Colpo di Grazia

by Miles Archer

Office of Allworth Investigations
San Francisco

May, 1985

My outer office door swung open. She paused just inside the door frame, allowing me a full gander at the cashmere sheath dress packaging her goods. I let my eyes have their fun for a few seconds. My libido thanked me.

"I'm looking for a private detective."

Her voice poured out like warm oil from a hot motor. Smooth and steamy, promising smooth, lubricious movement.

"You've found one."

"My name is Monica Grant."

She said it like she'd had a lot of practice introducing herself. I accepted her hovering fingers with my own paw, did my best to create an affable smile on my mug. I don't get a lot of practice being affable in this line of work.

"Doug McCool," I told her. My fingertips said goodbye to hers with regret.

I aimed her toward my private office. Her light jasmine perfume sent tendrils up my nose as she passed. She lowered herself into the chair across from my desk, crossed her silk-covered knees in ladylike fashion. My eyes involuntarily made the trip from perfect ankle to emerald eyes, enjoying every inch.

She took that kind of deep breath people take when they're about to dive under water...or tell a long story. In this case, it was the latter. This inspiration expanded the dress in places already notably pneumatic. My pulse pounded in my temples.

I put on my professional-listener face, ignored the primitive urges tickling the underside of my cortex. For some reason saliva flooded my mouth. She proceeded to unveil her problem. I swallowed surreptitiously.

"I don't know what to do about this...", she waited for the word she wanted, "...situation."

"Well, why don't you begin at the beginning?" I usually encourage my clients to cut to the chase, but she was a multimedia sensory treat, so I let her take her time.

I'll summarize:

Hubby was in the investment business, specializing in advising union pension funds where to put their dough. All those nickels and dimes deducted from the proletariat's wages...clink-clink-clink. Plenty of people aspired to   fari vagnari a pizzu , as the Sicilians say; "to wet their beak".

McCool's Theorem of Behavioral Economics: When you've got control of a lot of money, people will want to be your friend. Her story was anecdotal evidence in support.

"This person, this Dominic Abruzio, thinks he's a business partner of Don's." She said the name with a tone she might have reserved for a disappointing chablis.

"Don" is Hubby Grant. I'd never heard of him, but the name Dominic Abruzio flashed like a Hamm 's Beer sign.

" Thinks he's a partner or is a partner, Mrs. Grant?"

"Well, that's just my point. I can tell Don is unhappy about this...", she liked to fish for words, "...situation, but he won't talk about it."

She snapped open a cigarette case. It glinted yellow under the cool blue-green fluorescent lights. She held it out to me. I didn't really want one of her cigarettes, but I took the case from her just to feel its weight. I selected a black cigarette. Gold lettering stated "Monica". I knew they made personalized cigarettes, but I admit this was a first for me.

She snapped a gold lighter and leaned over the wooden barrier of the desk to light me. The angle offered me a view. I wasn't so much of a gentlemen as to not look. She wasn't so much of a lady she seemed to mind.

The cigarette was a Dunhill, but tasted like any other. What she tasted like was of more interest, but I don't make a practice of having sex with my clients. Of course, most of my clients don't look like Monica Grant.

"I can understand why your husband is reluctant to discuss his business."

"You can?" She seemed surprised I understood her problem without her finishing the story.

"Sure. Mr. Abruzio is one of our many successful Italian-American businessmen, with diversified interests. Dope, gambling, hookers, unions...he's truly catholic when it comes to money."

"Catholic?" She thought for a moment, then giggled. "Oh, Mr. McCool, you're very clever. That was quite good, really."

My ego purred. I know it's wrong to let her looks affect me, but I couldn't do anything about it. I plead guilty to being a sucker for beautiful women with lots of money. Somehow I don't think I'm unique.

"So, if I were to guess, I'd say there's something up with the union pension fund."

"That's what I don't know. And I'm worried about Don."

"Well, you should be. Working with Razor can be hazardous to your health."

"Razor?"

"Dominic's nickname. The Razor. Old-fashioned guy, used to carry a straight razor when he was a kid. In fact, he lost the first knuckle of his index finger with the thing."

"Oh, I always wondered about that. It's not the kind of question you can ask, though, is it?"

"I wouldn't ask Razor about it. Seems, when he was a young tough, he accidentally severed it while showing off. His fellow wise-guys teased him about it for a while. Then one day a guy who'd been ridin' him turned up dead—with a certain appendage stuffed in his mouth. Nobody teased Razor about it again."

