Rose might have gone overboard with the Valium, Joey thought. The creep was fading fast.
"Chaz, are you listening?"
He nodded. "Loud'n clear."
"Why did you try to kill me?"
"Aw, come on," he snorted.
Joey snatched a shock of his hair and yanked his head upright.
"Answer me!"
"I guarantee you I wasn't the only guy on that cruise who thought about shovin' his old lady overboard. Wives, they think about that shit, too. Every married person now and then thinks, Oh what the fuck. I did it, is the only difference. Me! I went ahead and did it."
Joey found herself scanning the room for something jagged and, preferably, rusty. Then she recalled Mick's warning: Don't make it a crime scene.
She released Chaz's hair and his chin dropped to his chest.
He said, "I thought you were gonna rat me out for faking the water tests."
"But I didn't even know what you were doing!"
"So maybe I overreacted."
"Excuse me?" Joey said.
Chaz scratched absently at a dime-size scab on his neck. "You don't understand. Red's deadly serious when it conies to business."
"It was our anniversary]"
"Oh yeah, I almost forgot." Chaz looked up. "Thanks for the awesome golf-club covers. I found them later in my suitcase."
"You really are a monster," Joey said hoarsely.
"If you were real, I'd tell you I was sorry."
"And I'd tell you to go straight to hell," she said. "Why did you marry me in the first place?"
Chaz seemed truly surprised at the question. "Because you were hot. And we were so fantastic together."
"Because I was hot'?" Joey eyed the lamp's electrical cord and thought: No jury in the country would convict me.
Chaz said, "I'm getting really sleepy. Can you go back to heaven now? Or wherever you came from?"
"Didn't you ever love me?" Joey switched off the light in case she started crying again. "Ever, Chaz?"
"Sure I did."
"Then what happened?" she demanded. "First the whoring around, which was bad enough-"
A wary grunt from the shadows.
"-then you push me overboard on our anniversary cruise! I don't get it," Joey said. "If you wanted out so badly, all you had to do was ask. See, they've got this new thing called divorce."
Now all she heard was the low scrape of heavy breathing. Five, ten, fifteen seconds went by.
"Chaz?"
Nothing.
She jerked the pillow from beneath his head and said, "Wake up, dammit! I'm not finished."
A perturbed, groggy groan. Then: "You can't hurt me, Joey. You're already dead."
Arduously he gathered himself and lunged for her, missing in the dark. She pounced on his back, pinning him to the mattress.
"Because I was 'hot'? Are you serious?" Her mouth was inches from his ear.
"Hey, it's a compliment," Chaz said. "Now, can you please get off me? My hard-on's gettin' bent."
"What a moving sentiment. Are you stealing from Neil Diamond again?"
The door opened, throwing a wedge of light on the bed.
"It's okay. We're fine," Joey said over her shoulder.
"Who's there?" Chaz asked, squirming.
The door closed.
"Rose?"
Joey said, "Relax, Romeo, you're not getting any tonight."
"Lemme up."
"It's still only me, Chaz. Your dearly departed wife."
"Can't be."
"But I'm not deceased."
"Are, too."
Joey dug an elbow into his back. "Does that feel real?"
"Bad dream," he groaned.
"Wanna bet?"
"Pinch me in the nuts again. Go ahead, see if I care."
Joey said, "What went wrong with you, Chaz?"
His shoulders hitched. "People change, it's nobody's fault," he said. "Lemme sleep, please?"
"No sir, not yet."
"If you were real, Joey, you would've already killed me by now." Then he sighed heavily and went slack beneath her.
She shook him by the collar, then she pressed so close that her lips brushed the fuzz on his earlobes. "Chaz!" she said sharply. "Chaz, you listen. I'm telling the cops everything. And it won't just be my word against yours-they'll have the new will, the videotape, all the Everglades stuff. Your friend Red, he's toast, too. Wake up, Romeo, it's over. Attempted murder, fraud, bribery. Even if you beat the rap, you'll be broke and out of work and owing lawyers for the rest of your miserable life. Ruined, Chaz."
From her husband, not a peep. He had passed out.
Joey climbed off and called for Mick. Together they jostled and prodded Chaz, but they were unable to rouse him.
She said, "Now what do we do? The asshole thinks he's hallucinating. He thinks I'm not real."
"You're not," Stranahan said fondly.
"I'm serious, Mick. Obviously he was bombed when he got here, then Rose doped him into oblivion."
"Gosh. I sure hope he doesn't get a boo-boo on the way home. Drive himself into a canal, or fall asleep on the train tracks."
"Oh no you don't."
"Hey, stuff like that happens. You read about it all the time."
Joey stared at the reprehensible heap of snoring, drool-flecked flesh to which she was wed, and she felt only hollowness and exhaustion. How strange that she no longer wanted to punch him or choke him or kill him, or even just scream at him. All her rage and indignation was dried up, leaving only an aftertaste of disgust.
"You all right?" Stranahan asked.
"Peachy. I married a total piece of shit."
"It's not hard to do. You want to whale on the bastard, now's your chance."
Joey shook her head. "Honestly, Mick, I don't care what happens to him anymore."
"Well, I do," Stranahan said, grabbing Charles Regis Perrone by the ankles.
Twenty-eight
Nellie Shulman cornered him in the elevator. Her housecoat smelled of mothballs and tuna fish.
"Why didn't you tell me you're moving out? What's with all the sneaking around?"
Karl Rolvaag said, "I'm taking a job up north."
"And renting your place out to Gypsies, no doubt. Deviates and loners like yourself."
"I'll be selling the condo, Nellie."
She clacked her yellow dentures. "To another snake freak, right? Some psycho with spitting cobras, maybe."
"Whoever can afford to buy it. That's the law."
The elevator door opened and the detective bolted, Nellie scuttling after him.
"Aren't you the smug one?" she said. "Just because they found Rumsfeld, you think you can dance out of here with a clean conscience."
Rumsfeld was the miniature poodle that had gone AWOL, the third pet missing from Sawgrass Grove. The detective was secretly happy to learn that the incontinent little hair ball had not been devoured by one of his wayfaring pythons.
"They found him behind the Albertsons'," Mrs. Shulman reported somberly, "sleeping in a liquor box. Some bum was feeding him soda crackers."
"What about Pinchot and whatsit, that Siamese?" Rolvaag asked. Poised at his front door, he groped through his pockets for the keys. Mrs. Shulman seemed committed to a full-blown confrontation.
She said, "Don't play innocent with me. Her name was Pandora and you know damn well what happened-you sacrificed her to those vicious reptiles of yours! Same with poor old Pinchot. And my precious Petunia is probably next on the menu!"
"Those are serious accusations you're making, Nellie, with no proof whatsoever."
Mrs. Shulman grew defensive. "It's not just me, everybody around here's talking about it. 'Why else would a grown man keep anacondas?' they say. 'What's the matter with him?' "
Rolvaag said, "They're pythons, not anacondas. And they don't eat house cats or Pomeranians." He hoped his lack of conviction wasn't apparent to the acting vice president of the Sawgrass Grove Condominium Association.
"Know what I think, Nellie? I think you're disappointed that you won't get to evict me. I think you're bummed because I'm moving out on my own terms." At last he found his key and speared it into the lock.