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Chapters (41)
  1. Dexter in the Darkby Jeff Lindsay
  2. IN THE BEGINNING
  3. ONE
  4. TWO
  5. THREE
  6. FOUR
  7. FIVE
  8. SIX
  9. SEVEN
  10. EIGHT
  11. NINE
  12. TEN
  13. ELEVEN
  14. TWELVE
  15. THIRTEEN
  16. FOURTEEN
  17. FIFTEEN
  18. SIXTEEN
  19. SEVENTEEN
  20. EIGHTEEN
  21. NINETEEN
  22. TWENTY
  23. TWENTY-ONE
  24. TWENTY-TWO
  25. TWENTY-THREE
  26. TWENTY-FOUR
  27. TWENTY-FIVE
  28. TWENTY-SIX
  29. TWENTY-SEVEN
  30. TWENTY-EIGHT
  31. TWENTY-NINE
  32. THIRTY
  33. THIRTY-ONE
  34. THIRTY-TWO
  35. THIRTY-THREE
  36. THIRTY-FOUR
  37. THIRTY-FIVE
  38. THIRTY-SIX
  39. THIRTY-SEVEN
  40. THIRTY-EIGHT
  41. THIRTY-NINE

"Not if there's a chance to get Manny Borque," she said, and there was a surprisingly strong note in her voice that I had never heard before except when she was angry with Cody and Astor. "Yes, but Rita," I said, "it doesn't make sense to spend a ton of money just for the caterer." "Sense has nothing to do with it," she said, and I admit that I agreed with her there. "If we can get Manny Borque to cater our wedding, we'd be crazy not to do it."

"But," I said, and there I stopped, because beyond the fact that it seemed idiotic to pay a king's ransom for crackers with endives hand-painted with rhubarb juice and sculpted to look like Jennifer Lopez, I could not think of any other objection. I mean, wasn't that enough?

Apparently not. "Dexter," she said. "How many times will we get married?" And to my great credit I was still alert enough to clamp down on the urge to say, "At least twice, in your case," which I think was probably very wise.

I quickly changed course, diving straight into tactics learned from pretending to be human for so many years. "Rita," I said, "the important part of the wedding is when I slip the ring on your finger. I don't care what we eat afterward."

"That's so sweet," she said. "Then you don't mind if we hire Manny Borque?"

Once again I found myself losing an argument before I even knew which side I was on. I became aware of a dryness in my mouth-caused, no doubt, by the fact that my mouth was hanging open as my brain struggled to make sense of what had just happened, and then to find something clever to say to get things back onto dry land.

But it was far too late. "I'll call Vince back," she said, and she leaned over to give me a kiss on the cheek. "Oh, this is so exciting. Thank you, Dexter." Well, after all, isn't marriage about compromise?

SEVEN

N ATURALLY ENOUGH , MANNY BORQUE LIVED IN SOUTH Beach. He was on the top floor of one of the new high-rise buildings that spring up around Miami like mushrooms after a heavy rain. This one sat on what was once a deserted beach where Harry used to take Debs and me beachcombing early on Saturday mornings. We would find old life preservers, mysterious wooden chunks of some unfortunate boat, lobster-pot buoys, pieces of fishnet, and on one thrilling morning, an exceedingly dead human body rolling in the surf. It was a treasured boyhood memory, and I resented extremely that someone had built this shiny flimsy tower on the site.