She didn't give me an "Oh goodness" look, like I was expecting. That story isn't usually one I would tell in polite society, but I thought it indicated a lot about Mr. Abruzio's temperament.

"So you think Don is in a serious trouble? I mean, that this Abruzio fellow could harm Don?"

"As long as your husband does what's expected of him, I'm sure he's fine. But there's no two-weeks-notice in the Mob. You don't resign because you get a better offer. It's a tough line of work, Mrs. Grant."

"Please call me Monica."

"Monica. No doubt about it, your husband is between a rock and hard place."

"Can you help us? Please, Mr. McCool?"

I liked it when she said "please."

"I assume you realize this is going to be expensive." I may have liked her looks, but it doesn't pay the rent.

She opened a tooled-leather check holder and raised her Mont Blanc pen. Her green eyes skewered my soft brown ones with a question.

"One thousand is the customary retainer, Mrs...uh...Monica." Damn, I hate it when I stutter.

"What can you do?"

"Well, the first thing I can do is see just what the deal is with your husband and Dominic."

"Oh, you mustn't let Don know. He'd simply die if he thought I'd told anyone about this."

I thought, He'd die all right, although I don't know how simple Razor would make it . But I said, "I plan to be very discreet, Mrs....uh...Monica."

Again, damn it!

She graciously overlooked my inability to use her first name. Then I realized I hadn't invited her to use my given name. Apparently testosterone interferes with learning and memory.

"Do you think you'll be able to help? I love Don. I wouldn't want to have anything," pause, "happen."

"In that case, why don't you take your check back and just forget about it. I wouldn't want to be responsible for your husband getting," I paused, "hurt." I was going to say "killed," but decided there was no point in being overly dramatic. Or accurate.

Barbara breezed in just as Mrs. Gorgeous was leaving. She caught me holding that manicured hand. I may have unconsciously inclined slightly from the waist.

As soon as she closed the outer door behind her, Barbara shot me a look.

"What was that?"

She had a way of looking at me that spoke volumes. I didn't need to hear them recited yet again.

"That, my dear, was the rent. And dinner. And even a couple of cocktails." I waved the check like a battle pennant. Or a white flag.

Barbara's ruby-tipped fingers snatched my prize out of thin air. She studied the amount, then blessed me with a smile. "Let's get this in the goddamn bank right away. Then you can buy me a double!"

***

I filled her in over cioppino , steamed zucchini and garlic bread at the US Restaurant on Columbus and Broadway. The waitresses never write down your order and make it a point of pride to remember what you ate when you present yourself at the cash register. Not of them is under sixty. They've got a magical way of steaming zucchini— al dente, but completely suffused with garlic and oregano. Their cioppino is the color of day-old blood. Chunks of mushroom, shrimp and clams suspended in a fresh tomato sauce delicately suffused with chianti. We sucked it up and washed it down with a carafe of house red.

Barbara followed a mouthful of marinara with a big swallow of wine. The wine and sauce reddened her lips.

"What are you gonna do for them? Can you really help him with Razor?"

"Shhh! Geez, don't say that name in here quite so loud."

Just then the street door opened and a young man entered. He gave the place a careful look, then stood to one side. The man who entered behind him was older, maybe forty-five, his hair still dark, his figure trim. He walked into the crowded little place like he owned it. At a booth against the wall another man stood, raised his hand, sketched a half-wave, half-salute to the arrivals.

When the older man arrived at the table I was startled to see him offer his hand to the greeter, who bowed his head quickly and brushed the hand with his lips. The greeting was so quick it was over almost before I realized what he'd done. You just don't see the old respect anymore.

The young bodyguard took his patron's Burberry overcoat and hung it up, then slid into the outside seat, where his right hand could be free. All three men wore sharply-tailored black suits, white-on-white patterned shirts with French cuffs, fastened with links big enough to choke a boa constrictor.

I picked up the round loaf of sourdough and broke a piece off. The crust cracked so loudly the hard-guy with the nice suit looked in our direction for a moment.

I murmured to Barbara.

" Ixnay on the afiamay stuff."

She looked at me quizzically for a second but worked it out.

The three wise guys ate their dinner. There wasn't anything interesting about that. They ate their veal parmigiana or osso buco like good little boys, drank bottled chianti instead of the house stuff. I only mention it because the old-fashioned salutation caught my eye.

