Straight Silver. Darlene Scalera

him a ride. I didn’t smile back. Being reminded what a chump I’d been makes me testy.

      My ex-husband dismissed his hotshot lawyer and came toward me. He stood too close. The viciousness left his face. “Hey.” His voice was low and for a moment, I forgave myself for falling in love with him once. I turned my head as he leaned toward me. His mouth fell onto my hair instead of my flesh with its still-intact nerve endings. I can be suckered by dogs, children and fools—but at least I know it.

      “Good to see you still care, Silver,” he murmured into my hair.

      “Don’t go getting all sloppy on me, Paul. What do you know about Della’s death?” I whispered.

      “Nothing.”

      I pulled away.

      “Heard you got a new gig, Silver.”

      Yeah. Emergency contact. I glanced at Serras and the others watching us.

      Paul turned to them. “Am I done here, gentlemen?”

      “Make sure you stay where we can find you, Chumsky,” a cop built like a side of beef said.

      Paul raked his gaze over the cop, stopping at the skinny red scratches on his forearms. “She must have been a hellcat.”

      The cop took a step. Serras put a halting hand on the man’s arm, across the scratches.

      “Take your ex-husband home, LeGrande,” Serras advised.

      I pushed Paul toward the door. We reached the exit, stepped out into the moist heat.

      “Still the charmer.” I gave him that much.

      “It’s a gift.”

      “Pretty impressive legal counsel.”

      “Kingsley plays at the club. I cut ten strokes off his game. He’s grateful.” Paul smiled. If an actor, he would have been cast as a gigolo or a second-rate hood. “You look good, Silver.”

      “I didn’t come here for compliments.”

      “Why did you come here?”

      Good question.

      “Feeling guilty?”

      That’s the problem with marriage. People get to know you.

      “You’re not responsible for Della’s death, Silver.”

      “Then who is?”

      “The police are trying to find out.”

      “Della was a stripper who snorted in her off hours. The only family that has come up was run over by a train several months ago. They won’t even have her buried before the case comes off the role call, and you know it.”

      “Listen, all I can tell you is Della and I used to get together, have a few laughs. Yesterday afternoon, we’d gotten together. She said she was going to try and get off early at the club. Why not stick around? I waited. When she didn’t call, I fell asleep.”

      I stopped short. “Della didn’t call you?”

      Paul gave me the same patient look he’d given me the first time I’d told him I wanted a divorce.

      “It’s been a long day, Silver. C’mon, we’ll pick up my car, and I’ll buy you some dinner.”

      “One of the girls that worked at the Oyster overheard Della make a phone call last night from the club to meet someone after work.”

      “She probably did call me. I fell asleep and didn’t hear the phone.”

      “Was there a message on her answering machine this morning?”

      “Now that you mention it, it was beeping.”

      He was lying. That marriage-getting-to-know-someone deal is a two-way street.

      “C’mon.” He smiled. “You can interrogate me over Italian.”

      Translation: pasta for me, a bottle of burgundy for Paul. But he was hiding something and I wanted to know what. I stretched out my rubber band to the point of breaking, let it go.

      “Dino’s is still good,” I suggested.

      “Fine,” Paul agreed. Food wasn’t his primary concern anyway.

      We headed to my car. Paul folded himself into the compact. “How’s Aunt Peggilee?” He put on the country club charm.

      “She’s at Margarita Mania at the Elks.”

      Paul went all teeth. “She’s a live one, your aunt Peggilee.”

      I had to agree.

      “I thought Della was yanking my chain when she told me you left Billie’s for higher education.”

      His sidelong gaze told me he was picturing me in a short plaid pleated skirt and loafers with ankle socks. Paul liked fantasy in and out of the bedroom.

      “She might have been yanking some things of yours, but that was the truth. When you’d two get together anyway?”

      “Met up with her one night at Silky’s downtown about six months ago. She was finishing her night. I was just starting mine.” He looked out over the dash. “Two old friends, that’s all. She’d call me every now and then. If I was free, we’d get together, have a few drinks, a few laughs.” He looked at me. “When’s the last you’d seen her?”

      I steered into a one-way street. “A while.”

      “She’d mention you now and then. She was all gung-ho on getting out herself.”

      “Leaving Billie’s to go to the Oyster wasn’t exactly the direct route.”

      We picked up his car. I insisted on separate cars. He followed me to the restaurant. Inside, the dim lights and the candles flicking in Chianti bottles made all the waiters look soulful. We were ushered to a round table for two. I ordered eggplant; Paul ordered a bottle of burgundy. I began another bruise on my wrist.

      “After her brother’s death…” Paul shook his head. “Della wasn’t having an easy time with it.”

      “Billie told me about it. Said police ruled it an accident.”

      Paul said nothing, watched for the wine.

      “Auntie says there is no such thing as an accident.”

      The wine came with the bread.

      “Is that what you think?” Paul tasted the wine. Satisfaction smoothed out his face.

      I shrugged. “All I know is Della’s dead, and a few months earlier her brother dies also.”

      Paul took another large swallow. “Coincidence.”

      “Auntie doesn’t believe in coincidence, either.”

      Paul smiled closemouthed, raised his glass. “To Auntie.”

      “How was Della really, Paul?”

      “You know Della. She always liked a good time, but when I caught up with her, after her brother’s death…” he stopped, drank. “Sometimes it stops being fun.”

      Been there. Paul had never left. Della had. The hard way.

      “Did she talk about it? Her brother’s death?”

      “No.” He poured another glass of wine, drank half of it. I pushed the basket of bread toward him. He ignored it.

      “She never said anything about it?”

      I met his gaze hard. His pupils dilated. Could be the booze. Or he could be lying. Both, I decided.

      “Maybe, once in awhile. After a night of it, when the speed was wearing off but the shakes hadn’t set in yet. Problem with junkies. If they don’t cut it with booze, they get high-strung.”

      My ex-husband,