Cassie stepped into the large entry gallery and eyed the chandelier with all that crystal. She studied the mahogany staircase with its heavy carving of pineapples, the symbol of fertility. This was not the house she would have chosen for herself. She hesitated for a moment, then climbed the stairs and found her rival's bedroom. Here, she stopped. Like everywhere else in this place, nothing was white, nothing simple. This room was red, red, red, like the library and the dining room. Red satin and velvet and taffeta, different textures. Not bad if you liked Victorian bordello. Cassie moved to the closet where the juice was, but the door was locked. She wanted to see that jewelry. "Charlie," she called out.

"Right behind you," he said.

Didn't take him thirty seconds to get the door open. He was good at B and E; must have gone to break-in school as part of his training. The jewelry box was locked, but he didn't have any trouble with that, either. Inside, nestled among ropes of pearls and gold chains and diamond tennis bracelets were the Cassie credit cards, bundled together with a few new receipts and a rubber band. Bingo. Charlie stepped back and took some photos. Then he pocketed the cards and moved on, taking notes on a PalmPilot.

CHAPTER 46

MONA SAT IN PARKER HIGGINS'S RECEPTION ROOM and waited for twenty of the longest minutes of her whole life. During that time she went to the bathroom twice to check on her makeup. Twice she marched down the hall to see his stupid new secretary, whose name she couldn't remember at the moment.

"He's on the phone, Miss Whitman." The girl did not seem impressed by Mona's outfit, her importance to the firm, or her sweetness. She wasn't helpful at all.

Mona was terribly upset and felt her throat closing up. Parker had never kept her waiting before. Now that Mitch was not behind her with his old-boy friendship and special one-two punch, even the $187,500 certified check for her house (which had cost her only $89,250) in her purse and the new $4,300 Chanel summer suit on her body didn't make her feel as powerful as she really was. The suit was a lovely powder blue-signature Chanel-with a tight skirt that stopped way above her knees, elbow-length sleeves, and a prim white collar and cuffs. She'd bought it in Paris a month ago, and this was her first opportunity to wear it.

Still, Mona knew she didn't look her best. She hadn't slept last night, what with the fireworks going off for the second time that week at all three golf clubs that circled her house; the pressure to pack up the contents of the house for storage in New Jersey in the morning; and her terrifying fears for Mitch under his wife's evil care. She was truly shocked by Parker's lack of sensitivity to Mitch's wishes and his allowing Cassie to take him home. In his fragile condition, Cassie could influence him in a dozen different ways, even make him forget his own name.

Mona was so worried about these dangers that she'd taken extra time to dress carefully for the closing on her house. She had not wanted to go to the closing. If all this hadn't happened, she never would have bothered. She would have signed all the documents in advance and let the money be transferred to her savings account. But with that dickbrain functionary Schwab breathing down her neck, she was afraid to put the money in her own account just in case she really needed it. She'd decided to put it in the account she'd taken out in her mother's name in a bank in New Jersey years ago, near the warehouse where she'd arranged to store her furniture. Mona had opened a number of accounts over the years in her mother's name that her mother didn't know anything about because she was so ridiculously poor at this point, the IRS would never in a million years think of auditing her.

Mona had consulted The Art of War last night and this morning as well, but there was nothing new in it about terrain or anything else that would really help her now that Cassie had discovered her new house and its contents, and the dickbrain was not responding to her personally the way she wanted him to. All she could do was retreat to higher ground and regroup her army. Shit maneuvers. As Mona waited for her audience with the lawyer, her hands were shaking with anger at Cassie and Parker and Schwab, and at poor Mitch, too, for not having taken care of things the way he'd promised.

"Mr. Higgins can see you now." That damn girl finally came to get her. When she turned around to lead the way, Mona noticed that she had a fat ass even though she was still a very young person, and also that she had a run in the right heel of her panty hose.

Mona took her time checking her lipstick in her pocket mirror, then rose gracefully and walked around the building to Parker's corner office, swinging her hips. "Warfare is the way of deception," she counseled herself.

She was going to feel good and be sweet no matter what. She was going to offer Parker continued Sales business and secrecy about his private disgusting predilections. If he showed any signs of affection for her, any innuendo of desire at all, she would do her usual thing. Lead him on today. Feign shock at his moves on her tomorrow. The day after that she'd send him gifts and tell him to give her time to think about their relationship. In four days time she'd tell him he had always been her true ideal, her one and only love. And it would be true. He was a wealthy lawyer. He was not bad looking, liked having a good time. Unlike Mitch, he was a careful man with a great deal of real estate. Although he wasn't as classy as Mitch, forming an alliance with him wouldn't be moving down the social ladder in any way. Mona always did the unexpected thing.

The Art of War. She was always nice when about to advance herself in a way that hurt someone else. She didn't think of hurting as hurting, only as survival. Her plan was to strike a deal, then give Parker the blow job of his life (a few weeks from now, because right at the moment she'd rather die than have him think she was that kind of girl). She might promise to let him have anal intercourse with her, but she would not do it. She might do it to him if she absolutely had to. She'd read about such things in lesbo porn and had it all worked out how she'd play it.

If he showed no sign of affection or loyalty to her, she would call his wife and tell her he fucked hookers in the ass every Thursday at six-fifteen. And Sundays when he played poker with the guys he always got a massage and blow job afterward to cheer himself up for his losses. She would sue him for malpractice and a whole bunch of other things.

"Oh, Mona, have a seat," Parker said as soon as she stepped through the door onto his thick beige carpet. He said it without seeing her. He had swung his chair around to look at the view of Old Country Road, which hadn't been country in either of their lifetimes. The windows of his building were mirrored so that no one could see in; but from the inside looking out, there was no doubt it was another perfect summer day in the Garden City business district.

He hadn't risen and crossed the carpet as he usually did. Or given her the admiring looks and the hug she needed more than food. Mona was taken aback by his slight.

"Parker!" She stood waiting for him to acknowledge her properly before she sat down. She enjoyed being looked at. She dressed to be looked at. She was not prepared to have that looking stop.

"Mona, sit down."

"This is so hard for me, Parker. Aren't you going to give me a hug?" Mona said in her lost-little-girl voice. "You're the only one who can help me, the only one I ever cared about."

Parker did not swing his chair around, but she heard his sigh. "Oh, come now, Mona. Remember who you're talking to."

Her lips tightened. She and Parker had been friends for a long time, but she would bring him down in a second if she had to. Her breath came hard with her intense feelings of loss as she flashed to the men in her life who'd fallen for her instantly. Like her gymnastics coach when she was nine. She'd worked hard to be the very best gymnast and her coach had loved her so much, too. Their affair began when she was twelve, while she was still living with her grandmother. Davey used to pick her up at school, and then he'd do her in the backseat of his station wagon. Those had been wonderful days. As an adorable little girl whose mommy was a hippie traveling far away in cloud-cuckoo-land and whose grandmother was busy playing bridge, Mona had been able to win anybody, get anything she wanted. Coach Davey had taught her so many things she'd never even imagined. He had taken pictures of her in the summer running in a field, trailing a long scarf behind her like a kite. Her grandmother had loved her so much that her aunts had been jealous of her.