Pat said, "He's expecting us in five minutes."

Donnie said, "Holy shit." I think he was starting to hyperventilate.

I said, "Donnie. Relax. Breathe into a bag."

Donnie said, "You relax. I got forty million bucks riding on Peter Alan Nelsen and you won't play along. This is Hollywood. Everybody plays along!"

I made a gun out of my hand and shot him.

Donnie slumped into his chair and looked depressed. "Yeah, yeah, that's just what'll happen, too. In the back."

Pat said, "Donnie, Elvis is a professional and he gets results. He has done this before."

"But not with Peter Alan Nelsen!"

"I told him what Peter is like, and I told Peter what Elvis is like. Peter knows what to expect."

"Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus."

I said, "Donnie. Why don't we go see Peter and get it over with? I'm good. I might even find his kid. Think how happy he'll be then."

Donnie squinted and thought about it. You could see gears moving and lights flashing behind his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, that's right."

"Tell him I'm brilliant and gifted. Everybody knows that brilliant and gifted people are difficult."

Donnie's eyes got big and he slapped his hands on the table again as if he'd just found the Rosetta stone. "Yeah, yeah. That's it! Brilliant and gifted are difficult." He jumped up and charged toward the door. "Let's go see him and get it over with."

We went to see the monster.

CHAPTER TWO

The monster had both floors of a two-story tropical-style plantation house hidden behind a stand of banana and rubber trees at the back of the studio. It had once been a bungalow like any other bungalow, but now it wasn't. Now, there was a veranda across the front and wide-slat Panamanian shutters and a lot of rough-hewn poles lashed together with coarse shipping rope to make you think you were on a tropical island someplace. Sort of like the Swiss Family Robinson's tree house. The roof was thatched with what looked like palm fronds, and running water trickled along a false stream, and a black skull- amp;-crossbones flag hung from a little pole. I said, "Do we have to give him an E ticket before he lets us in?"

Donnie Brewster made the nervous frown. "Stop with the humor, okay? I tell him you're brilliant and gifted, you make with the humor, he's gonna know that you're not."

Some guys.

Inside, the floors were crude planking and the ceilings were done to match the roof, and Cairo fans hung down and slowly swirled the air. We went down a hall and into a room with two large couches and a little round glass table and posters of the six movies that Peter Alan Nelsen had made. The couches were covered in zebra skin and the posters were framed in what looked like rhino hide and a small, immaculate black man sat at a teak desk. Behind the man was a teak door. Behind the door, someone was yelling. Donnie Brewster rubbed at his scalp again and said, "Holy Christ, now what?"

The black man nodded brightly when he saw us. Maybe he couldn't hear the yelling. "Hello, Mr. Brewster. Ms. Kyle. Peter said to go right in when you got here."

We went right in.

Peter Alan Nelsen's office was as long as a bowling alley and as wide as a check-kiter's smile and done up like the lobby of a Nairobi movie house. Posters from The Wild Bunch and The Asphalt Jungle and The Magnificent Seven hung along one wall and an old Webcor candy machine from the forties sat against the opposite wall between a Wurlitzer Model 800 Bubble-Lite jukebox and a video game called Kill or Be Killed! The Webcor featured M amp;M peanuts and Jujubes and Raisinets and PayDay candy bars. Nothing beats a PayDay! A blond woman with a neck like corded rosewood and shoulders like Alex Karras sat sidesaddle on a sky-blue Harley-Davidson Electra-glide motorcycle parked at the far end of the office. She was wearing black spandex biking pants with a Day-Glo green stripe down the leg and a matching black halter sports top and pale gray Reebok workout shoes. Her thighs were massive and her calves thick and diamond-shaped and her belly looked like cut stonework. She glanced our way, then slid off the Harley and went to sit by a couple of guys who might've been reserve corners for the Dallas Cowboys. They were slouching on another one of the zebra couches, one of them wearing a Stunts Unlimited T-shirt and the other fatigue pants and eelskin cowboy boots. They glanced our way, too, and then they went back to watching Peter Alan Nelsen.

Peter Alan Nelsen was standing on top of a marble-slab desk, waving his arms and screaming so hard that his face was red. He was maybe six foot two, but skinny, with more butt than shoulders and the kind of soft, gawky frame that probably meant he had been a stiff-legged, awkward child. He had a rectangular Fred MacMurray face to go with the body, and he wore black leather pants with a silver concho belt and a blue denim work shirt with the cuffs rolled over his forearms. The forearms were thin. It was a style and a look that had faded away in the mid-seventies, but if you were the King of Adventure, I guess you could dress any way you wanted. The King yelled, "Stop the tape! I don't want to see this crap! Jesus H. Christ, are you people out of your minds?!"

Peter Alan Nelsen was yelling at a neatly dressed woman and a man with a face like a rabbit's who were standing near a 30-inch Mitsubishi television. The man was scrabbling at a videotape machine, trying to eject a cassette, but his fingers weren't doing a good job and the woman had to help him.

Donnie ran forward, rubbing at his hair. "Peter, Peter, what's going on? Hey, there's a problem here, that's what I'm for!"

The woman at the big Mitsubishi said, "We showed him a tape of work by the new production designer. He liked it fine until I told him that the designer had worked in television."

Peter made a loud, moaning sound, then jumped off the desk, raced forward, grabbed the tape from the rabbit-faced man, and threw it out the window. When Peter rushed toward them, the man jerked back but the woman didn't. Peter yelled, "His quality is all wrong! Don't you people understand texture? Don't you understand image density? Tee-vee is small. Movies are large. I make movies, not television!"

Donnie spread his hands, like how could they do this. "Jesus, Peter, I'm sorry. I can't believe they'd waste your time with a TV guy. What can I do to make it right?" I think he was trying to show me how to make Peter happy.

Peter screamed, "You can kiss my ass on Hollywood Boulevard, you wanna make it right!" Peter didn't look any happier to me, but Donnie was the expert.

The neatly dressed woman said, "You're out of your fucking mind." Then she turned and stalked out, dragging the rabbit-faced man with her. When they passed, I hummed a little bit of "There's No Business Like Show Business." Pat Kyle gave me an elbow.

Donnie gave the big smile, telling everybody that he and his old pal Peter were in solid on this one. "No, hey, Pete-man, I mean it." Pete-man. "You want a new production designer, you got one. I mean, we're making film here, am I right?"

Peter Alan Nelsen screamed, "Shit!" as loud as he could, stalked back to the Harley-Davidson, and kicked it over. Hard. There were gouges in the floor where it had fallen before. The blond woman waited until Peter was through, then went over and righted it, her cut muscles straining against the weight. Peter paid no attention. He stood in the center of the floor, breathing hard, hands down at his sides like there was a terrible anger bubbling within him that he didn't know if he could control, but he would give it a game try. Drama. I said, "I'm Elvis Cole. Is there a problem you want to discuss with me, or should I leave now during the intermission?"