"No," Vanessa said. "We talked about that."

"We did?" Bubba threw back a shot and placed the gla.s.s on the bar again, and Vanessa refilled it.

"Yes," Vanessa said slowly. "If I have knowledge that a crime is to be committed, I have a sworn duty to notify the police."

"Oh, yeah." Bubba threw back a second shot. "Forgot that."

"Be a good boy," Vanessa said.

"Uh, okay."

Angie narrowed her eyes at me. I resisted the urge to jump off my bar stool and run screaming from the room.

"You guys want to stay for dinner?" Vanessa asked.

Angie stood up awkwardly and knocked her bag to the floor. "No, no. We're...We already ate. So..."

I stood. "So, yeah, we'll be, ah..."

"Going?" Vanessa said.

"Right." Angie picked up her bag. "Going. That's us."

"You didn't touch your drinks," Bubba said.

"You have 'em," I said as Angie crossed the floor in five or six steps, reached the door.

"Cool." Bubba threw back another shot.

"You have any limes?" Vanessa asked him. "I'm in a tequila mood."

"I could scare some up."

I reached the door, looked back over my shoulder at the two of them. Bubba's huge frame was tilted as he leaned his shoulder into the fridge, and Vanessa's lithe body seemed to curl toward him like smoke from the top of the bar stool.

"See ya," she called, her eyes on Bubba.

"Uh, yeah," I said. "See ya." And then I got the h.e.l.l out of there.

Angie started laughing as soon as we left Bubba's building. It was a helpless giggle, a stoner's laugh almost, that bent her body and led her out through the hole in the fence and into the playground beyond.

She got control of it as she lay against the jungle gym, looked up at the thick lead gla.s.s of Bubba's windows. She wiped her eyes and sighed through a few remaining chuckles.

"Dear, oh, dear. Your Your attorney and Bubba. My G.o.d. I've seen it all." attorney and Bubba. My G.o.d. I've seen it all."

I leaned back on the metal rungs beside her. "She's not my my anything." anything."

"Not anymore," she said, "that's for sure. After him, she'll be ruined for normal men."

"He's borderline monosyllabic, Ange."

"True. But the man's hung, Patrick." She grinned at me. "I mean, hung."

"Firsthand info?"

She laughed. "You wish."

"So, how do you know?"

"Men can tell a woman's cup size if she's wearing three sweaters and an overcoat. You think we're any different?"

"Ah," I said, still back at the bar area, Vanessa doing those slow swivels on the stool, Bubba watching the way the hair fell across her neck.

"Bubba and Vanessa," Angie said, "sitting in a tree."

"Jesus. Quit it, will ya?"

She leaned her head back on the jungle gym, turned it my way. "Jealous?"

"No."

"Not a little bit?"

"Not even a smidgen."

"Liar."

I turned my head fully to the right and our noses almost touched. We didn't say anything for a while, just lay back on the jungle gym with our cheeks pressed to the rungs, the night softening against our skin, eyes locked. Far off behind Angie, a harvest moon rose in the dark sky.

"Do you hate my hair?" Angie whispered.

"No. It's just..."

"Short?" She smiled.

"Yeah. I don't love you because of your hair, though."

She shifted slightly, turned her shoulder into the holes between rungs.

"Why do you love me?"

I chuckled. "You want me to count the ways?"

She didn't say anything, just watched me.

"I love you, Ange, because...I don't know. Because I always have. Because you make me laugh. A lot. Because..."