“You got anything to drink?” she asked.

“A couple bottles of 7-Up I got from a machine at check-in. A bucket of ice from down the hall. A couple of water glasses.”

“Sounds like a party.”

I poured us glasses with ice and we sat on top of the unmade bed with pillows propped behind us.

“I must be losing my charm,” she said. “When nothing developed in bed, Steve-a-rino took a bath to relax and I crawled in with him and got nothing but the wrong kind of wet. I’m starting to think he has eyes for Johnny or maybe you.”

I shook my head. “He’s just a lush. But he may be a rich one.”

She frowned curiously at me. “Where do you think he got that dough?”

I gave her back a question of my own. “How good a look did you get at it?”

She shrugged. “Just a flash. But, man, it looked stuffed in there like a Thanksgiving turkey.” She showed me small feral white teeth and her eyebrows went up and down and up and down. “You and me could grab those babies and South America here we come. You’re right, he’s a lush. You probably won’t even have to kill him.”

“That’s a relief. South America, huh? Wouldn’t you rather plow your share into your farm?”

Her head went back and she horse-laughed. “Ha! You didn’t buy that load of bullshit, did you, Nate?”

“No. I think you fooled Steve, though. He’s not very bright. Did he ever tell you what errand he wanted you to run?”

She sipped 7-Up, ice clinking, nodded. “Yeah. He’s gonna give me a thousand dollars to fly to Los Angeles and mail a letter.”

“What the hell?”

She repeated that word for word.

But by now I got it: “It’s a letter from him to somebody.”

“Yeah. A lawyer in St. Joe.”

“He thinks the postmark will give him an alibi. Make it appear he’s in L.A.”

“I guess.”

“You have the letter?”

“No. I saw it. He says I can keep anything left from the thousand after air fare and hotel and incidental shit. And he’ll give me enough to buy that Guernsey bull.” She giggled, then got serious and conspiratorial. “Which is all well and good, Heller, but I say take the money and run.”

“He has a gun.”

She glanced at the nightstand, where my nine millimeter was resting. “Looks like you do, too.” She worked her hand in my hair. “I think we’d make a good team. We both been to the rodeo before.…”

Hard as it may be to believe, she smelled good. Arpège by Lanvin—a showgirl I dated a while back wore it. And the truth is, over the years, I have dated (to put it euphemistically) all kinds of females—from rich to poor, from brilliant to dumb, and a good number have been strippers and showgirls. Now that I was respectable, with a L.A. office and all, you can add starlets to the list. How can I put it politely? I’d screwed sleazier.