‘We’re fine. Sorry to disappoint you.’

‘Did I say I didn’t like her?’

‘You didn’t have to. She’s Catholic, Cuban, and Republican.’

‘I have no problem with Cubans, darling,’ Tarla replied, smiling.

‘We’re fine,’ he repeated. ‘Lala got pulled into a special assignment. I haven’t seen much of her lately. We talk on the phone now and then.’

‘Oh well, phone sex has its place in the world.’

Cab rubbed his forehead in exasperation. ‘Seriously, Mother?’

‘I’m teasing, darling. My, you really are crabby tonight.’

He drank his champagne without replying. He wouldn’t have admitted it to Tarla, but his relationship with Lala had been strained for weeks. Lala Mosqueda was his sometimes partner on the Naples Police and his sometimes lover. They’d begun a relationship several months earlier. Lala was not a casual fling and not into casual sex, and that was a terrifying prospect for someone like Cab who had spent a dozen years not trusting any woman who came close to him. They were opposites in almost every way: Lala small, dark, and intense, fiercely religious and conservative; Cab absurdly tall and bird-like, blond, and generally unserious about everything except his work. Particularly religion and politics.

Even so, the two felt an attraction like magnets and steel. In the spring, Cab had traveled to Door County, Wisconsin, for an ugly, difficult murder investigation, and he’d spent much of the time driving the remote dirt roads, talking to Lala on his cell phone and realizing how much he missed her. When he came back to Naples, they’d tried being a couple again, but their relationship had been one step forward, one step back. It didn’t help that she’d been away from Naples and mostly out of touch for several weeks. It also didn’t help that his liberal, Los Angeles mother couldn’t understand the attraction between her Hollywood son and a rightwing Cuban cop.

‘Do you really think I look like Naomi Watts?’ Tarla asked.

‘I do.’

‘My breasts are bigger than hers,’ his mother said. ‘Of course, mine have had a little help along the way.’

‘I try not to think about it,’ Cab said.

‘Give me your honest opinion. Which one’s perkier tonight?’

‘Pass,’ he replied.

Tarla laughed, a throaty chuckle that had made moviegoers and co-stars go weak in the knees for thirty years. Her body was still pencil thin; she worked out with the same frenzy she had when she was on screen. She leaned in and whispered, ‘You realize I’m kidding, right?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Fine, give me your glass, I will find us more alcohol.’