Butyrka for lack of evidence. Her case isn’t going to court anymore.”
“Well, whoopee for Russia’s incorruptible justice system. Are you going to get in touch with her?”
“No. Why would I do that?”
“You’re always going on about her.”
“Only to make you jealous, dumbass. Lara was good at sex, but she was quite stupid. I remember when we were in Venice, having dinner at our hotel, and I ordered us the lobster risotto, which was like the specialità della casa, and the sommelier asked us what wine we’d like and Lara said she wanted Baileys Irish Cream. I mean I’m sorry, but that’s just disgusting. We were kissing later on and I could taste it on her tongue.”
“Thanks for that little detail. I’ve been trying not to think of you and her in Venice.”
She shrugs. “It happened. And I have to admit that I do like pineapple on pizza.”
“That really is disgusting.”
“I’ll take you to Hank’s, in Paris. It’s super-delicious.”
“I’m not sure I’d want to try it, even in Paris.”
“Oh boo, you prude. How I ever got you into bed I don’t know.”
“You didn’t ‘get’ me into bed.”
“Oh, you think not?”
“I jumped. I wasn’t pushed.”
“Is that right?”
“It is right. And I’m definitely not eating pineapple pizza.”
“We’ll see about that. But back to Zoya’s place. Getting inside the apartment when the Pakhan’s there would be hard; the door’s reinforced and there’s a high-definition security camera. There’s no way he’d let Zoya buzz a stranger in. Much easier to shoot Dzabrati and the bodyguard inside the building but outside the apartment, in one of the public areas. Ideally when they’re leaving, and walking from the apartment to the elevator.”
“How do you get into the building?”
“I’ve found out that there’s a single man living on the second floor who teaches at one of the universities and is regularly visited by one of his female students. I know both their names, and I could pretend to be a friend of hers with an urgent message for him. That would get