"Probably," he admits, tilting his head back to catch the last rays of the sun as they slide lazily toward the waterline. "Right now I'm considering the possibility that Nikki Heat spent some time in the Far East, learning martial arts from a rickety old Chinese guy named Dong Long." That wide, line-feeding grin. He shakes his head.

"Come on. Truth is stranger than fiction anyway. And this is strictly off the record. I'm not in writer mode, I promise."