He ambled off to the bedroom. "What do you want? Farrah? Orphan Annie? Elvira?"

"Something that won't attract attention."

He returned with a blond wig and held it out for approval. "This is from my Marilyn collection. Very popular with older men who like to be spanked."

I was thinking Yuk, but Lula looked like she was filing it away in case she decided to return to her former profession.

Sally pinned my hair back and tugged the wig on. "Needs something."

"Needs Marilyn lips," Lula said. "Can't have Marilyn hair without Marilyn lips."

"I don't know how to do lips," Sally said. "Sugar always does my lips. And Sugar isn't here. We sort of had a fight, and he went off in a snit."

"You two fight a lot?" Lula asked.

"Nope. Never. Sugar's real easy to live with. He's just a little nerdy, you know. Like, he thinks I shouldn't be hanging out with you because it's too dangerous. That's what we had the fight about."

"Jeez," I said. "I don't want to come between you and your roommate."

"No problem, man. Sugar's cool. He's just one of those worrywart motherfuckers." Sally opened a professional-size makeup case. "Here's lots of shit if you know how to use it."

I choose candy-apple-pink lipstick and made big, glossy, pouty lips.

Sally and Lula stood back and did the take-a-look thing.

"Gotta lose the shoes," Lula said. "Never gonna get away with those lips and that hair and those shoes."

Sally agreed. "The shoes aren't Marilyn."

"I saw these great shoes at Macy's," Lula said. "They'd be perfect."

"No! I'm not going to Macy's. I want to get to the park early, so we can hang out and watch for Maxine."

"Only take a minute," Lula said. "You'd go bonkers over these shoes."

"No. And that's final."

"Just let me put some lip gloss on and I'll be ready to go," Sally said.

Lula and I sent each other a look that said, Uh oh.

Sally paused with lip gloss in hand. "You didn't think you were going to leave me here, did you?"

"Well, yeah," I said.

"This is bounty hunter shit," Lula said. "And you don't know any bounty hunter shit."

"I know other kinds of shit. And beside, I don't think you know a big fucking bunch of bounty hunter shit, either."

I was staring at the wall, and I was thinking it might feel good to run full tilt and bash my head against it. "Stop! We'll all go. We'll all pretend to be bounty hunters."

Sally turned to the hall mirror and smeared lip gloss on his lips. "Sugar gave me this cool cherry-tasting shit to use on my lips. He says I've got to keep my lips from getting chapped so my lipstick goes on nice and smooth. I'm telling you, this woman stuff is complicated."