Mean Woman Blues

The message was a prearranged signal, in code in case her phone was tapped. It was only to be used in cases of direst emergency.
    * * *
    Rosemarie was trying to keep it together, just keep her heart inside her chest. She’d spent a lot of time thinking about what to do if this moment came, and she was somewhat prepared: She had a gun. She made her voice casual. “Mr. Right. As I live and breathe.”
    “Rosemarie, you’re a sight for sore eyes.” She was wearing a pair of flowered capris and a white sleeveless sweater-thing. She was his age, but in her own opinion, she could be thirty years younger.
    “How’s your wife?” she said.
    “Guess that means you’re not in the mood for a little slap-and-tickle.”
    She put her finger to her lips, walked outside and closed the door, took his arm, and began to circle the garden.
    “Hubby’s home, I guess? Or hubby-facsimile.”
    “Earl, Earl, how the hell am I going to explain you?”
    “You had the phones swept lately?”
    “Once a week, just like we agreed. Yesterday was the day. On the lam, are you?” She smiled when she said it, letting her surgically enhanced eyes crinkle prettily. The whole thing was to appear cool as a creek bed, as if the entire Dallas police department could descend on her and she’d ask them in for tea.
    “Afraid so, old girl.” The “old girl” thing was something he’d learned from his English voice coach. “Possible situation unfolding.”
    “Oh?”
    “Feds at the office. I went out the back door.”
    “Damn! I was so hoping that rotten cable station was finally going to turn a profit.” She sighed. “I guess all good things must come to an end. I’ve got to hand it to you, baby-cakes.
Mr. Right
was a great idea, and you were the perfect Mr. Right.”
    “Rosemarie, if you don’t mind, we’re a little exposed out here.”
    Good. He’d blinked first.
    “I’m just waiting for the maid to go home. Sistine takes a few minutes to pack up. How do you like that name? Sistine. Too much, isn’t it?”
    “Quit trying to distract me, and let’s think.”
    The front door thwacked shut. “Ah. She’s left. But Todd’s in there watching TV in his den and getting stoned. With any luck he won’t even come out, but if he does…”
    “Ah, yes. The boy toy. Well if he does, I’m the best friend of your late husband. Bit of bad luck— unfortunate investment, wife bankrupting me, little wager that went awry.”
    She burst out laughing, ignoring his obvious urgency to get in the house. “Why, Eliza Dolittle, you
are
a quick study.” When her eyes uncrinkled, she made them hard as marbles. “Is that your little way of asking me for money?”
    “Rosemarie, for Christ’s sake, I have plenty of money. Can we go inside, please?”
    She shrugged. “Come in.” But she spoke coldly, stripping all the amusement, all the welcoming banter from her manner.
    He stepped into her restaurant-sized kitchen, and she saw him taking in its polished wood floors and gleaming granite counters, its little lights under the cabinets, its lavish bowl of fruit. Earl said, “In case Todd comes out, let me shave first. My head, I mean. He figures out who I am— I mean, even the Mr. Right part— we’re both going down.”
    She sat down on a barstool. “Have it your way, darling. Use the downstairs guest room.”
    “Well? Aren’t you going to show me?” She’d forgotten he didn’t know where it was.
    “I suppose.” She got up languidly, as if her fate wasn’t inextricably tied to his, and walked him leisurely through the house. She’d taken care to make it look like the manor to which she certainly hadn’t been born. Instead of being lavish, her house was comfortable. It had hardwood floors and good, well-kept furniture with plenty of personal touches, like a piano covered with photographs, and there were books (though she never read) and flowers.
    She led Earl into a room with a four-poster bed covered with a red toile print. The wallpaper matched the bed cover. Light streamed in the windows; French doors opened to the backyard they’d just strolled. The pool was steps away. A very soothing room.
    “Nice,” he said.
    “Last I heard,” Rosemarie remarked, “you were doing pretty well yourself.” She rummaged in the bathroom and handed him an electric razor. “Go to it, kid.”
    She thought she was finally freaking him. He was starting to sweat.
    He made his voice seductive, clearly trying to match her
sangfroid
. “Why don’t