“Where is file?” she asked me.

“Give me a sec,” I said, still gasping. “I can barely breathe.”

“Give him minute, Momma,” said one of the twins.

I had a moment now to take them all in. The three of them standing there, looking like a trio of line-backers without the helmets. All short and squat and one of them getting on a bit in years, but no less threatening than the other two. Mrs. Gorkin, gray hair brushed back, hooknosed, a bit of hair on her upper lip, wore a drab dress that would have showed its grease stains to more advantage if it weren’t black.

The twins, both around five feet, about four hundred pounds between them, had short, bristly blonde hair. They were both in jeans, one in a red sweater, the other in blue.

I sat up, waved a finger at the twins. “So, who’s who here?”

The one in the red sweater said, “I am Ludmilla.”

The one in the blue sweater said, “I am Gavrilla.”

Ludmilla said, “We are twins.”

I nodded. “Ludmilla. Gavrilla.” I turned and looked at their mother. “And Mrs. Gorkin. Nice to see you again.” I took another breath. “I’d just like to say, right now, that I’m really, really sorry about what happened at your place the other day. My son, he seemed to think there might be something wrong with the burgers, and some people heard us talking, and, well, you know the rest. So I can totally understand you being upset about that. Believe me, if I had it to do all over again, I’d just forget about it.”

Mrs. Gorkin said, “We are not here about dat.”

I feigned bafflement. “Well, I don’t suppose you’re here to offer my son his job back.”

Mrs. Gorkin said, “Stop being stupid!”

“I’m not trying to be stupid. I’m just trying to figure out what it is you want.” I’d always thought playing dumb came naturally to me, but Mrs. Gorkin didn’t seem to be buying it.

“Momma wants the file,” said Ludmilla.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. The thing is, I didn’t care if they had the file. I was more worried about what they might do to me if they knew I’d heard it.

“The man,” said Gavrilla. “The man who was going to talk to you. He sent a file to you. That you could hear.”

“Where is computer?” Mrs. Gorkin asked.

“My computer?” I said. “It’s up in my study. Upstairs. Help yourself to it.” It wasn’t like I had a nearly finished novel sitting in it. Cart it away, I thought.

“Upstairs,” Mrs. Gorkin said, “you take us.”

I shook my head like I didn’t know what she was talking about but was happy to indulge her little whims. Once I was on my feet, I took another couple of breaths. I realized now it was Gavrilla who’d held me, and Ludmilla who’d thrown the punch. It felt as though her fist was still in my stomach.

“This way,” I said, leading them up the stairs to the study. “Honestly, I don’t know what it is you’re going on about.”

“Shut the mouth,” said Mrs. Gorkin, giving me a shove from behind.

“Who’s running Burger Crisp?” I asked, just making conversation. It wouldn’t be long before the lunchtime crowd showed up. “Shouldn’t you be there? You want, I could bring the computer by.”

“We have people,” said Ludmilla. “Better than your stupid son.”

I led them into the study and took a seat in front of my computer. Mrs. Gorkin had her eyes on me, but the girls took a quick look around the room, taking in my various items of SF kitsch.

“Look!” said Ludmilla. “Wonder Woman!”

“Neat!” said Gavrilla, taking the busty superhero from the shelf. “Look, her arms move. She even has a little lasso.”

Mrs. Gorkin was not interested in Wonder Woman. “Show me where you have da files,” she said.

“I’ve got all kinds of files,” I said. “What kind of files did you have in mind?”

Ludmilla came up behind me. “Open your e-mail. Momma wants to see the e-mail.”

I did as I was asked, Ludmilla peering over my shoulder. She smelled of fries. “Go to Inbox,” she said, and I did. “There it is,” she said, pointing to the one labeled “Brian Sandler.”

“I don’t hear anyting,” said Mrs. Gorkin.

“Click on it,” said Ludmilla. “Momma doesn’t understand computers very well.” I clicked on the e-mail, and then, at Ludmilla’s instruction, the attached audio file.

And a moment later, the conversation between Brian Sandler and Frank Ellinger was coming out of the speakers.

“Dat is it!” said Mrs. Gorkin. “You say you not know what I’m talking about!”

“I didn’t know you meant this file,” I said. “Do you have any idea how many files I have?”

“Okay, kill da file,” she said.

“I’ll do it, Momma,” Gavrilla said, dragging me out of the chair and taking my place at the keyboard. I hoped she wouldn’t notice the tiny arrow attached to Sandler’s message, indicating that it had been forwarded to Lawrence Jones.

Gavrilla highlighted the e-mail, hit Delete, and it disappeared.

“Is gone?” Mrs. Gorkin said.

“I have to empty all the items in the Trash file,” Gavrilla said, switching to the Trash box. She highlighted all the items, hit Delete again, and they vanished from the screen. But she’d neglected to go to Sent Items, where the message to Lawrence sat.

“There we go, Momma,” Gavrilla said.

“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.