"You have to understand," Debbie said, "the guy wiped me out, totaled my Beamer, got rid of my dog, stole cash I'd hidden away…

He's the only guy I know comes out of the bathroom he doesn't have a magazine or the newspaper under his arm. He'd be in there forever.

Finally it dawned on me, he's snooping around, looking in the medicine cabinet, the drawers… I'd hide extra cash in there, 'cause if I had it in my bag I'd spend it. I'd put it in a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom closet, in that hollow center, or in a box of tampons. The sneak found twelve hundred bucks and then lied about it. 'No, it wasn't me.' Or I'd forgot where I hid it. Another time I come home, my dog's gone. 'Where's Camille?' Randy goes, 'Oh, she must've run away.' This is a Lhasa Apso that had the dog world by the ass, had anything she wanted, toys, gourmet pet chow-and she ran away? I know what he did, he took Camille for a ride and threw her out of the fucking car, a helpless little dog." Debbie took a sip of vodka and looked up to see Terry's quiet gaze on her. She said, "I get upset, I don't normally use that kind of language."

"You don't," Fran said, "since when?"

She watched Terry grin, like he thought his brother was being funny, then surprised her with, "How much did he take you for altogether?"

"He hit her at the perfect time," Fran said. "I'd just paid Deb her commission on a big case we settled."

"The total," Debbie said, "counting what he borrowed, comes to sixty-seven thousand. Plus the car and the cash, all in less than three months."

"And Camille," Terry said, "she's worth something."

Looking at her with his innocent eyes. Was he putting her on?

Now he said, "The guy must've charmed you out of your socks," not sounding much like a priest.

"What he does," Debbie said, "Randy looks you right in the eye and lies, and you want to believe him. We met at a wedding reception at Oakland Hills I find out later he wasn't invited to. Read about it in the paper. We're dancing, drinking champagne, he asks me if I like to sail. I told him I'd only been out a few times, on Lake St. Clair. We're dancing, Randy whispers in my ear, 'I'm getting ready to sail around the world and I want you to come with me.' You have to understand, this guy is movie star good-looking, early forties, he's tan, buff, gold ring in his ear; he has hair like Michael Landon, a home in Palm Beach he tells me he's putting on the market, asking price eight mil. I was ready to go to Hudson's and buy a little sailor suit. He draws a map on a napkin how we'd sail from Palm Beach to the Gulf of Mexico, through the Panama Canal to Tahiti, Tonga, New Caledonia-"

"Only," Fran said, mopping up salad dressing with a roll, "the guy didn't have a boat."

"A yachting cap," Debbie said, "and a picture of a boat he tells me is in drydock in Florida, getting it ready for the trip. This was his excuse to start borrowing money. First a couple of thousand, then five, then ten for navigational equipment, radar, all boat stuff, because his money was tied up in investments he didn't want to move just yet."

Terry said, "What's he do for a living?"

"Preys on stupid women," Debbie said. "I still can't believe I fell for it. He tells me he's retired from Merrill Lynch, one of their top traders, and I believed him. Did I check? No, not till it was too late.

But you know what did me in, besides the hair and the tan? Greed. He said if I had a savings account that wasn't doing much and would like to put it to work… He shows me his phony portfolio, stock worth millions, and like a dummy I said, 'Well, I've got fifty grand not doing too much.' I signed it over and that's the last I saw of my money."

"But you saw Randy again," Terry said, "on Collins Avenue?"

"You've got a good memory," Debbie said. "Yeah, a couple of months later. In the set, the opening, I say I was in Florida visiting my mom, and that part's true. She's in a nursing home in West Palm with Alzheimer's. She thinks she's Ann Miller. She said it was hard to dance in her bedroom slippers, so I gave her an old pair of tap shoes I had."

"She any good?"

"Not bad for not having taken lessons."

"It was on Royal Poinciana Way you ran him down," Fran said, finished with his salad, wiping the plate clean with half of a roll he stuffed in his mouth.

"If you want to get technical about it," Debbie said, "but Collins Avenue works better in the set."

Fran was pushing up from the table. He said to his brother, "You know I'm going to Florida in the morning, early. We better leave soon as I get back."

Debbie watched him heading toward the men's. "He was in Florida last week."

"The girls are out of school," Terry said, "so Mary Pat stays down with the little cuties and Fran's joining them for a long weekend. But I think he wants to go home 'cause he's still hungry. Mary Pat loaded the freezer with her casseroles, and they're not bad. Mary Pat's a professional homemaker."

"I've never met her," Debbie said. "I've never been invited to the house."

"Fran's afraid Mary Pat would see you as a threat."

"He told you that?"

"I'm guessing, knowing Francis. I think he would like to believe you're a threat."

"He's never made a move that way."

"Doesn't want to risk being turned down."

"You're saying he has a crush on me?"

"I can't imagine why he wouldn't."

Looking right at her, like he was saying he'd feel that way if he were Fran. It startled her. She said, "Oh, really?" and it sounded dumb.

His gaze still on her, he said, "I was wondering, when you hit Randy, were you still married to him?"

"We never were. In the bit I call him my husband and I've got the divorced women in the audience with me. I say I hit my ex-boyfriend it doesn't have the same, you know, emotional effect."

"But you lived with him?"

"He lived with me, in Somerset. Where I am now, back again. Fran got me the apartment." She said, "Does that sound like I'm being kept?"

"If it was anyone but Francis," Terry said. "Did you really put Randy in a body cast?"

He kept going back to Randy.

"No, but I banged him up pretty good."

"Have you seen him since?"

"You mean, did he visit me in prison?"

"That's right, you've been out of circulation. What I was thinking,"

Terry said, "the next time you see him, get him to hit you and sue him for sixty-seven thousand. I thought working with Fran, the personal-iniury expert, you might know how to arrange that kind of accident."

The priest sneaking up on her with a straight face. Playing with her.

"Fran and I," Debbie said, "have never staged a car wreck, ever.

Or hired people who do it." She paused for a beat. "And I've never smuggled cigarettes."

It brought his smile. It told her they could kid around, not take each other too seriously. She said, "We're not in a confessional, Father, so I'm not telling you any of my sins, business-related or otherwise."

"You still go?"

"Not in years."

"Well, if you ever feel the need I never give more than ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Maws."

She said, "Really?" She said, "Do you hear the same kind of sins in Rwanda you do here?"

"A typical one over there, 'Bless me, Fatha, for I have sin. I stole a goat by Nyundo and my wife cook it en brochette.' Here, you don't get as many goat thieves."

"Did you ever try it?"

"Goat? We had it all the time."

"What about adultery?"

"I was never tempted."

Having fun behind his innocent expression.

"I meant, did you hear it much in Confession?"

"Now and then. But I think there was a lot more fooling around than I was told about."

"What's the penance for fooling around?"

"The usual, ten and ten."

"What about murder?"

"I only had one person confess to it."