"They're just rhinestones."

"Rhinestones? That's cool. They look like real diamonds from here, don't you think?"

"Oh, right. Like she's really going to wear diamonds."

"Maybe she got 'em at one of those stores that sells look-alike jewels. You know, emeralds and rubies and like that. I look at that stuff and I can't tell the difference."

"Yeah, maybe."

I looked up. A fellow doing chin thrusts and a lot of finger popping was standing near Trinny's chair. She got up and started bumping and grinding on the spot. I waved at the air, trying to watch the dance floor around their flailing arms. "Do you mind?"

The two of them began to bebop in the direction of the dance floor. I found Berlyn again with her beau. I kept my eyes pinned on their heads bobbing on the dance floor. I leaned over as if to tie my shoe and slid my hand down into her purse. I felt her wallet, cosmetic bag, hairbrush. I sat up again and then simply extracted the handbag from the back of the chair where she'd hung it, leaving mine in its place. I hefted the strap across one shoulder and moved off to the ladies' room.

There were five or six women at the basins, makeup paraphernalia scattered across the shelving provided. All were engaged in a frenzy of hair ratting, blusher brushes, and lip pencils, not even looking up as I went into a stall and slid the bolt across. I hung the bag over a hook that had been thoughtfully provided by the management and began to search in earnest.

Berlyn's wallet was not that educational: driver's license, a couple of credit cards, a few folded credit card receipts shoved down among the currency. Her checkbook showed a series of deposits at weekly intervals, which I assumed represented paychecks from Kepler Plumbing, Inc. Chick was seriously underpaid. Scanning back over the last several months, I spotted an occasional deposit of twenty-five hundred dollars, usually followed by checks made out to Holiday Travel. That was interesting. I found the small velvet jeweler's box in which the earrings were probably kept.

I tried the interior zippered compartment, sorting through old grocery lists, Thrifty drugstore receipts, deposit slips. I pulled out passbooks for two different savings accounts. The first had been opened with a nine-thousand-dollar deposit about a month after Lorna's death. I could see intermittent withdrawals of twenty-five hundred dollars, bringing the current balance down to fifteen hundred. The second account held another six thousand dollars. There was probably a third account somewhere else. Berlyn had tucked the carbons of her deposit and withdrawal slips in the back of one passbook-information she didn't dare leave at home. If Janice had discovered her cache of hidden funds, sticky questions would arise. I lifted a carboned slip from each passbook.

Someone knocked on the stall. "Are you dead in there?"

"Just a minute," I called.

I depressed the toilet handle, letting the toilet flush noisily while I shoved everything back in the handbag. I emerged from the stall with the bag over my shoulder. A black girl with a seventies Afro moved into the stall I'd vacated. I found an empty basin and gave my hands a vigorous scrub, feeling like they needed it. I left the restroom and returned to the table in haste just as the dance music came to a blasting finale. There was tumultuous applause from the dance floor, complete with piercing whistles and foot stompings. I slid onto my chair, snagged my bag from Berlyn's chair, and slipped hers into place.

Berlyn was approaching, the big guy right in her wake. Her chair tilted perilously. I grabbed for it, but not quickly enough to prevent her bag and leather jacket from tumbling on the floor in a heap.

I'd caught a glimpse of Berlyn's mouth, which opened with annoyance when she realized the chair had toppled over. She was looking sweaty and cross, her perpetual state, I suspected. I turned my back abruptly so I was facing the bar. I drank my beer, heart thumping. I heard her exclamation of surprise. "Look at this. Gaaaad…" She dragged the profanity out into three musical notes as she scooped up her belongings, apparently pausing to check the contents of her purse. "Somebody's been in here."

"In your bag?" the guy said.

"Yes, Gary, in my bag," she said, voice heavy with sarcasm.

"Anything missing?" He seemed concerned, but not freaked out. Maybe he was used to her tone of voice.

She said, "Hey."

I could tell she was speaking in my direction.

She poked me in the shoulder. "I'm talking to you."

I turned, feigning innocence. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, my God. What the hell are you doing here?"

"Well, hi, Berlyn. I thought it might be you," I said. "I saw Trinny a minute ago and she said you were around someplace. What's the problem?"

She gave the bag a shake as if it were a naughty pup. "Don't give me that bullshit. Have you been in here?"

I put a hand on my chest and looked around with puzzlement. "I've been in the ladies' room. I just sat down," I said.

"Ha ha. Very funny."

I looked up at the guy with her. "Is she on drugs?"

He rolled his eyes. "Come on now, Berl, settle down, okay? She wasn't bothering you. Give the chick a break."

"Shut up." Her blond hair looked nearly white in the flickering light from above. Her eyes were darkly lined, mascara separating her lashes into tiny rows of spikes. She fixed me with a look of singular intensity, swelling the way a cat does when it senses a threat.

I let my gaze roam across her face, resting on the diamond hoop earrings, which fairly quivered at her ears. I kept my smile pleasant. "Do you have something to hide, perchance?"

She leaned forward aggressively, and for a moment I thought she might snatch me up by the front of my turtleneck. She put her face so close to mine that I could smell her beery breath, which was not that big a treat. "What did you say?"

I spoke clearly, enunciating. "I said, your earrings are nice. I wonder where you got them."

Her face went blank. "I don't have to talk to you."

I shot a look at the guy just to see how he was taking this. He didn't seem all that interested. Already I found I liked him better than her. "How about this? You want to tell me how you acquired so much money in your savings accounts?"

The beefy guy looked from me to her and back, apparently confused. "You talkin' to me or her?"

"Actually, to her. I'm a private investigator, working on a job," I said. "I don't think you want to get in the middle of this, Gary. Right now we're fine, but it's going to get ugly in a minute."

He held up his hands. "Hey, you two have a beef, you can settle it without me. See you round, Berl. I'm outta here."

I said, "Bye-bye," to him and then to Berlyn, "My car's outside. You want to talk?"

We sat in my car. The parking lot outside Neptune's Palace seemed to have as much going on as the interior. Two beat cops were having a solemn chat with a kid who seemed to have trouble standing upright. In the aisle ahead of us and two cars over, a young girl was clinging to someone's fender while she emptied the contents of her stomach. The temperature was dropping, and the sky above us seemed clear as glass. Berlyn wasn't looking at me.

"You want to start with the earrings?"

"No." Sullen. Uncooperative.

"You want to start with the money you stole from Lorna?"

"You don't have to take that attitude," she said. "I didn't exactly steal."

"I'm listening."

She seemed to squirm, considering how much to "share" with me. "I'm telling you this in strictest confidence, okay?" she said.

I held a hand up Scout-style. I love confidences, and the stricter the better. I'd probably rat her out, but she didn't have to know that.