Her share of the book advance was half a million dollars, a cheering sum. Eugenie’s new boyfriend, a stockbroker who’d seen her on Oprah and contacted her Web site, advised her to invest the windfall in a red-hot Texas outfit called Enron, the shares of which he was pleased to acquire for her at a discount fee. Within twenty-four months Eugenie was dead broke, alone again and working the phone bank at Relentless. By that time a barrage of anti-bimbo invectives had caused her to shut down the Web site and adopt the name of Fonda, a demented aunt having declared herself a third cousin to Peter and Jane.

Eugenie was still not entirely sure why she’d seduced Boyd Shreave, a charmless and dyspeptic presence in the adjacent cubicle. Perhaps it was because he had shown so little interest that she felt the tug of a sexual challenge. Or perhaps she’d sensed something in his glazed indifference that hinted at a secret wild side, a raw and reckless private life.

Yet, so far, Boyd Shreave had failed to deliver a single surprise. He was a man without mystery and, except for an odd stippling on his pubic region, also without scars. On the upside, he was decent-looking enough and fairly dependable in the sack. He kept assuring her that he was angling for a divorce, a blatant lie with which Eugenie gamely played along. Boyd’s wife had inherited a small chain of pizza joints, the profits from which provided the Shreaves with a comfortable existence in spite of Boyd’s serial failures as a salesman. It would have been idiotic for him to run out on his wife, much less snuff her in the manner of Van Bonneville, a fact in which Eugenie Fonda took comfort. She had no desire to reprise her role as the paramour of a murderer.

To Eugenie, Boyd Shreave was not a love interest so much as a timely distraction. Their relationship was the natural backwash of being stuck together in the most boring, brain-numbing job on the planet.

On the night Shreave had so loudly berated the customer on the phone, he arrived at Eugenie’s apartment carrying a six-pack of Corona, to which he clung even as he hugged her. “I got canned,” he announced.

“Oh no.” Eugenie, who in her heels stood four inches taller than Boyd, kissed his forehead. “Don’t tell me they were taping you!”

Shreave nodded bitterly. “Miguel and Shantilla called me in and played back the whole goddamn call. Then they sent some Mexican ape from Security to clean out my desk and hustle me out of the building.”

“What happened to probation?” Eugenie asked. “I thought they aren’t supposed to fire you the first time you lose it.”

“They will if they catch you tellin’ somebody to go screw themselves.”

“Jesus, Boyd, screw isn’t so bad. You hear it on TV all the time. If it was fuck, I could understand you gettin’ axed, but not screw.”

Shreave uncapped a beer and settled in on the couch. “Apparently skank is a no-no, too.”

Eugenie seated herself beside him. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

“Oh well. It sure felt good to say it at the time.”

“Have you told Lily?”

“Not yet,” Shreave muttered. Lily was his wife. “She’ll be pissed, but what else is new. It was a shit job, anyway,” he said. “No offense.”

Eugenie was wondering how best to inform Boyd that she wasn’t devoted to the idea of continuing their affair now that he was no longer employed at Relentless and they couldn’t pass horny notes to each other. It exhausted her to think about carrying on with him by telephone.

“The only good thing about that goddamn place,” he was saying, “was meeting you.”

Swell, thought Eugenie. “Boyd, that’s so sweet.”

Shreave began unbuttoning her blouse. “You wanna take a shower?” he asked. “I’ll be the Handsome Drifter and you can be the Hula-Hula Queen.”

“Sure, baby.” She didn’t have the heart to give him the bad news. Maybe tomorrow, she thought.

Honey Santana’s brother was busy on a story, but he promised to try to help. While waiting, Honey robotically kept dialing the 800 number. She was well aware that telemarketing companies deliberately rigged their outgoing phone banks to thwart incoming calls, yet she continued to punch the buttons. She felt more powerless than usual against this latest compulsion.

“It’s driving me up the wall, this guy was so awful,” she said to her brother when he finally got through. “And, the thing is, he had such a nice voice.”

“Yeah, so did Ted Bundy,” said Richard Santana. “Sis, what are you going to do with the name if I give it to you? Be honest.”

Richard Santana was a reporter in upstate New York. Among the many Internet databases available to his newspaper was a nifty reverse telephone directory. It had taken about six seconds to trace the 800 line for his sister.

“All I want to do is file a complaint,” she lied.

“With whom? The FTC?”

“Right, the FTC. So, you got the name?”

Richard Santana was aware that Honey sometimes reacted to ordinary situations in extreme ways. Having been burned before, he was now wary of all her inquiries. This time, however, he felt confident that the information he was providing could result in nothing worse than an angry letter, since the offending company was in Texas and his sister was far away in Florida.

“I’ll E-mail you what I’ve got,” he told her.

“You’re a champ, Richard.”

Honey Santana didn’t inform her brother that she could no longer retrieve her E-mails without her son’s permission. Fry had locked her off the computer the day after she’d fired off ninety-seven messages to the White House complaining about the president’s support for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The E-mails had been sent within a four-hour span, and their increasingly hostile tone had attracted the notice of the U.S. Secret Service. Two young agents had driven over from Miami to interview Honey at the trailer park, and they’d departed believing, quite mistakenly, that she was too flighty to present a credible threat to anyone.

She hurried into Fry’s bedroom, flipped on the light and began to shake him gently. “You asleep, sweetie?”

“Not anymore.”

“I need to get on the computer. Richard’s E-mailing the goods.”

“Mom, look at the clock.”

“It’s only eleven-fifteen-what’s the matter with you? When I was your age, I used to stay up until midnight writing love letters to Peter Frampton.” Honey felt Fry’s forehead. “Maybe you’re coming down with a bug.”

“Yeah, it’s called the Psycho Mom flu.”

Fry untangled himself from the sheets and stumbled over to his desk. He shielded the computer keyboard from his mother’s view as he tapped in the password. The screen illuminated with a beep, and Honey sat down intently. Fry aimed himself back toward the bed, but she snagged him by one ear and said, “Not so fast, buster.”

“Lemme go, Mom.”

“Just a minute. Lookie here.” Honey tapped the mouse to scroll down her brother’s message. “It’s RTR Limited, Fort Worth. That’s the name of this outfit.”

“So?”

“I need you to Google it for me.”

“Google yourself,” Fry said.

“No, kiddo, you got the touch.” Honey rose and motioned him into the chair. “I’m too wired to type, honest to God.”

Fry sat down and searched for RTR Limited, which came up as Relentless Telemarketing Resources, Relentless Wireless Outreach and Relentless, Inc. He surfed through the entries until he found a self-promotional Web site that listed an office-park address and a direct toll number.

“Bookmark that sucker!” Honey cried triumphantly.

“Okay, but that’s it.” Fry signed off and darkened the screen. “We’re done, Mom.”

“Come out and watch Letterman with me. Please?”

Fry said he was beat, and dived into bed. When Honey sat beside him, he rolled over and faced the wall.

“Talk to me,” she whispered.

“’Bout what?”

“School? Sports? Anything you want.”