***

Monica Grant had agreed to let me into her husband's home office after he left the next morning. A short, round middle-aged Latino woman in a maid's uniform opened the door, her face as carefully blank as the Sphinx. I introduced myself, presented my card with a flourish, as if she were the Queen, and gave her the hundred-watt smile. Her teeth flashed and those obsidian eyes warmed up.

"Ms. Gran' especteen ju ." She stepped back from the door. "Ms. Gran' din' say wha' a beeg man you were."

She eyed me up and down in a frankly appraising way. I felt my face get warm. Her laugh chortled up out of her belly and caused her bosom to quake.

"Don' be shy! I tell her ju here. Hov a seat in dere."

She pointed to a room off the entry hall big enough for a decent game of three-on-three. Floor-to-ceiling leaded-glass Palladian windows revealed a million dollar view of the Bay from the Tiburon peninsula. The maid clumped down the hall, muttering something about "... un hombre muy macho ."

A fire crackled busily in the conical hearth dominating one corner. The firebox could have held a calf. The fog-laden wind outside justified the fire, I suppose, although I expect the warmth I felt came from being surrounded by the things money can buy.

Across from the fireplace loomed an antique mahogany bar, black with age. Glass shelves held cut crystal glasses and rows of bottles, all glitteringly reflected in beveled glass mirrors. The bottle labels filled me with longing. I pulled up a stool in the hope Mrs. Grant would take the hint.

I was studying the ashtray on the bar, a heavy chunk of polished green alabaster, thinking what a great murder weapon it would make, when she spoke, startling me. I managed not to drop the thing on the gleaming wood.

"Mr. McCool! I'm so glad you came."

You'd have thought I was stopping by for tea.

"Uh, I suppose you should go ahead and call me Doug," making up for my lapse the previous day.

"Of course. Now, can I get you something, Doug, or do you want to get right to work?"

"Well, how about if I do what I've come to do and then we can have a drink. Your husband's gone for the day?"

"Oh yes. He won't be home until late. But I do have a Junior League luncheon, so...".

"Of course. I won't be long."

"If you would follow me." She turned into the hall.

We trekked down the marble-tiled hall. I took in the wide staircase, the paintings, the statue on a pedestal by the fountain. She opened a raised-panel door.

"My husband's office. That Abruzio man meets with him here."

"Thank you. Would you like to meet me somewhere when I'm done?" I was trying to think of a nice way to say 'scram'.

"Of course. Just ring the bell here. Hermosia will show you where to find me." She started to turn. "By the way, you seem to have turned Herme's head. Whatever did you say to her?"

"Nothing. Just being polite." That's me, friend of the workingman. Or woman. A regular Karl Marx. She closed the solid door behind me.

What I had to do would only take a couple of minutes, but there's no point in letting clients know how easy it is to bug a room. I put one bug in a lamp, below the finial where it wouldn't be conspicuous. Then I opened the base of the cordless phone and popped in my other 'little friend'. Unless Hubby swept the place he'd never know they were there. I doubted Razor would worry about bugs here. He might have been concerned about his own telephone, but he probably wouldn't suspect the FBI of bugging this room. Of course, I wasn't working within the formalities of warrants and the Bill of Rights. But then, that's why people hire me.

"Okay, Sexy. This is test. Can you read me?"

The pager on my belt vibrated thirty seconds later, telling me Barbara had heard my voice. She was in the van parked in the driveway. And not very happy about it, but someone has to be on the other end to check the equipment. I could imagine her scowling because we'd spent five bucks to make the pager call from the necessary-but-expensive car phone.

I cased the office for a few minutes, but the desk drawers were locked and of good quality. I would have had to mark them to get them open. The file cabinet was also locked. Nothing like a thorough man to make a Private I's life a pain.

I buzzed for Hermosia. She appeared in seconds, which I guessed meant she had been listening at the door. I followed her apple-shaped rear back to the front room where Monica waited.

"Well, that didn't take long. It's a little early, but would you like a drink?" She sounded disappointed with my performance, as if I'd prematurely ejaculated.

"Sure." I returned to my perch on the stool while she walked around to the back of the bar. "Got any Scotch?"

"Would single malt do?"

"Of course." I'd spotted the bottle earlier. My plan had succeeded.

