The Deep Blue Alibi

'No-o-o-o-body I know.'

God, how she despised that sarcastic tone.

'I'm not going to let you do this,' she announced, firmly. 'You're not going to screw up Uncle Grif's case just because you're jealous of Junior.'

'The beach boy drooling all over you has nothing to do with it. Your lighting up like a slot machine when he's around does piss me off, though.'

'Steve, listen. The only interest I have in Junior is helping win the case.'

'Really?'

'That and learning more about my own father. The reasons he committed suicide. The reasons my mother won't ever talk about it.'

'And that's all it is for you?' he asked.

'That's all,' she said, not quite knowing if it was true.

Fourteen

LEXY, REXY. . AND PINKY

The next morning was warm and sticky, with fat gray clouds hanging over the Everglades. A sure sign of afternoon thunderstorms. Steve pointed the old Cadillac east and headed across the MacArthur Causeway toward the beach and the offices of Solomon amp; Lord. The canvas top was down, the only benefit, as far as he knew, of traveling solo.

Victoria had declined his generous invitation to share his bed the night before. He'd dropped her off at her Brickell Avenue condo before doubling back to Kumquat Avenue in Coconut Grove. Bobby had gathered up the Miami Heralds, stained red from the squishy berries of a Brazilian pepper tree, and they'd spent the night by themselves. After Bobby had gone to sleep, Steve sat at the kitchen table, drinking beer-not four-hundred-dollar tequila, Junior-pondering just what the hell was going on. It was a three-beer ponder. First, Victoria wanted to split up the firm. Then, the obvious attraction between her and Junior Griffin, aka The Guy He'd Most Like to Pin a Murder Rap On.

Victoria was wrong about one thing.

I'm not jealous of Junior.

Jealousy was a cheap, tawdry emotion, filled with adolescent overtones and boy-girl gamesmanship. Jealousy implied mere infatuation. Victoria meant so much more to him. If he were a house, Steve thought, Bobby would be his foundation and Victoria his walls. Lose either one, his roof would cave in. For the truth was, he loved them both and could not imagine life without either one.

He pulled up to the building just after nine a.m. There was no sign with fancy lettering proclaiming 'Law Offices.' No brass plate emblazoned: 'Solomon amp; Lord.' Instead, the squat, two-story, faded seafoam green stucco pillbox was decorated with a hand-painted Les Mannequins. Hurrying inside, Steve decided to do whatever it took to get to his second-floor office unimpeded. Broken-field running, a buttonhook pattern, even stiff-arm a runway model if necessary.

He kept his head down and moved past the reception desk, where an attractive young woman with a headset was speaking in a clipped British accent, telling a caller not to send her daughter's school yearbook photos, even if she was captain of the Archbishop Curley cheerleading squad. The receptionist looked up: 'Stephen! Lexy and Rexy need you.'

He grimaced and plowed ahead, sailing through an interior door, passing a photographer's studio and a makeup room with lights bright enough to blanch almonds. The stairs were in sight when he heard: 'Steve!' Followed by an echoing rifle shot: 'Steve, wait!'

He didn't stop. Even the wildebeest knew better than to pause for a chat with the lions. He quickened his pace, hearing the click-clack of Jimmy Choos, or some other flimsy but outrageously costly shoes. A six-foot tall blonde cut him off at the foot of the stairs. Her identical twin was a half step behind.

Lexy and Rexy.

Lexy wore spandex hot pants festooned with pink stars and a canary-yellow tank top pocketed with stylish holes, revealing ample portions of bare skin underneath. Her Sunday church outfit, no doubt. Rexy wore a clinging piece of floral silk that might have been a dressing gown or a swimsuit cover-up, Steve couldn't tell. It was slit from ankle to hip and held up by nothing more than Rexy's enhanced breasts, which, now that he thought about it, could doubtless cantilever a load considerably heavier than the wafery dress. Best Steve could tell, Rexy wore nothing underneath, except what God and Dr. Irwin Rudnick had given her.

The twins had blue sapphire cat's eyes and perfect, expensive smiles. Steve noticed they had recently cropped their long flaxen hair very short. It looked like someone had plopped bowls on their heads and put the shears to work, but this was probably some chic new Parisian style that had passed him by. They looked like twin blond Joans of Arc…if Joan had been an anorexic hooker.

Lexy and Rexy were on the far side of twenty-five- though they claimed to be nineteen-and probably realized they would never achieve the success of their hero, Linda Evangelista, who long ago said she didn't wake up in the morning for less than ten thousand dollars. Lexy and Rexy earned ten thousand dollars one weekend, but that was thanks to a blond-worshipping Saudi prince who maintained a permanent suite at the Ritz-Carlton on Key Biscayne. Modeling had nothing to do with it, of course, unless the prince brought his own camera.

'We need you,' Lexy said.

'A bunch,' Rexy said.

'Not now.' Steve tried to edge past the twins but was blocked by Lexy's bony elbows. 'I'm busy.'

'You owe us,' Lexy said.

Damn. He was about to be roped into work that was both nonpaying and mind-numbing.

Les Mannequins provided Solomon amp; Lord with office space in return for legal services for a bevy of lithe young women who frequently sued their plastic surgeons and occasionally their hairdressers. Lexy and Rexy also sometimes ran afoul of the law for forging diet pill prescriptions, parking in handicapped spaces- neither low IQs nor bulimia being recognized by the State of Florida as legitimate handicaps-and once assaulting a TV meteorologist who predicted sun on a day in which thunderstorms ruined an outdoor photo shoot. In the three days that Steve had been away, who knows what legal calamities had befallen these stork-legged, lazy-yet-rapaciously-avaricious young women?

'Lex, Rex, it's gotta wait. Really. I've got a murder case going.'

Lexy pouted and lodged an elbow on a shot hip, her skinny upper arm, forearm, and angular pelvis forming a triangle.

'You gotta sue Paranoia for us,' Lexy said.

'Paranoia? The club? Why?'

'Our names weren't on the list, and this new bouncer didn't recognize us,' Rexy pouted.

'The big stoop,' Lexy said.

'So you couldn't get in,' Steve said. 'What's the big deal?'

'We got in,' Lexy said. 'But the jerk made us wait, like fifteen minutes, and it was so hot, our mascara melted.' She fanned herself to convey just how Hades-like it had been, standing on Ocean Drive, queued up outside a noisy, trendy club where horny young men crawled over one another like scorpions to buy them drinks.

'Matt Damon was there.' Rexy picked up her sister's fanning motion, so now they seemed to be performing a Kabuki duet. 'I'll bet he'd have cast us in his new movie if we hadn't looked so shitty.'

Steve saw an opportunity, and while the twins pantomined, he slipped past them on the stairs. 'I'll research the law,' he called out.

'Mental anguish!' Lexy blared. 'Gotta be worth six figures.'

'Sure, Lexy. Sure. A hundred thousand dollars of anguish for a fifty-dollar mind.'

'Whadaya mean by that?' Lexy demanded.

There was the clang of metal on metal as Steve opened the door to his reception