A Body to die for

good shape. He poked me again in the ribs when he said that.”
    “This Eric Van Owen is basically saying that he regularly hits on the club’s aerobics instructors to some success,” I said. “That’s what Janey said he’d try to do to Leeza. So what’s the big shock here?”
    Leeza jumped in. “I kept telling Alex I didn’t think there was much to it. But if anything bothered me, it was the way he assumed I’d show up in this laundry room.”
    “Where Van Owen waited for an hour before he left, grumbling.” That was Alex. “At first, I thought that he was just a little off his rocker to assume Leeza would actually show. I found it even more curious that this sixteen-year-old towel boy was also staking out the laundry room—I saw him hiding in the linen closet.”
    “Did he have an acne problem?” I asked, assuming that the kid who peeped on me was also peeping on Van Owen, or the promise of an impending date with an aerobics instructor.
    “Not sure. I couldn’t see him that well. The whole thing was like waiting for a shoe to drop. And then it occurred to me: Maybe Van Owen thought it was part of Leeza’s job to meet him in the laundry room. He acted like he had it coming to him, for more reasons than his dashing good looks and sparkling personality.”
    “Like what?” asked Max. “He got no encouragement from Leeza. I’ve never seen anything suspicious in the laundry room.”
    “You hang out there, too?” I asked him. “This laundry room gets a lot of traffic.” I turned to Alex. “What next? The line formed at the water fountain, waiting for a bevy of sweaty aerobics instructors to come along and offer blow-jobs as part of the cross-training circuit?”
    “Is that so impossible to believe?” asked Alex. “Completely,” Max protested.
    I considered this. Janey Johnson seemed like a crafty wench. “I’ll ask Ameleth Bergen about it tomorrow.”
    I didn’t want to fill Alex in on all my activities— partially because other people were around (namely, Leeza) and partially because I was pissed off he was being such an ass. I thought about Jack. He was probably bouncing off the Detention Center walls by now. And Ameleth—hardly the grieving wife—had a ruthlessness about her. I liked that in a woman, too. “Yes, Ameleth and I are as tight as I am.” Which is to say, pretty tight.
    “Good,” said Alex. “Here’s the plan. I want you to get access, through Ameleth, of the membership billing computer files. I’ll go through them and see what I can see.” Alex was something of a computer geek. He wished he was more of one. The city was loaded (no pun intended) with wannabe geeks. I feared for the future of dating.
    “And what might a computer break-in turn up?” I asked.
    “I really don’t know,” Alex said snippily. “But perhaps we’ll find out that Eric Van Owen is paying more dues than he should be, for services that aren’t included on the brochure.”
    Max said, “Sex with aerobics instructors is in the brochure.” He smiled.
    I laughed—he was so cute when he was trying to be funny. To Alex, I said, “Better yet, why don’t we ask Leeza here to keep a date with Van Owen in the laundry room and find out what will happen? He’s an old geezer for Christ’s sake. Surely,” I turned to Leeza, “you could handle him.”
    “I think that’s a dangerous position to put Leeza in,” countered Alex.
    “Then why don’t you dress up in Lycra, and go meet Van Owen in the laundry room,” I suggested. “He already knows me,” countered Alex.
    “You’re a slut,” I said.
    “And you—a whore,” he said. We laughed. Max and Leeza looked at each other in bewilderment. I stopped laughing.
    “I’ll get you inside Ameleth’s office,” I said. “She’s got a computer on her desk. A PowerBook. I’ll keep her away and you can hack until your fingers fall off.” Jack still had his key to the suite. I’d have to get it from Falcone. That should be a challenge.
    “I want to rendezvous with Van Owen,” whined Leeza. “I want to help.” Her eyebrows tilted upward. It was obvious Leeza needed something to do. She wanted to make some kind of connection, to feel like a part of a team. The Western Athletic Club softball game must have filled up already. Her loneliness made me feel sorry for her.
    But not that sorry. I said, “Forget it. You’re like a tall glass of milk, Leeza. We need a shot of tequila.”
    “I’m begging, Wanda.” Her blue eyes were really