"Up or over?"

"Up, please." No sense spoiling the golden elixir with the corruption of water.

She poured a generous splash into a heavy highball glass. While her back was turned I reached into my pocket and pressed another bug into the joint where the top met the front panel under the bar. That blue sticky stuff 3M makes held it in place. The miracles of modern science.

"Here you go."

She had thrown together a quick vodka gimlet for herself...shaken with ice and served straight up. Guess she thought water was unnecessary as well.

"Confusion to the enemy."

We touched glasses. She held my gaze with her own. I tried not to stare at her eyes, her lips, that stray lock of blonde curl tickling her jaw. The lobes of her ears were decked out with diamond studs the size of quarter-fine gravel. It's baubles like that women like her expect from guys like Hubby.

"I hope you can help us, Doug."

I was surprised to hear the way my name sounded on her lips. She said it as though she had called me "Doug" for years.

"Let me see what Abruzio's up to. Then we can figure out where to go from there."

The single malt slid down my throat, finer lubricant than this old engine was used to. I could develop a taste for it. My belly filled with a warm fire.

She settled on the stool next to me and placed one hand on my thigh, high enough to get my attention.

"I so thankful you're here to help me."

She exhaled lime. I inhaled deeply. Her other hand rose to my face, guided me into her lips. I tasted gimlet and lipstick. Her lips moved like she was eating a peach. The pager buzzed. My left hand killed it without either one of us losing our concentration. Her tongue was cold. I sucked until it was warm. Three nasal fractures meant I was running out of air when she released me.

For a long moment we said nothing, then she opened a Day Runner as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. We made arrangements on how and when I would contact her.

Barbara gave me a look when I got in the van. Of course she had been monitoring our client and I as soon as the bug activated.

"You and Mrs. Gotrocks certainly seemed to get along."

I gave her an innocent "Who me?" look. I was going to add a verbal denial, but decided that would be protesting too much.

We set up the receiving gear in our fake fire hydrant and left it on the curb. People never pay attention to fire hydrants. If one appears on the street no one notices. Ours was a real hydrant, liberated from the SFFD, with a waterproof box inside. The damn thing weighed a ton. I thought I'd bust a gut getting it out of the van and onto the curb. We accessed the tapes from the top, so at least I wouldn't have to hoist the bloody thing up and down every time we serviced it.

Back at the office Barbara ran a credit check on both Grant and Abruzio. You'd be surprised at how much you can find out about someone with a credit check. Even Mafia Dons use credit cards and checking accounts these days. After all, it looks pretty strange to pay the electric bill with a wad of C-notes. We also obtained their driving records and pages of miscellaneous public records information. Don Grant had maintained an A- average at Berkeley . We didn't care, but that's how deep we could burrow.

The Grant's credit reports, for example, indicated they had been stretched pretty thin in years past, often running thirty to sixty days late, but recently they had been catching up fast. I assumed this indicated a recent upsurge in cash flow.

Hubby's DMV record was clean, but Ms. Monica had two moving violations in '84 and two more this year, '85. One more in the next twelve months and she'd lose her license for a year. I noticed she had been tagged on US 101North, heading back to Tiburon from the City. Running late from a liason? The '84 Jag 12-cylinder was registered in her name only. I could have lived nicely on her annual insurance premiums.

Abruzio's credit check was revealing in the sense that it gave us the name of his 'employer'. From that we could run a D&B on the company. Everything seemed perfectly fine, his personal and corporate credit was great. But the D&B report revealed a chain of interlocking companies. When you find a fellow's company is connected to another company, and that company to another company, and so on, what you've got is the old shell game updated to the 'new economy'. All the companies had innocuous names containing the word "credit" or "financial" in them.

***

I bugged Grant's work place using the tried-and-true telephone repairman gag. Only once in five years has someone actually wanted to examine my ID. The laminated card with my picture and phony company name worked fine. I don't stick around very long so no one is the wiser.

I put one bug in his handset and another over by a conference area at one end of his office. I didn't stop to admire the Swedish-modern blonde-wood desk. In one corner, a 9x12 professional photograph of Mrs. Grant approvingly overlooked his work surface. Although tempted to give his filing cabinets a try, I needed more time than the phone-man gag would afford me. I try not to B&E unless absolutely necessary. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Simple trespass won't get you hard time in this state.

