'We're gonna go like this over to the couch, and I'm gonna sit you down. I'll be right in front of you and if you yell I'll hit you. I want to be clear about that.'

'All right, all right.' Not hurt yet.

'Here we go.' He rolled, and pried one arm around behind her, caught her fingers in a hold, and she thought, Cop, and said, aloud, That hurts.'

'Not much,' he said. 'Not yet, but it will if you put a move on me.'

'Are you a cop? You sound like a cop.'

'No.' He'd released her legs, got his knees under himself, and slowly pushed up to his feet, pulling Anna along, past a cable reel that Jason was using as a coffee table. Then he pushed her and twirled her at the same time, she found herself staggering uncontrollably backward, until the couch hit her calves and she fell back onto it. He was right there, his face obscured in the gloom, a fist an inch from her chest.

'What's your name?' he asked.

'Let me out of here.'

'What's your fuckin' name?'

'Fuck you.' He didn't seem frightening, somehow. 'Let me out of here.'

'In a minute. Gimme your arms.'

'What?'

'Gimme.' He grabbed one hand, and she tried to jerk free, but he put a hand on her forehead and said, 'Sit still, goddammit.'

'What do you want?'

'Needle tracks.'

What? She stopped fighting, and a penlight clicked on. He turned her arm wrist up, and played the beam down her forearm.

'Other arm.'

She turned her other arm up, and he looked it over, then shined the light into her eyes, dazzling her.

'What's your name?' he asked again.

'Fuck you. Who are you? What the hell are you doing here?'

'You oughta watch your mouth,' he said. 'And it's none of your business. You sit right there. If you start to get up.'

'Yeah, I know, you'll beat me up.'

He sounded embarrassed: 'Yeah.'

He was groping around on the floor, keeping his eyes on her, but not until he moved back to her did she see that he'd picked up her purse. He popped it open and dumped it on the wire-reel table, shined the penlight on it and stirred through it.

Anna's purse was small, and there wasn't much: a billfold, a comb, a lipstick, a roll of Clorets, a handful of change, a couple of ripped-in-half movie tickets. He opened the billfold and looked at her driver's license. She still couldn't see his face, and the light, held chest high, made it more difficult.

'Anna Batory,' he said. He looked up from the license. 'You were with the TV crew.'

She wasn't going to be raped, she decided; probably not beaten up. The guy had a hard force about him, but not the hyped energy that produced an attack. And he knew about her: 'Yeah, I'm with the video crew.'

'You shot the video on Jacob Harper.'

'Who?' Now she was confused.

'Jacob Harperthe kid who tried to fly off the Shamrock.'

'Oh. Yeah, we were there.' What did the jumper have to do with Jason's apartment?

'Where'd Jason O'Brien get his dope?'

'I don't know.'

'C'mon, he worked for you, you've got a key to his apartment.'

'He didn't work for me; he was a part-time guy, like once a month. And the cops gave me the key.'

'The cops.' After a moment's silence, he asked, 'Why would they do that?'

'Because nobody wants his body. I'm supposed to take care of funeral arrangements and there's nothing more here that the cops want.'

'Huh.' He stood up, looked around in the gloom and said, 'Damn it.'

'You hurt me,' Anna said. She was getting a feel for him. He hadn't wanted to hurt her. 'You could have broken my arm.'

'Ah, shut up,' he said. 'You're not hurt and we both know it.' Then: 'Your boyfriend's a doper.'

'What?'

'This guy Creek.'

'He's not my boyfriend, he's my partner. He hasn't done any dope for ten years.'

'Bullshit. He's got no job, he lives in a nice apartment at the Marina and he's got a yacht.'

'No job? I'll tell you what, pal, we're out there two hundred and fifty nights a year

'Yeah, some Tinkertoy fuckin' movie wannabees with cameras, for Christ's sake.'

Now she was getting hot. 'Yeah? We grossed better than three hundred and fifty thousand last year. Me'n Creek and Louis took home better than ninety apiece, after expenses. How much'd you make?'

'That much? Ninety?' Surprise.

'Yeah.' She would have sulked, if she thought she could have afforded to. But she had to stay on top of him.

Another moment of silence, then he was moving away from her. Over his shoulder he said, 'Fucking L.A., you goddamn people are a bunch of ghouls, you know that? Making a buck off snuff films.'

She kept her mouth shut: she was about to get out of this, and didn't want to argue. A step or two later, he added, 'Don't scream after me. It'd just piss me off and I'd have to run and I'm probably gonna come back and see you again.'

Anna was on her feet: 'About what?'

'I need to know about O'Brien. I'm not done with him yet, and you're the only connection I've got.'

'Listen, if you think Jason had anything to do with the jumper, you're wrong.'

'No. You're wrong,' he said. He hesitated, then said, 'I came down on you a little hard, when we went to the floor. You oughta take a couple ibuprofen. Hot bath, or something. You could have pulled something.'

'You're so thoughtful.'

'I bit my lip when we hit.'

'Well, that's just too bad.' She couldn't believe the gall: he seemed to be looking for sympathy. She crossed her arms over her chest.

'Well, it stings like hell,' he said. Then he was out the door, slamming it behind him. As he went through, she got a better look at him in the late afternoon: an impression of sandy-brown hair, very white teeth. Probably blue eyes, she thought. Athletic, but not stripped down to muscle and bone: maybe a few extra pounds, in fact. Big shoulders. And gone.

She went to the door after him, thought about screaming, jerked the door open and stepped outside. and saw the top of his head disappearing down the stairwell. Opened her mouth, shut it again. She was safe enough, unhurt and still alonemaybe she didn'twant to piss him off.

The circuit-breaker box was in the kitchen, the door open. She threw the switch and two lights came up. She went back through the living room, shut the door, and then took out the cell phone, found Wyatt's card in the pile of purse litter and dialed him. A clerk answered the phone, and she asked that Wyatt be called at home and that he call her back; he called back two minutes later.

'What?' he asked without preamble, when Anna picked up the phone.

'I just got to Jason's apartment and there was somebody here. He jumped me.'

'You hurt?' He sounded cautious, nervous. Why?

'No, he just tripped me and held me down and then he pushed me on the couch and then he left. I thought he might be a cop, but he said he wasn't.'

'White guy?' The odd tone still in his voice.

'Yeah. Hey, you know him?'

'Probably another doper.' But he was lying; and he wasn't good at it. 'As long as you're not hurt.'

'The door was locked and he was inside. How'd he do that?'

'He's probably a friend of O'Brien,' Wyatt said. 'Look, do you want a car to come around? I can call Inglewood.'

She thought about it for a moment. 'No, I guess not. I mean, unless you wanted to look for fingerprints. You know, detect something.'

Wyatt sighed and said, 'We got thirty sets of fingerprints out of the ShotShop, and we could probably get thirty more.'

Anna said, 'Tell me the truth about something. You know, instead of lying.'

'Sure.'

'Do you think Jason might be connected to the jumper we filmed?'

Wyatt hesitated before he answered, and Anna read it: 'You do!' she said. 'So'd the guy here. Tell me why.'

'Look MissAnnagoddammit, you're not a police officer, okay? Just clean up the apartment, pack up his stuff and get out of there.'