It was a Harley-Davidson FXDL Dyna Low Rider. It was black with custom green flames and custom pipes. Lula was right. It wasn't just a dumb-a.s.s bike. It was a wet dream.

"You know how to drive one of these?" Lula asked.

I smiled at her. "Oh yeah," I said. "Oh yeah."

Lula and I strapped on the helmets and straddled the bike. I put the key in the ignition, kicked it over, and the Harley rumbled under me. "Houston, we have liftoff," I said. And then I had a small o.r.g.a.s.m.

I rode up and down the alley behind Vinnie's office a couple times, getting the feel of the bike, and then I headed for Mary Maggie's condo building. I wanted to take another crack at talking to Mary Maggie.

"Don't look like she's here," Lula said, after the first turn around the parking garage. "I don't see her Porsche."

I wasn't surprised. She was probably off somewhere inspecting the damage on the Cadillac.

"She's wrestling tonight," I said to Lula. "We can talk to her then."

I CHECKED OUT the cars in the lot to my apartment building when I pulled in. No white Cadillac, no black limo, no Ziggy and Benny car, no MMM-YUM Porsche, no megabucks-and-probably-stolen Ranger car. Only Joe's truck.

Joe was slouched in front of the television with a beer in his hand when I walked in.

"I heard you smashed up your car," he said.

"Yeah, but I'm okay."

"I heard that, too."

"DeChooch is whacko. He shoots at people. He deliberately runs people down. What's the deal with him? That's not normal behavior . . . even for an old mob guy. I mean, I know he's depressed, but yeesh yeesh." I went into the kitchen and gave Rex a piece of biscuit I'd saved from lunch.

Morelli followed me into the kitchen. "How'd you get home?"

"Vinnie loaned me a bike."

"A bike? What kind of bike?"

"A Harley. A Dyna Low Rider."

His eyes and his mouth creased in a smile. "You're riding around on a hog?"

"Yes. And I had a s.e.xual experience on it already."

"All by yourself?"

"Yes."

Morelli gave a bark of laughter and moved toward me, pressing me against the counter, his hands circling my rib cage, his mouth brushing my ear, my neck. "Bet I can improve on it."

THE SUN HAD gone down and it was dark in my bedroom. Morelli was asleep beside me. Even in sleep Morelli radiated contained energy. His body was lean and hard. His mouth was soft and sensual. The planes of his face had become more angular with age. His eyes more wary. He'd seen a lot as a cop. Too much, maybe.

I glanced over at the clock. Eight. Eight Eight! Yikes. I must have been asleep, too. One minute we were making love and the next thing it was eight o'clock!

I shook Morelli awake.

"It's eight o'clock!" I said.

"Uh-huh."

"Bob! Where's Bob?"

Morelli bolted out of bed. "s.h.i.t! I came here right from work. Bob hasn't had supper!"

The unspoken thought was that Bob would have eaten everything by now . . . the couch, the television, the baseboards.

"Get your clothes on," Morelli said. "We'll feed Bob and go out for pizza. And then you can spend the night."

"I can't. I have to work tonight. Lula and I didn't get to talk to Mary Maggie today, so I'm going to The Snake Pit. She's wrestling at ten."

"I don't have time to argue," Morelli said. "Bob's probably eaten through a wall by now. Come over when you're done at the Pit." He grabbed me and kissed me and ran down the hall.

"Okay," I said, but Morelli was already gone.

I wasn't sure what one wore to the Pit, but s.l.u.t hair seemed like a good idea, so I did the hot roller and teasing thing. This increased my height from five foot seven inches to five foot ten. I tarted myself up with a lot of makeup, added a short black spandex skirt and four-inch heels, and I felt very kick-a.s.s. I grabbed my leather jacket and took the car keys from the kitchen counter. Hold on. These weren't car keys. These were motorcycle keys. s.h.i.t! I'd never get my hair in the helmet.

Don't panic, I told myself. Just think about this a minute. Where can you get a car? Valerie. Valerie has the Buick. I'll call her up and tell her I'm going out to a place where there are half-naked women. I mean, that's what lesbians want to see, right?

Ten minutes later, Valerie picked me up in the lot. She still had her hair slicked back behind her ears and was devoid of makeup with the exception of blood-red lipstick. She was wearing men's black wing tips, a charcoal pinstripe suit with slacks, and a white shirt that was open at the neck. I resisted the urge to check to see if there was chest hair sprouting from the open neck.

"How'd it go today?" I asked her.

"I got new shoes! Look at them. Aren't they excellent? I think they're perfect lesbian shoes."

You have to give Valerie credit. She never did anything halfway. "I mean about the job."

"The job didn't work out. I guess that's to be expected. If at first you don't succeed . . ." She put her weight behind the wheel and managed to get the Buick to take a corner. "I got the girls enrolled in school, though. I guess that's something positive."

Lula was waiting on the curb when we got to her house.

"This is my sister, Valerie," I told Lula. "She's coming along because she has the car."

"Looks like she shops in the men's department."

"She's taking it for a test drive."

"Hey, whatever," Lula said.

The parking lot to The Snake Pit was jammed, so we parked a half mile down on the street. By the time we got to the door my feet were killing me, and I was thinking there were advantages to being a lesbian. Valerie's shoes looked nice and comfy.

We got a table in the back and ordered drinks.

"How are we going to get to talk to Mary Maggie?" Lula wanted to know. "We can't hardly see from here."

"I checked this place out. There are only two doors, so after Mary Maggie does the mud thing we'll each take a door and catch her leaving."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Lula said, belting back her drink and ordering another.