I put our recorder into the suspended ceiling crawl space in the hallway outside the office. Nobody pays attention to a guy in khakis on a ladder.

***

I had the bugs in place. All I had to do was service the recorders every couple of days. Listening to the results is tedious as hell. Between Barbara and I, we could keep up with the job, but it involved two full days each week replacing the tapes, then listening to calls to the dry cleaners, chitchats in the living room and detailed conversations about investing from Mr. G's workplace. No calls or meetings between Abruzio and Grant.

Once a week Monica and I got together for a report and another check. We would take a booth in the back at the Hoffman Grill. The joint is busy with half-drunk salesmen and their clients, stockbrokers celebrating or mourning—the usual suit-wearing riffraff—so noisy we could talk quietly without worrying about being overheard. I avoid having clients come to the office regularly. You never know who's watching whom. Or is it 'who'?

I had told her what we had learned about Abruzio. I did not tell her what we had learned about them. I don't like to let my clients know that anytime they hire me, I investigate them as well. Can't be too careful in this line of work.

***

Week Four we finally got something interesting. Abruzio called Grant, returning Grant's earlier call:

"Don. What's up?"

Abruzio's voice bore no trace of accent. After all, he'd been born in California , not Sicily . He didn't sound like the Bronx-accented, New York-hood stereotype; more like a successful entrepreneur without a lot of time to waste on details.

"Look, Dom, we need to do something about Capital Consultants."

"What's the matter?"

"Well, with interest rates going up we're losing a lot of money these days."

"How much?"

"I'm not sure, it changes weekly, but at this rate—three million a month."

Abruzio was silent for a moment.

"You can't fix it?"

"Dom, I need you to authorize Western Financial to start making payments on that loan."

"Ain't gonna happen, my friend." A flat statement of fact.

"But Dom, you don't understand. If this keeps up my investors are going to take a bath."

"Well, you win some, you lose some. You know how it is."

"I wouldn't want someone to go over the accounts too carefully."

"Hey, that ain't gonna happen either, Don. Relax. Things will pick up again. Look, you get together with Al. Maybe the two of you can work out some interest-only payments for a few months. You know, take the heat off. You just need to ride this thing out."

I turned off the recorder. Barbara and I exchanged looks. I noticed she had more wrinkles lately. Then I wondered if I did too.

"Sounds like someone's nuts are gonna get squeezed." She has a delicate way of expressing herself.

"Yes dear. I'd say there's trouble on the horizon for the Good Ship Grant."

"What ya gonna do for Monica-baby?"

"I don't know. I think the only thing that's gonna keep old Don out of the pokey, or a hole in the desert, is for him to run to the Feds. If he agrees to set up the Razor, delivers the whole enchilada, they might do the WPP thing for them."

"She doesn't look like the kind of gal who wants to live in Scottsdale under the name 'Smith'."

Barbara was probably right. She understood women, being a member of the club. I was forever denied true understanding, being that inferior creature—a mere man.

"Well, if they don't, she'll be the Widow Grant."

There was one other conversation that held our interest. Well, it wasn't a conversation, exactly. The bug under the bar had picked up the blonde-bombshell and another guy talking. It was a poor quality recording, just chitchat, nothing of interest. But then there were faint noises on the tape that weren't precisely vocal. More like oral. Barbara ran her tongue over her lips and smiled. When the man gave out a loud moan toward the end of the tape, she laughed.

"I always wondered what that sounds like."

I said nothing, but my imagination was talking a mile a minute. There's nothing incriminating about giving some guy a blowjob, but I admit I was disappointed. Of course, she hadn't known about the bug under the bar.

I called Monica and we arranged to meet. She insisted she attend her Save the Whales luncheon first, so we agreed to meet at the Top o' the Mark around three.

I was already on my second bourbon and branch when she walked in. Every pair of eyes followed her progress. The women looked envious; the men, lustful.

She wore a green silk, scoop-neck dress. The fabric clung to her like cobwebs. Her hips summoned the proverbial two-cats-fighting-in-a-sack analogy. Judging by the distinct outline of her nipples I judged her not to be wearing a bra—and she had the tits for it. A chunk of carved apple-green jade, rimmed with yellow gold, dangled between those liberated breasts, suspended on a thick gold chain the Chinese use to smuggle their wealth out of the country. The emerald on her finger matched her eyes in both size and color.

She ordered a Grasshopper. Must have been on a green kick. I started on bourbon number three.

