"For heaven's sake, how?"

"By getting lost in each other."

That's a new one, Joey thought. Wonder where he stole it. She took a slow, deliberate breath, then sniffed away the tears.

"These are very normal feelings at a time like this," Chaz was saying. "Joey loved us both. She'd understand completely."

"No, Chaz, Joey would not understand."

She said this aloud in her regular voice. He stopped wriggling and raised up slightly, trying to see her face. She heard a dry swallow.

"I assure you," she said, "that she definitely doesn't understand how you could try to fuck her best friend the night after her funeral service.

Chaz seemed paralyzed with confusion. Joey reached into his boxers and twisted a pinch of his scrotum between her thumbnail and forefinger.

"Let go! Oh God," he wailed. "Oh Christ, oh Jesus, please, Joey, let go!"

At the silent count often, she did. "Now don't move, Charles."

She turned on the lamp and saw that he was rolled up like a large pale hedgehog, cupping his groin.

"You're not real." Her husband squinted at her suspiciously. "You can't be real." He bared his teeth and gave off a strange, dissonant laugh. "Lemme see your fingernails."

"Exactly how much have you had to drink?" she asked.

"You're dead, Joey. I killed you myself." Chaz continued to grin like a chimp. "It's all on video!"

She said, "You need to buckle down here, mister. I want some answers."

His head began lolling from side to side, as if his neck had gone to rubber. When he blinked, it looked like hard work.

Joey said, "Don't you dare fall asleep."

"I knew it. I got the West Nile." He cackled harshly. "That's why you're here-the disease makes victims hallucinate."

Rose might have gone overboard with the Valium, Joey thought. The creep was fading fast.

"Chaz, are you listening?"

He nodded. "Loud'n clear."

"Why did you try to kill me?"

"Aw, come on," he snorted.

Joey snatched a shock of his hair and yanked his head upright.

"Answer me!"

"I guarantee you I wasn't the only guy on that cruise who thought about shovin' his old lady overboard. Wives, they think about that shit, too. Every married person now and then thinks, Oh what the fuck. I did it, is the only difference. Me! I went ahead and did it."

Joey found herself scanning the room for something jagged and, preferably, rusty. Then she recalled Mick's warning: Don't make it a crime scene.

She released Chaz's hair and his chin dropped to his chest.

He said, "I thought you were gonna rat me out for faking the water tests."

"But I didn't even know what you were doing!"

"So maybe I overreacted."

"Excuse me?" Joey said.

Chaz scratched absently at a dime-size scab on his neck. "You don't understand. Red's deadly serious when it conies to business."

"It was our anniversary]"

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot." Chaz looked up. "Thanks for the awesome golf-club covers. I found them later in my suitcase."

"You really are a monster," Joey said hoarsely.

"If you were real, I'd tell you I was sorry."

"And I'd tell you to go straight to hell," she said. "Why did you marry me in the first place?"

Chaz seemed truly surprised at the question. "Because you were hot. And we were so fantastic together."

"Because I was hot'?" Joey eyed the lamp's electrical cord and thought: No jury in the country would convict me.

Chaz said, "I'm getting really sleepy. Can you go back to heaven now? Or wherever you came from?"

"Didn't you ever love me?" Joey switched off the light in case she started crying again. "Ever, Chaz?"

"Sure I did."

"Then what happened?" she demanded. "First the whoring around, which was bad enough-"

A wary grunt from the shadows.

"-then you push me overboard on our anniversary cruise! I don't get it," Joey said. "If you wanted out so badly, all you had to do was ask. See, they've got this new thing called divorce."

Now all she heard was the low scrape of heavy breathing. Five, ten, fifteen seconds went by.

"Chaz?"

Nothing.

She jerked the pillow from beneath his head and said, "Wake up, dammit! I'm not finished."

A perturbed, groggy groan. Then: "You can't hurt me, Joey. You're already dead."

Arduously he gathered himself and lunged for her, missing in the dark. She pounced on his back, pinning him to the mattress.

"Because I was 'hot'? Are you serious?" Her mouth was inches from his ear.

"Hey, it's a compliment," Chaz said. "Now, can you please get off me? My hard-on's gettin' bent."

"What a moving sentiment. Are you stealing from Neil Diamond again?"

The door opened, throwing a wedge of light on the bed.

"It's okay. We're fine," Joey said over her shoulder.

"Who's there?" Chaz asked, squirming.

The door closed.

"Rose?"

Joey said, "Relax, Romeo, you're not getting any tonight."

"Lemme up."

"It's still only me, Chaz. Your dearly departed wife."

"Can't be."

"But I'm not deceased."

"Are, too."

Joey dug an elbow into his back. "Does that feel real?"

"Bad dream," he groaned.

"Wanna bet?"

"Pinch me in the nuts again. Go ahead, see if I care."

Joey said, "What went wrong with you, Chaz?"

His shoulders hitched. "People change, it's nobody's fault," he said. "Lemme sleep, please?"

"No sir, not yet."

"If you were real, Joey, you would've already killed me by now." Then he sighed heavily and went slack beneath her.

She shook him by the collar, then she pressed so close that her lips brushed the fuzz on his earlobes. "Chaz!" she said sharply. "Chaz, you listen. I'm telling the cops everything. And it won't just be my word against yours-they'll have the new will, the videotape, all the Everglades stuff. Your friend Red, he's toast, too. Wake up, Romeo, it's over. Attempted murder, fraud, bribery. Even if you beat the rap, you'll be broke and out of work and owing lawyers for the rest of your miserable life. Ruined, Chaz."

From her husband, not a peep. He had passed out.

Joey climbed off and called for Mick. Together they jostled and prodded Chaz, but they were unable to rouse him.

She said, "Now what do we do? The asshole thinks he's hallucinating. He thinks I'm not real."

"You're not," Stranahan said fondly.

"I'm serious, Mick. Obviously he was bombed when he got here, then Rose doped him into oblivion."

"Gosh. I sure hope he doesn't get a boo-boo on the way home. Drive himself into a canal, or fall asleep on the train tracks."

"Oh no you don't."

"Hey, stuff like that happens. You read about it all the time."

Joey stared at the reprehensible heap of snoring, drool-flecked flesh to which she was wed, and she felt only hollowness and exhaustion. How strange that she no longer wanted to punch him or choke him or kill him, or even just scream at him. All her rage and indignation was dried up, leaving only an aftertaste of disgust.

"You all right?" Stranahan asked.

"Peachy. I married a total piece of shit."

"It's not hard to do. You want to whale on the bastard, now's your chance."

Joey shook her head. "Honestly, Mick, I don't care what happens to him anymore."

"Well, I do," Stranahan said, grabbing Charles Regis Perrone by the ankles.