There were a few women with dates, but mostly the room was filled with men, looking serious, hoping a G-string would get ripped off in the mud, which I a.s.sume is the equivalent to sacking the quarterback.

Valerie's eyes were wide. Hard to tell if they were reflecting excitement or hysteria.

"Are you sure I'll meet lesbians here?" she shouted above the noise.

Lula and I looked around. We didn't see any lesbians. At least not any who looked like Valerie.

"You never know when lesbians are gonna show up," Lula said. "Probably you should have another drink. You look kind of pale."

I sent the note to Mary Maggie on the next drink order. I told her my table and told her I had a message I wanted pa.s.sed on to Eddie DeChooch.

A half hour later I still hadn't heard from Mary Maggie. Lula had put away four Cosmopolitans and was looking stone-cold sober, and Valerie had chugged two gla.s.ses of Chablis and was looking very very happy. happy.

Women were whaling away at each other in the pit. Once in a while a hapless drunken male would get pulled into the ooze and flail around until he swallowed a gallon of muck and was expelled by the bouncer. There was a lot of hair pulling and b.i.t.c.h slapping and sliding around. I guess mud is slippery. So far no one got their G-string removed, but there was a bunch of mud-slicked bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s that were bloated to the bursting point with implants. All in all, the whole thing didn't look too appealing, and I was happy I had a job where people shot at me. Better than wallowing in the mud half naked.

Mary Maggie's match was announced, and Mary Maggie came out dressed in a silver bikini. I was beginning to see a theme here. Silver Porsche, silver bikini. There was a lot of cheering. Mary Maggie is famous. Then the other woman came out. Her name was Animal, and just between you and me I didn't think it looked good for Mary Maggie. Animal's eyes were glowing red and it was hard to tell from the distance, but I'm pretty sure she had snakes in her hair.

The announcer rang the bell and the two women circled and then lunged. They did this with little success for a while and then Mary Maggie slipped and Animal pounced on her.

This brought the entire room to standing, including Lula and Valerie and me. We were all yelling, wanting Mary Maggie to disembowel Animal. Of course Mary Maggie had too much cla.s.s to disembowel Animal, so they thrashed in the mud for a few minutes and then started taunting the audience, wanting their own unfortunate drunken male.

"You," Mary Maggie said, pointing in my direction.

I looked around, hoping to find a s.e.x-crazed guy waving a twenty standing just behind me.

Mary Maggie took the microphone. "We have a special guest here tonight. We have The Bounty Hunter. Also known as The Cadillac Wrecker. Also known as The Hara.s.ser."

Oh boy.

"You want to talk to me, Bounty Hunter?" Mary Maggie asked. "Step right up."

"Maybe later," I said, thinking Mary Maggie's stage personality wasn't at all like the bookworm I'd met earlier. "We'll talk after the show," I told her. "Don't want to take up your valuable time while you're onstage."

And then suddenly I was being lifted into the air by two very large men. I was being carried, still seated in my chair, six feet off the floor, to the ring.

"Help!" I yelped. "Help!"

I was held high above the ring. Mary Maggie smiled. And Animal growled and rotated her head. And then the chair tipped and I did a free fall into the mud.

Animal pulled me to my feet by my hair. "Relax," she said. "This will be painless."

Then she tore my shirt off. Good thing I was wearing my good lace bra from Victoria's Secret.

In the next instant, we all went down in a screaming pack. Mary Maggie Mason, Animal, and me. And then Lula waded in.

"Hey," Lula said. "We just come here to talk and you're ruining my friend's skirt. We're gonna give you a drycleaning bill."

"Oh yeah? Well, bill this," Animal said and she yanked Lula's foot out from under her, sending Lula to her a.s.s in the mud.

"Now you made me mad," Lula said. "I was trying to explain things to you, but now you made me mad."

I'd managed to pull myself to my feet while Lula was sparring with Animal. I was wiping the mud from my eves when Mary Maggie Mason took a flying leap at me and pinned me facedown in the mud again. "Help," I yelled. "Help!"

"Stop picking on my friend," Lula said. And she grabbed Mary Maggie by the hair and flung her out of the ring like a rag doll. Crash Crash! Direct hit on a table at ringside.

Two moro women wrestlers ran out from the wings and jumped in the ring. Lula tossed one out and sat on the other. Animal jumped off the ropes at Lula, Lula let out a bloodcurdling shriek and went down in the mud with Animal.

Mary Maggie was back in the ring. The other wrestler was back in the ring. And some drunken guy climbed in. Now there were seven of us in the ring, rolling around, locked together. I was grabbing for anything I could find, trying to keep from smothering in the mud, and somehow I got a grip on Animal's G-string. And then everyone was hooting and cheering and the bouncers jumped into the ring and separated us.

"Hey," Lula said, still swinging, "I lost my shoe. Somebody better find my shoe or I'm never coming here again."

The stage manager had Lula by the arm. "Don't worry. We'll take care of it. Step this way. Right through the door."

And before we realized what was happening, we were out on the street. Lula with only one shoe and me with no shirt. The door opened again, and Valerie got tossed out along with our coats and purses.

"There was something wrong with that Animal person," Valerie said. "When you ripped her pants off she was bald bald down there!" down there!"

VALERIE DROPPED ME off at Morelli's house and waved goodbye.

Morelli opened the door and said the obvious. "You're covered with mud."

"It didn't work out exactly as planned."

"I like the no-shirt look. I could get used to it."

I stripped in the hall and Morelli took my clothes directly to the washer. I was still standing there when he returned. I was wearing the four-inch heels and mud and nothing more.