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out like the cherry on a cigarette. I grieved briefly for this stranger.
    “He’ll never eat a Dorito again,” I said to myself, “He never ate Doritos anyway,” Jack—who had rudely eavesdropped on my conversation with myself —shared. “Neither do I. They’re pure fat and salt.”
    “But crunchy,” I added. Fat and salt: two of the four basic food groups. The other two being nicotine and NutraSweet. I had a flash craving for french fries with brown gravy on the side, a large Diet Coke and a cigarette after. My mouth watered. I wiped the corners with the beret. I wondered if the Greek diner on the corner would break a hundred-dollar bill. My stomach growled like a rabid dog. I put a mental leash on it.
    Ameleth clung to Barney’s body bag as the paramedics maneuvered the gumey into the elevator. She wanted to stay with him, but the paramedics and Detective Falcone wouldn’t allow it. Ameleth began crying again. She sank into the fluffy white carpet and sobbed quietly. Her face buried in the cushions, her frizzy hair matched her body’s tiny shakes. Jack, seeing his big chance, tentatively wandered over to the quivering fitness queen.
    Janey smartly intercepted him. “Don’t, Jack,” she implored. “She’s in pain.” She took Jack’s hand and led him away from his wife. Janey and Jack then pulled up stools at the juice bar.
    “As soon as the lady detective tells us we can go,” Janey stage-whispered, “I want to take you home with me. I want to help, Jack. Let me take care of you.” Lady detective? I supposed that made Janey a lady receptionist. Jack seemed to respond to her offer. He let her stroke his fingers suggestively. Ameleth didn’t notice from her face plant on the couch.
    We all waited for whatever came next. One thing about Detective Falcone: She didn’t let anyone rush her. She’d wrap this investigation when she damn well pleased. All we could do was sit in that room for the three (three!) hours it took her to supervise the dusting, the spraying and the photographing of the crime scene. Every half hour or so, she’d have a few questions. “Besides the fire escape in front, is the elevator the only way to get into the suite?” she asked after the body was gone. A unanimous yes resounded from the married couple and Janey.
    After the suite had been dusted, she asked, “How many people have keys that bring the elevator to this floor?” The answer turned out to be four: Ameleth, Jack, a spare at reception, and Barney. When Ameleth supplied that information, it was obvious that Jack didn’t know Barney had a key. (I figured this out because he said, “Wait a minute—you gave Barney a key?” Ameleth ignored him.)
    Falcone wandered back toward the office area. She found Barney’s sweat clothes on the floor. Ameleth identified them. Falcone asked her if she knew he’d be in the club that evening, and Ameleth said, “I had no idea. Jack told me Barney was out of town. Unlike' other men I know,” Ameleth continued, “Barney was unpredictable. I never knew where he’d turn up, and I never wanted to know. Does that help?”
    “Not at all,” Falcone said diplomatically. Poor Jack was being beaten like the eggs from a roost of ripe chickens. Could love really be this blind, even the twisted psycho variety? I will say one thing: Ameleth’s treatment of Jack—and the way he swallowed it all—gave him the sex appeal of a Q-Tip. I figured Janey must dig diminutive men. She sat practically in his lap, protecting him from Ameleth’s blows with her impenetrable shield of saline.
    While the cops drained the Jacuzzi in search of skin and hair, Falcone asked, “Did Barney have any enemies?” A logical query. Only one enemy Ameleth could think of: Jack, her jealous husband.
    Falcone’s last question of the night was, “Who came up here between the hours of five and nine o’clock tonight?” The cops taped off - the Jacuzzi room door. So they’d estimated that the body had been dead for