“J. Edgar Hoover?” I asked him.
“You’re very close. Carmen Miranda,” he had said before leading us in to a fountain of lethal fruit punch. I had taken D E A R LY D E V O T E D D E X T E R
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one sip and decided to stick with the sodas, but of course that had been before my conversion to a beer-swilling red-blooded male. There had been a nonstop soundtrack of monotonous techno-pop music turned up to a volume designed to induce voluntary self-performed brain surgery, and the party had gotten exceedingly loud and hilarious.
As far as I knew, Vince had not entertained since then, at least not on that scale. Still, the memory apparently lingered, and Vince had no trouble in gathering an enthusiastic crowd to join in my humiliation with only twenty-four-hours’ notice.
True to his word, there were dirty movies playing all over the house on a number of video monitors he had set up, even out back on his patio. And, of course, the fruit-punch fountain was back.
Because the rumors of that first party were still fresh on the grapevine, the place was packed with rowdy people, mostly male, who attacked the punch like they had heard there was a prize for the first one to achieve permanent brain damage. I even knew a few of the partiers. Angel Batista-no-relation was there from work, along with Camilla Figg and a handful of other forensic lab geeks, and a few cops I knew, including the four who had not fucked it up for Sergeant Doakes. The rest of the crowd seemed to be pulled off South Beach at random, chosen for their ability to make a loud, high-pitched WHOO!
sound when the music changed or the video monitor showed something particularly undignified.
It didn’t take long at all for the party to settle into something we would all regret for a very long time. By a quarter of nine I was the only one left who could still stand upright unassisted. Most of the cops had camped out by the fountain in a grim clot of rapidly bending elbows. Angel-no-relation 2 1 6
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was lying under the table sound asleep with a smile on his face. His pants were gone and someone had shaved a bare streak down the center of his head.
Things being as they were, I thought this would be an ideal time to slip outside undetected to see if Sergeant Doakes had arrived yet. As it turned out, however, I was wrong. I had taken no more than two steps toward the door when a great weight came down on me from behind. I spun around quickly to find that Camilla Figg was attempting to drape herself across my back. “Hi,” she said with a very bright and somewhat slurred smile.
“Hello,” I said cheerfully. “Can I get you a drink?”
She frowned at me. “Don’t need drink. Jus wanna say hello.” She frowned harder. “Jeez Christ you’re cute,” she said. “Always wand to tell you that.”
Well, the poor thing was obviously drunk, but even so—
Cute? Me? I suppose too much alcohol can blur the sight, but come on—what could possibly be cute about someone who would rather cut you open than shake your hand? And in any case, I was already way over my limit for women with one, Rita. As far as I could recall, Camilla and I had rarely said more than three words to each other. She had never before mentioned my alleged cuteness. She had seemed to avoid me, in fact, preferring to blush and look away rather than say a simple good morning. And now she was practically raping me. Did that make sense?
In any case, I had no time to waste on deciphering human behavior. “Thank you very much,” I said as I tried to undrape Camilla without causing any serious injuries to either of us.
She had locked her hands around my neck and I pried at them, but she clung like a barnacle. “I think you need some D E A R LY D E V O T E D D E X T E R
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fresh air, Camilla,” I said, hoping that she might take the hint and wander away out back. Instead she lunged closer, mashing her face against mine as I frantically backpedaled away.
“I’ll take my fresh air right here,” she said. She squeezed her lips into a pouty kissy-face and pushed me back until I bumped into a chair and nearly fell over.
“Ah—would you like to sit down?” I asked hopefully.
“No,” she said, pulling me downward toward her face with what felt like at least twice her actual weight, “I would like to screw.”
“Ah, well,” I stammered, overcome by the absolute shocking effrontery and absurdity of it—were all human women crazy? Not that the men were any better. The party around me looked like it had been arranged by Heironymus Bosch, with Camilla ready to drag me behind the fountain where no doubt a gang with bird beaks was waiting to help her ravish me. But it hit me that I now had the perfect excuse to avoid ravishment. “I am getting married, you know.” As difficult as it was to admit, it was only fair that it come in handy once in a while.
“Bassurd,” Camilla said. “Beautiful bassurd.” She slumped suddenly and her arms flopped off my neck. I barely managed to catch her and keep her from falling to the floor.
“Probably so,” I said. “But in any case I think you need to sit down for a few minutes.” I tried to ease her into the chair, but it was like pouring honey onto a knife blade, and she flowed off onto the floor.
“Beautiful bassurd,” she said, and closed her eyes.
It’s always nice to learn that you are well regarded by your co-workers, but my romantic interlude had used up several minutes and I very much needed to get out front and check in 2 1 8
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with Sergeant Doakes. And so leaving Camilla to slumber sweetly amid her dewy dreams of love, I headed for the front door once again.