The mass of women now got between the two fighters, and Berni was yelling, "Let me up, you motherfucker," and Virgil could hear Wendy screaming. A bunch of women were looking at Virgil and he said, "Could you help? Please? Hold on to her. Don't hurt her, just tangle her up."

So they piled on, and the women closer to Wendy saw what they were doing, and they piled onto Wendy, which freed up Chuck, who staggered to the bar and pressed a wet towel to his bloody forehead.

Zoe shouted over the crowd, "Good going."

Virgil wasn't sure how to take that, and shrugged.

"We leaving?" she asked.

"She never answered the question," Virgil shouted back.

Zoe elbowed her way to his side. "Now might not be the best time," she said.

"Fuck her," Virgil said.

Both the fighters were on their feet again, but pressed away from each other by the crowd of women, and, as in other bar fights that Virgil had witnessed, everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves, other than the two or three horrified liberals.

Virgil pushed his way through to Wendy and said, "Back of the bar. Back of the bar." He gave her a shove, and when a drunk woman brayed, "Who the hell do you think you are?" he snarled, "I'm a cop. If you don't want to get handcuffed to the bumper of my car, you best get the fuck out of my way."

She stepped back; she wasn't that drunk.

CHUCK PUT THEM in the storeroom, which was full of beer cases and a few kegs. Virgil stacked three sets of two cases. Wendy had a bruise under her eye and was dabbing blood from one corner of her mouth; her lower lip was protruding a bit, from a tooth cut. Virgil said to Wendy and Zoe, "Sit," and they sat on the beer cases, and he went back into the bar and got a couple of clean towels, wrapped fist-sized lumps of ice in them. Berni was still in a swirl of women, who were looking at a fingernail gash on her forehead. She'd started to cry, and was telling her tale of infidelity.

In the back room again, Virgil gave the ice packs to Wendy and said, "On your lip and on your eye, for half an hour. Won't be too bad in the morning."

"Not the first black eye I've had, probably won't be the last," Wendy said.

"So. You spent some time at Erica McDill's cabin the night before last. Were you sexually involved?"

She grinned at him, and he realized that she really wasn't much shaken by the fight. "Sure. What'd you think we were doing, playing Pinocchio?"

Zoe said, "That'd be pinochle."

Wendy shrugged. "Whatever."

"Where were you yesterday afternoon, between six and eight?"

"At the Schoolhouse, working up a song," Wendy said. "For most of it, anyway. There was some coming and going. Out to get a sandwich, and stuff."

Zoe: "The Schoolhouse is a recording studio."

Virgil nodded. "How many of you?"

"Me, the keyboards, a guy from the college who's an arranger, an engineer, our manager, uh, a pizza guy came and chatted for a while… might have been one or two more."

"So, quite a few, and I could check your story," Virgil said.

"Sure. Listen, I didn't hurt Erica. I mean, she was gonna set my career on fire," Wendy said. "She knew everything about advertising and promotion. She was going to take me to Nashville, or Austin, or someplace. She knew people."

"You were sleeping with her because she knew people?" Zoe asked.

"Well, yeah," Wendy said. "Duh."

Virgil said, "That's nothing personal against you, Zoe."

Zoe said, "No, no, that makes perfect sense to me."

"Someplace along the line, you gave her a souvenir of the night, right?" Virgil asked.

Wendy went blank. "What souvenir?"

"A little kiss mark?"

"You mean, a hickey?"

Virgil said, "A lipstick kiss on a card?"

She shook her head. "No. Nothing like that." She pulled the ice pack away from her face and looked at it; there was a little blood-stain where it had been pressing against her mouth, but not much. Her face was red from the cold.

"You didn't make a lipstick impression on a card?" Virgil asked.

"No… you found one?"

"In her purse. I assumed it was you," Virgil said. "I mean, if it was you, there's no reason to deny it-nothing wrong with it," Virgil said.

"Yeah, but… I didn't do it," Wendy said.

"Huh." Virgil thought she was lying-there was a feral quickness about her eyes-but didn't know why she would. Maybe because she could? They all thought about it a minute, and then Virgil asked, "She didn't mention any other relationships?"

"She said she had a woman in the Cities, but that relationship was all but over," Wendy said. "She said she'd already decided to get out, but she wanted to let the other person down easy. She was going to give her some money. I mean, Erica had a lot of money. She was talking about putting together a syndicate to sponsor me. She said that in three years, I could be making a million bucks a month."

"Ah, girl," Zoe said.

"You've got no idea of what might've happened to her?" Virgil asked.

"I really don't. It freaked me out," Wendy said. "I was kind of hoping that nobody knew about us, that she hadn't mentioned it to anybody. I mean, you know, me going with her had nothing to do with her getting killed, but it looks bad."

THE DOOR CREAKED OPEN, and Berni peeked in. She squeaked, "Wendy?"

Wendy stared at her for a minute, then grinned and said, "How're you doing?" and she strode over and they wrapped each other up, and they both started crying, and Wendy was stroking Berni's hair, saying, "It's all right, it's all right…"

OUTSIDE, Virgil looked up at the stars; bright and cool, full night now.

Zoe said, "Well, that worked out really well. I thought they were gonna go for it, right there on the floor."

"Got me a little hot when they started kissing each other," Virgil said. Zoe put her fists on her hips and he held up his hands and said, "Joke, joke. Jesus."

"I'm gonna go home and cry," Zoe said.

"I'm heading south," Virgil said.

"Good night for driving."

Virgil put his arm across her shoulders. "Get a few beers or a little weed, listen to some LeAnn Rimes. You'll be okay."

"That a promise?"

"Well…" He thought about his three ex-wives. "No. But LeAnn's always good."

6

ZOE PUTTERED around the house, waiting-did the few dishes that she'd left in the sink that morning, vacuumed in the living room, cleaned up the guest bathroom, put out a hand towel. She was neat, tidy-an accountant even in her household chores. The only place she wasn't an accountant, she thought ruefully, was in her sex life. If she could write off Wendy, life would be easier. Take her as a loss, depreciate her, call her a toxic asset, and unload her at twenty cents on the dollar…

And she thought about Virgil. Virgil was good-looking, in the way she liked men to be-shoulders and arms, big hands, small butt, long hair, cheerful. But that, she thought, was misleading. His attitude and appearance were natural enough. It's what you got with a good-looking small-town jock who'd grown up with an intact family and enough, but not too much, money. There was nothing faked about his attitude-but beneath the attitude, she thought, there was something cool, watchful, calculating. Hard, maybe.

An emotional accountant, with brass knuckles.

She smiled at the thought; and the doorbell rang. She glanced at the mantel clock: eleven o'clock, right on the dot. She popped the door and said, "Hi. Come on in."

Margery Stanhope stepped in, let her shoulders slump, and said, "This day…"

"Something, huh? You want a margarita?"

"Yes, I do. Make it a large one," Stanhope said.

"Did you hear about the fight?" Zoe asked, as she led the way to the kitchen.

"The fight?" Stanhope tossed her purse on the kitchen table.