The black woman looked up and smiled nicely. "May I help you?"

"My name is Elvis Cole. I'd like to see Mr. Curtiss." I gave her the card that said Elvis Cole, Confidential Investigations. The old cards had a picture of a guy listening at a keyhole. The new cards don't. Without the picture is probably better.

She took the card and nodded pleasantly, still smiling. "Uh-huh. And do you have an appointment?"

"No, ma'am. I was hoping Mr. Curtiss could squeeze me in." I leaned forward and lowered my voice. Confidential. "It involves a former client of his."

More smiling and nodding. "Uh-huh. Well, why don't you just wait right there while I go see." She got up, rapped once on the glass door, then let herself through.

I looked around at the three young women and gave them a smile. The two who had been reading were still reading, the one who had been chewing gum was still chewing gum. One of the readers wore a nice pastel pant suit and had a matching briefcase at her feet. She sat so that one foot was touching the case. The other was in blue jeans and knee boots and a purple sweater. The jeans and the sweater were too small, but she had the body for it. I made them early twenties, twenty-five tops. The gum-chewer had her legs crossed and her arms along the back of the couch and was looking at me with pale, steady eyes. She was wearing baggy culottes and pink Reebok tennis shoes and a blousy top that was tied off beneath her breasts so that her belly was bare. It was too cool outside for the top, but that's show biz. Her hair was pale and washed-out, and so was the spray of freckles across her nose. Younger than the other two. Seventeen, maybe. She blew a large pink bubble the size of a goiter, popped it, then used a lot of tongue to lick it off her lips. Maybe sixteen. Run away and come to the big town to be a star. I said, "Pretty hot outside, huh?"

She blew another bubble, uncrossed her legs, then spread them.

I said, "Pretty hot inside, too."

She spread the legs a little wider, then popped the bubble and licked it off. Maybe I was a producer.

The glass door opened and the black woman came out with a short, thin guy pushing sixty. Oscar Curtiss. He had dark circles around his eyes and too many teeth and he was wearing a coarse-weave light sports coat and huaraches and baggy pants like they do in Italian fashion magazines. It looked silly. He gave me the teeth, stuck out his hand, and said, "Hey, Cole, goodtaseeya." Then he looked past me at the two readers and the gum-popper, mostly the gum-popper. "You ladies excuse us for a few minutes, okay? Sydney, I'll see you next."

The gum-popper nodded and blew another bubble. Sydney. Her knees were bouncing open-closed, open-closed.

Oscar gave her some of the teeth, too, then motioned me into his office. He didn't bother to look at me while he was doing the motioning.

The office was larger than the waiting room, with a lot of plants and one of those heavy, dark wood secretary desks they made back in the forties. It needed to be oiled. There was a leather couch against the wall and another Friedrich in the window behind his desk and more photographs on the walls, but I didn't recognize any of the people in these, either. Maybe Sydney would be there soon and I could recognize her.

He shut the door and followed me in, holding my card. "Elvis Cole, huh? I like it. It's got catch. It's got pump and pizzazz. You got a nice look, too. You know who you look like?"

"Buddy Ebsen."

"Nah. Michael Keaton. A little taller, maybe. A little better built. But sensitive and sharp. A guy you don't mess around with."

"I always thought I looked like Moe Howard."

"Take my word for it. You got the look and the name. Some of the kids come in here, Christ, they got names flat as piss on a plate. Pat Green. Steve Brown. I say that's no good. I say, you know what you need?"

"Pizzazz."

"Fuckin' A. Look at Steve Guttenberg. Take away the Guttenberg, whattaya got? Nuthin!" He sat behind the desk and shot a glance at the door. "Listen, I don't have a lot of time."

"A long time ago you represented an actress named Karen Shipley. I'm trying to find her." I took out the 8 x 10 and showed it to him.

He nodded. "Yeah. Sure. I remember Karen. Great kid. Terrific body."

"Do you still represent her?"

He handed back the head shot. "Nah. I haven't heard from Karen in, what is it, ten years, something like that?" He put another glance on the door, anxious to get to other things. "She musta went to another agency."

I nodded. "Did you continue to represent her after her divorce from Peter Alan Nelsen?"

Oscar Curtiss stopped looking at the door and sat forward in the chair and blinked at me. "That's who she was married to?"

"Yeah."

"Karen Shipley was married to Peter Alan Nelsen?"

"Yeah."

"The Peter Alan Nelsen?"

"Peter Alan Nelsen wasn't Peter Alan Nelsen when they were married."

Oscar slumped back in his chair and said, "Jesus H."

"He was in film school when they married. After he busted out of USC, he divorced her. Now he wants to find her again."

"Sonofabitch. I remember when she got divorced. She came here with the kid and sat down right over there and said she was divorced and needed to work. I said, sit-ups, Christ, a body like yours you wanna get it back, do sit-ups. Peter Alan Nelsen. Jesus Christ." He wasn't looking at me anymore. He was staring somewhere in midspace, seeing the old scenes, worrying them through to recall if he'd done anything that could piss off Peter Alan Nelsen. All the worrying made his eyebrows dance around on his face.

I said, "Do you know how we can contact her?"

"It's been years. Christ, I saw her a couple more times after that, then zippo. Nada. I never heard from her again." The mouth started moving with the eyebrows.

"Okay. Where was she living?"

"It was somewhere over there." He made a gesture that could mean anywhere in the northern hemisphere.

"That's a little broad, Oscar."

"Christ, I never visited. She came here."

"Maybe you've got records."

He stopped all the moving around and looked at me with the kind of look they give you that tells you that the lights are going off behind their eyes. Getting The Big Idea. He said, "Maybe I should deal direct with Peter on this. We might be getting a little personal here, you know, and he might appreciate keeping it in the family, as it were."

I pointed at the phone. "Sure. He's at the Paramount office now. Give'm a call and tell him that even though he's trying to find his ex-wife and his kid, you're foot-dragging because you want to suck after some kind of deal. He'll like you just fine for that."

He said, "Hey, I'm doing a favor here, right? I'm trying to help here, right?"

"Quit being small-time and tell me what you know, Oscar. You're coming across like a chiseler."

"I look like I'm rolling in it here? I wanna help. I wanna do what I can. But, hey, Peter Alan Nelsen gives you the nod, my friend, you're made in this town." Peter Alan Nelsen, spitting a green M amp;M on Donnie Brewster.

"Sure, Oscar."

He worked it through some more, trying to get a fix on what was real and what wasn't and what he could get if he played it right and how much it could cost if he played it wrong. He said, "Listen, Elvis, I help you out here, you tell Peter, okay?"

"I'll tell him."

"You promise?" Like we were in fourth grade.

"I promise, Oscar."

"Hey, I wanna help. I wanna do anything I can for Peter Alan Nelsen." Nothing like sincerity.

"Where did Karen live?"

"I'm thinking."

"Look in your files."

"Christ, I'm supposed to keep files on people forever?"

"Returned checks. Tax information."

"Nah."

"Correspondence. Maybe an old rolodex."