A Body to die for

card, don’t you?” Why not, I figured. My other options were going home to an irate boyfriend and two cats who hated each other (the meeting of my black she-cat, Otis, and Max’s fat tabby, Syd, did not go well), a night riding the subway, or listening to a bouffanted beautician scold me for taking a second helping of garlic bread. “My fee is fifteen hundred a day,” I started. “But I like you, kid. I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’ll offer you my services for one thousand dollars a day. Bargain basement. Take it or I leave.” A highball. I’d settle on three hundred.
    “That’s an awful lot of money,” he complained.
    “It sure is.” He frowned. I guess tennis pros don’t make so much these days. I shrugged and walked away.
    I had to go about ten paces—I almost buckled after five—when he finally said, “No, wait.” I smiled deep inside. I turned around. “My wife keeps some money in the safe at the club,” he said. “It’s just around the corner.” Hook, line, he was sunk. One day’s work would cover my rent for two months. All from having my picture in the paper. I couldn’t wait to tell Max. I felt a pang. I should have trusted him. Maybe I would have, if Leeza wasn’t so—what’s the word— toned? I hated her tone. For all I knew, her perky, firm body was astride Max at that very second. And he was making those tiny, birdlike noises he does with me when he gets really hot. A flash of green exploded behind my eyes.
    “Are you okay?” Jack asked. “You look kind of sick again.”
    “Shut up.” I took a breath. Do the Zen thing, I prodded myself. Visualize that day in the future when Leeza will lose her girlish figure. Just like I had. Okay, I’ll be brutally honest. I never had a girlish figure. I’ve been womanly since the sixth grade. I wondered if agonizing about Leeza would burn off a few pounds.
    Only one thing could cut through my jealousy: money. “Let’s go,” I said to Jack and we split like Russian gymnasts for the Western Athletic Club.

    I didn’t mind the walk through the North Heights. Brooklyn, that is. The old limestone and brick brown-stones had iron-work patterns on heavy wooden doors. Inside arched windows, I could just make out some fancy wall and ceiling molding. Chandeliers. I’d bet on maple inlay floors. And hanging from the windows and sitting on the stone stoops, were the most ambitious flower boxes I’d ever seen. Begonias, impatiens, those orange ones that look like fireworks and the white ones that look like mushroom clouds. I wondered if I’d have to learn the horticultural lingo to make friends in my new neighborhood. Like I needed friends. I had loads of friends. Three of them. We passed an old-fashioned gas lamp on the corner of Pierrepont and Henry Streets. Jack said, “I hope Ameleth didn’t go to the club tonight. I’m supposed to be doing fieldwork, so she won’t be expecting me.”
    “Maybe we’ll catch her in the act, in which case, my hourly rate will go into effect.”
    “We won’t catch her tonight,” he said, fairly certain. “The man she’s doing it with is away for the day.”
    “You know the guy?” I asked. We were approaching the blue awning above the entrance to the club.
    “I suspect. That’s why I need you.” We stepped toward the building’s blue welcome mat. The insignia with the letters WAC hung on the door. Just looking at it, I felt fitter.
    “Who is he?” I asked.
    “I’ll tell you inside,” he said and shooshed me.
    The club was built into the hollowed shells of two brownstones. Ameleth had, apparently, gutted the prewar buildings to construct the ultimate exercise and fitness space with state-of-the-art Soloflexes, Genuflexes and Nexusplexes. She’d gotten Stair-Masters, LifeCycles and ButtMashers. Pool, tennis courts and a spa. After Max toured the place, he raved for so long I had to seduce him to get him to shut up. The feel was very eighties, though construction was completed just last year.
    In Max’s opinion, the club was the greatest thing since spliced atoms. Ameleth had left the original brownstone facades. Still, the club was pretty conspicuous on that quiet block. No other building had a white-gloved, blue-capped steroid monster in blue bike shorts and a muscle T stand in front to open the door for you. I smiled and mentally measured his thighs (forty-five inches, which I found freakish), as the doorman admitted us to the club.
    Once inside, I was bombarded with