Ricca appeared, looking spectacular but troubled. She said, "I hope you don't mind-I borrowed some of Joey's lipstick."
Chaz felt the hairs prickle on his neck. "That's impossible."
"I left mine in the car. I'm sorry."
"You don't understand. I threw out all her lipstick," he said. "I went through the whole goddamn bathroom and tossed out every goddamn thing of hers."
"But it was right there, Chaz. In the vanity-"
"No! Not possible."
Chaz felt a bloom of cold sweat under his arms. He stalked up to Ricca, grabbed her chin and turned her mouth toward the light so that he could examine the color.
"Shit," he muttered. It was definitely Coral Tease, Joey's favorite.
His favorite, actually. Just like that slitted black dress, the one she'd worn at his request to Mark's on Las Olas for their first anniversary.
He let go of Ricca's face and said, "Something's fucked up around here."
"Why would I lie about lipstick?" Rubbing her jaw, she was bewildered and angry.
"You're right. I'm sorry," he said.
"Can we get outta here, like, now?"
"Absolutely," Chaz told her. "Right after I make a call."
"Swell. I'll be in the bathroom." She shut the door forcefully behind her and fumed for a minute.
"Where's your razor?" she called out, but Chaz was already on the phone.
Joey Perrone and Mick Stranahan were watching the house from a neighbor's driveway halfway down the block. Joey said it was safe because the neighbors had gone to upstate New York for a month and possibly longer.
"Dodging subpoenas," she explained. "They run a telephone boiler room, selling ethanol futures to senior citizens. Every time the feds shut 'em down, they dash off to their lodge in the Adirondacks."
"It's a great country," Stranahan said.
"What're you doing?"
"Trying to figure out the damn CD player."
For surveillance purposes, Joey had rented them a dark green Suburban with tinted windows.
She said, "Mick, please don't."
He was sorting through the George Thorogood discs that Joey had swiped from her husband's collection. "What, you don't like the slide guitar?"
"I don't like the memories," she said.
Joey meant to drop the subject, but then she heard herself saying, "We'd be going along in the car and whenever he'd put on 'Bad to the Bone,' that was the signal he wanted me to, you know…"
"Gotcha." Stranahan tossed the CDs into the backseat. "So he imagines himself a wit, Mr. Charles Perrone, and a sex machine to boot."
Joey recited the ten things that Chaz disliked most about her, with hiding Thorogood being number six.
"That's not why he tried to kill you. Believe me," Stranahan said.
"See, this is what's driving me crazy," she said. "I can't figure out why he would do what he did."
"Money's my guess."
"But I told you, he's not getting a dime if I'm dead."
Stranahan fiddled with the radio dials. "Most murders come down to lust, anger or greed," he said. "From what you've told me about your husband, I'm betting on greed. If this isn't about your money then it's about somebody else's."
Joey said that, in a way, she hoped he was right. "I'd hate to think he threw me off that ship just so he could be with her." She shot a glare toward the house.
"Not likely," said Stranahan.
"I wish you could've met Benny, my first husband. He was a sweetheart," she said fondly. "Not exactly a firecracker in certain departments, but a good honest guy."
Stranahan aimed the binoculars at the bay window of the Perrone residence. The lights had come on, though the curtains remained closed. It had been an hour since the dark-haired woman had arrived, parking a blue Ford compact next to Chaz's Humvee.
"You don't know who she is?"
"No idea. It's pitiful," Joey said. "He's got so many bimbos, you'd need radio collars to track them all."
Stranahan secretly was pleased that Chaz Perrone was entertaining female company only three tender days into widowhood. Such a boggling lack of self-restraint could open a world of squalid opportunities for someone seeking to mess with Chaz's head.
"Let's call it a night," Stranahan suggested.
"Honestly, did she look that smokin' hot to you?"
"The longer we stay, the riskier it gets."
"This is what the Secret Service drives. Chevy Suburbans."
"Joey, we're not the Secret Service. I'm supposed to be retired and you're supposed to be deceased."
"Hey, we should copy the license off her car!"
"Done." Too tired to trust his memory, Stranahan had jotted the tag number on the inside of his wrist.
"Fifteen more minutes," she said. "Then we can go."
"Thank you."
Earlier, after leaving the car-rental agency, they had, over Strana-han's objections, stopped at an outlet mall. Joey had decided that she couldn't continue wearing the clothes of his ex-wives and girlfriends, and noted as an example that their bras were all too large. Grimly, Stranahan had trailed after her as she accumulated $2,400 worth of slacks, tops, skirts, shoes, cosmetics and other personal items. She was the most ruthless and efficient shopper that he'd ever seen, but the experience had exhausted him so thoroughly that his senses now seemed cauterized.
Or perhaps that's how everyone came to feel in West Boca Dunes Phase II.
"You didn't even ask about the black dress," Joey was saying. "There's quite a naughty history there."
"I was letting my imagination run wild."
"Whatever he's doing with her tonight, he's thinking about me. That I can guarantee. And wait'll he finds the lipstick!"
Stranahan leaned his head against the window and shut his eyes.
"Don't you dare go to sleep," Joey said.
"I miss my dog. I want to go back to the island."
She poked him in the shoulder. "There they are!"
Two figures emerged from the Perrone house, a man and a woman, hurrying down the walkway. In the darkness Stranahan couldn't make out their faces but undoubtedly it was Joey's husband and his guest. As they got into the blue Ford, their expressions were briefly illuminated by the dome light. Both of them appeared soberly preoccupied, and not exactly radiating the afterglow of love.
Joey said, "He's driving. You know what that means."
"No, what?"
"He's been doing her," she said. "Guys never ask to drive your car until after they've slept with you at least twice. That's what Rose says, and she's been with, like, forty-nine men."
"Sounds like it's time for an oil change."
"Hey, let's follow 'em," Joey said.
"Let's not. Let's assume he screwed her and he's taking her to dinner and then he's sending her on her way."
"I'm going back inside my house."
"Bad idea," Stranahan said. "You've creeped him out enough for one night."
"Give me ten minutes. I've got to use the bathroom."
Joey hopped out of the Suburban and jogged down the street. When she returned, "Move It on Over" was blasting from the speakers.
She frowned at Stranahan. "That's cold."
"It's not the CD. It's the radio." He twisted the volume down. "I lucked into classic rock."
"What's so funny?"
"At my age I'm a sucker for ironies. Buckle up."
Joey didn't speak again until they were southbound on the interstate. "Chaz definitely noticed the dress in the closet, because it was gone when I went back."
"Excellent."
"But I found something really weird in the sink."
"What?" Stranahan was thinking maybe Jell-O or whipped cream.