A Body to die for

the highway and was immediately crushed like a roadkill.
    I never liked it anyway. My fluffy red curls spilled onto my shoulders. There goes my cover, I thought. I dared to look. But Max and his ex-slut hadn’t noticed a thing.
    If they kissed, I had to know. I wasn’t satisfied with hand holding. That didn’t constitute infidelity. I felt in my pocket for my spare beret. I took it out and fumbled with it in the rush to get it on right. In a sudden moment of self-consciousness, I asked myself, what’s your fucking problem? I knew the answer already, so I counted to ten—they were about fifty feet away—and set off to follow. I hoped she didn’t have a car.
    “Hey, aren’t you Wanda Mallory?” The voice came from behind me. I turned to look, annoyed. I didn’t recognize him. He wore a sweaty pink T-shirt and blue running shorts that gave him a banana wedgie. I ignored him and kept walking.
    He jogged after me, this time shouting my name. “Wait. You’re Wanda Mallory, I saw your picture in the newspapers. Wait. I just want to talk to you for a minute.”
    “Shut up, you idiot,” I hissed, jamming the beret on my head.
    Too late. Max heard and stopped in his tracks. He turned around and saw me. His face flushed red with anger—matching his auburn locks quite beautifully. He grabbed the aerobics chick by the arm (above the elbow) and tugged her down the Promenade, out of sight.
    I turned toward the jogger and said, “Thanks a lot. You probably just cost me the love of my life.”
    “Jeez, I’m sorry,” he said.
    “Get lost.” Another bungle in the asphalt jungle. Max and I had just moved in together two days ago. We were going to see how things went, and decide if we should get engaged. But that was probably off now, considering that he’d never speak to me again. Leeza, his ex-girlfriend, was in town for some fitness convention at the Jacob Javits Center. She was his date for the night. When she called to say she’d be in town, he asked me if I’d have a problem with them going to dinner. I said no. And I was fine about it, until she showed up at the apartment looking just like the type who’d go to a fitness convention. I knew Max had once asked her to marry him. This was years ago. Four of them. She said no. They broke up. He got over it (or so he says). I didn’t believe him, partially out of paranoia, partially because he hummed in the shower. We already had plans to do some serious work around the house between shots of tequila and taking turns jerking each other off.
    So I decided to follow them. Quite naturally and smartly, I applied the skills of my trade (detecting, that is), to my personal predicament. If Max had a problem with that, he can jerk himself off from now on.
    The jogger tapped me on the shoulder. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You look kind of sick.” I sneered at him. I needed a plan. Okay, I’d throw some stuff into my purse and go to Santina’s for the night. Santina Epstein was a half-Jewish, half-Italian beautician who was my former landlord and permanent surrogate mother. It’d be swell. She’d cook me pasta, chide me about my weight, tell me to beg for Max’s forgiveness. On second thought, fuck Santina. I’ll ride the subways all night, risking life and limb. Later I’d tell Max he drove me to it. That’d show him. I started marching in the direction of the Borough Hall subway entrance. It’s times like these that I wish I hadn’t quit smoking.
    I was stopped in my tracks when the jogger grabbed my wrist. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you in some way,” he said.
    I wretched my arm back. The guy smelled like he’d just run back from California. Not that I mind manly male pungents. In fact, during and after sex, I like it fine when Max works up a healthy glisten. But this guy wasn’t glistening. He was flooding. I took a step back and said, “I make a rule of not talking to strangers who have visible body odor.”
    “Male sweat is full of pheromones,” he said and smiled like a goon. “Pheromones are supposed to attract women.”
    “I’m not a woman,” I said. He looked confused.
    “I know you’re a woman,” he said knowingly. “I read all about you on Page Six.” This couldn’t help but raise a smile. Finally, after years of hoping and praying, I earned a mention on Page Six, the Daily Mirror's gossip sheet. It happened when I solved a big murder case on the set of a TV game show. (Long story—246 pages, in fact.) The Page Six