“Truth is?” She’s not wearing a bra. “She treats you like you’re nothing more than an answering service, a flunky, a nobody. I’m not the first person who’s said it.”

“I don’t let anybody treat me like that,” he says. “We’ll see who the nobody is.” He thinks of Dr. Self and imagines himself on international TV.

Shandy reaches under the table, and he can see down her vest, see as much as he wants. She rubs him.

“Don’t,” he says, waiting and getting anxious and angry.

Pretty soon, other bikers will find excuses to walk past so they can take in the sight of her leaning against the table just right. He watches her do it, and her breasts swell and her cleavage deepens. She knows how to lean into a conversation so anybody interested can imagine a mouthful of her. A big guy with a big gut and a chain attached to his wallet slowly gets up from the bar. He takes his time walking to the men’s room, taking in the view, and Marino feels violent.

“You don’t like it?” Shandy rubs him. “‘Cause it sure feels to me like you do. Remember last night, baby? Like a damn teenager.”

“Don’t,” he says.

“Why? Am I giving you a hard time?” says Shandy, who prides herself on her way with words.

He moves her hand. “Not now.”

He returns Scarpetta’s call. “Marino here,” he says curtly, as if he’s talking to a stranger, so Shandy won’t know who it is.

“I need to see you,” Scarpetta says to him.

“Yeah. What time?” Marino acts like he doesn’t know her, and he’s aroused and jealous as bikers wander past the table, looking at his dark, exotic girlfriend exposing herself.

“As soon as you can get here. To my house,” Scarpetta’s voice says in his earpiece, and her tone is one he’s not accustomed to, and he senses her fury like an approaching storm. She’s seen the e-mails, he’s sure of it.

Shandy gives him a who are you talking to? look.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Marino feigns irritation, glancing at his watch. “Be there in a half-hour.” He hangs up, says to Shandy, “A body coming in.”

She looks at him as if trying to read the truth in his eyes, as if for some reason she knows he’s lying. “Which funeral home?” She leans back in her chair.

“Meddicks’. Again. What a squirrel. Must do nothing but drive that damn hearse morning, noon, and night. What we call an ambulance chaser.”

“Oh,” she says. “That sucks.” Her attention wanders to a man in a flame-pattern do-rag, his boots low in the heel. He pays no attention to them as he walks past their table to the ATM.