Handbags and Homicide [antikvár]

CHAPTER ' Ci T'd die for that purse," Marcie said. I'Td ['d kill for it," I replied. Thus, the difference between me and my best friend, Marcie Hanover. We were at the Beverly Center, L.A.'s mecca for expensive handbags, and we'd come to worship at the altar of Gucci, Prada, Fendi, and other high-end gods. Calling Marcie and me appreciative of designer purses wouldn't do our neuroses justice. To say that we were obsessive, compulsive, crazed white twenty-somethings might be more accurate. We'd long ago faced the truth: we're handbag whores. Marcie glanced at her wristwatch. "Guess you'd better go, huh?" I looked at my own watch. It matched the Dooney &c Bourke barrel bag I was carrying. Nearly two o'clock. Time to go to my "other" job. With great reluctance we left the Kate Spade display and the black hobo purse for which Marcie had been ready to die and I'd been willing to kill. The November, Sunday afternoon crowd carried us through the mall toward the escalator to the parking garage, and I had every intention of actually leaving. Then, I swear, light suddenly beamed down from