"What have you got to tell me?" She had a way of looking into a man's eyes so you felt she was hanging on every word.

"We have recordings of conversations that would arouse the interest of the US Attorney's office and the SEC. The question is: do you want to see hubby go to jail or rat out Razor to the Feds? That's about the only choice he's gonna have."

I saw something flicker in those cool green eyes.

"What do you think Don should do?"

"I'm not really in a position to advise a man I've never met, Mrs. Grant. Don't you think the three of us ought to get together?"

She rejected that idea. "Don would be furious if he knew I were meddling in his affairs."

I thought she was trying to save his ass, myself, but she lived with him, I didn't.

"Could you turn your information over to the authorities? Without involving Don?"

I shook my head to emphasize the ludicrous innocence of her idea.

"I don't think I can call the US Attorney's office, tell them I have tapes, but I'm not going to identify who's on them. This is not the sort of case that's generated by an anonymous tip. It's a black and white deal, Monica. You two will have to choose. Dance with the Devil you know, or the one you don't."

"I want to save Don from himself...and those repulsive people. Please contact the authorities. They can protect him, can't they?"

I don't know which people she thought 'repulsive'. I assumed she meant Abruzio.

"Yeah, they can try. But you know, their attitude is 'you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs'."

"Yes." Her lips and eyes seemed to almost-smile. "I suppose."

"And there isn't a damn thing I can do for you once the Feds get involved. That kind of help I can't provide."

I've tangled with the Feds before. Expensive and dangerous.

"Oh, you've been a guardian angel, Doug. How much do I owe you?"

She wrote me a check with several zeros left of the decimal.

I thought things over for a day or two, then called the United States Attorney's office in San Francisco . The nice young Assistant United States Attorney listened to the tapes and my story. He rubbed his palms together in a most unappetizing gesture. I guess he smelled a promotion.

I left with a sour taste in my mouth. I worried about what I might have done, but either I concealed a major financial fraud or burned some poor guy. I hoped Don Grant and his wife would be okay.

***

About six weeks later, Barbara walked in and tossed the Chronicle and a bag of Danish on my desk. I went for the Danish first.

"You might want to look at the front page, Piggy."

I opened the paper, leaving the Danish gently clamped between my teeth. The headline I read caused the Danish to fall onto the newsprint; sticky-side down, of course.

"SF Financier Killed in Car Bomb Blast".

He got four columns, left side, with a picture of the still-smoking wreckage, not bad for a local story. Seems Don Grant, late of Capital Consultants, started his Mercedes and took a trip to a place he'd never been before.

I saw the grieving widow on the Tube that evening, while I sucked down soft fried noodles and char shiu bao , chased them with Tsing Tao beer. She looked fine in black.

A couple of weeks later the Feds indicted Razor Abruzio for racketeering, stock fraud, extortion, conspiracy and murder. He looked a little stunned as the cameras caught him entering the court house.

The Feds fast-tracked him and six months later he was sentenced to five concurrent terms of twenty-five to life.

***

A couple months after that, Barbara and I were dining at the Olde Poodle Dog , celebrating a fat fee recently banked. Allworth Investigations would pay the bills for months on it.

I happened to look up in time to see the young hood from the US Restaurant, nearly a year ago. He pushed past the maitre d'hôte and did his looking-around-for-guys-with-guns bit. In my line of work you don't forget a fellow like him. He then stood aside to allow a blonde wearing a white silk sheath dress to enter.

The former Mrs. Monica Grant glided into the room, halted under a strategic down-light which bathed her in a warm honey-colored glow. The rest of the lights dimmed in obedience to her radiant presence.

A sharp-looking man about forty-five entered behind her. The guy I'd seen getting his hand kissed like he was the Pope.

"Who the hell is that?" It was meant to be a rhetorical question, but Barbara glanced over her shoulder, then turned back to me.

"That's Jack Olivio and his new wife."

I felt a cold bubble form in my chest.

"He owns some big financial company. Saw that in the Society section."

Her tone was light. She smiled wickedly at me.

"So you thought she was looking out for Hubby."

"They used me to set them both up. He got rid of the Razor and she got rid of Hubby." I drained my bourbon and waved the empty glass at the waiter hovering nearby. "Shit."

"Well, Honey...", Barbara lit a cigarette, "...sometimes you get screwed without the kiss."