“I don’t think Dr. Tachyon is the right choice,” Benton finally said. “You’re not a wild card.” Benton listened again. “You think you caught it this morning?” His father rolled a desperate eye at Finn.

Finn shook his head. What the actress was describing was virtually impossible. If she had somehow caught a spoor she’d be dead… or a joker. Which might explain her demand for Tachyon.

“Look, I’ll try to get him here, but it’ll take a day…” There was obviously some kind of explosion from the other end of the line, because Benton broke off abruptly. His father was nodding, muttering uh huh, uh huh; finally Benton blurted out, “My son is in medical school. Specializing in wild card medicine. Let me have him take a look at you.”

I’m going to lose my license before I ever get it. Finn thought.

“Okay, just hang tight,” Benton was saying. “We’ll be right over.” The director hung up the phone, and headed past his wife and son. “Let’s go,” he snapped to Finn.

“Dad, I’m starting my second year of medical school. I barely know how to find the pancreas.”

“And dinner’s ready,” Alice protested.

Benton didn’t pause. He slammed out the pantry door into the garage. Finn heard the whine of the garage door going up. He looked at his mother and shrugged. The horn of the van started blaring in sharp staccato honks. Finn put the salad on the table, and headed out.

“Oh… Holy… Shit…!!”

It probably wasn’t the most diplomatic thing his father could have said, and it had the effect Finn expected. Grace Kelly started to cry.

The tears went washing down her cheeks, catching in the net of wrinkles around her eyes and racing down the crevasses on either side of her mouth. It wasn’t that the wrinkles were so deep; what was shocking was that they were there at all. From her debut role in Fourteen Hours in 1951 she had never changed. At least not physically. Her acting had become more elegant and nuanced, but the perfect face had retained the smoothness of porcelain. With other actresses of her generation it was apparent the wrinkles were being tucked away beneath their hairline. Not with Grace. She was perpetually twenty-two.

Now she was fifty-one. A beautiful fifty-one, but not the stunning ingenue currently staring in The French Lieutenant’s Woman.

Benton Finn was staring blindly at the far wall of the living room of the Los Feliz mansion. He was unconsciously combing his hair with his fingers. Grace, huddled on the curved sofa, pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose. Finn shifted his weight from foot to foot to foot to foot, his hooves sinking in the plush beige carpet. He wondered how long the silence was going to last.

“Is this the wild card?” Benton finally rasped out.

Finn and Kelly’s eyes met. Her expression was desperate pleading. She drew in a shaky breath and said, “No.”

“Then why the hell did you want Tachyon?” the director asked.

“I was hoping he might know an ace or a shot or something that could… fix me. Give me back my youth.”

Now it was Benton ’s turn to give his son the desperate look. “Do you think there is such a thing?” he asked.

“No.” Finn looked at Kelly. “I’d say Ms. Kelly had the market on the Fountain of Youth cornered.”

“So what the hell happened?” Benton demanded. He swiped his hand through his hair again. It looked like a gray/blond haystack.

Finn thought furiously. It couldn’t be a substance or others would have discovered it. Kelly’s demand for Tachyon indicated it was wild card related. Which meant it had to be…

“Stan!” Finn blurted. “It’s Stan, isn’t it?”

Kelly stared at him with the air of deer caught in the headlights, bit her lip, and finally nodded.

His father stared at him, his brow furrowed in confusion. Benton pointed at Kelly’s face. “No make-up man is this good.” Kelly gave a gusty sob and held the sodden handkerchief to her eyes.

“He is if he’s a wild card,” Finn replied. He looked back at Kelly. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

The actress nodded. “We met on the set of High Noon. I had been out too late the night before. I asked him to cover the shadows. He gave me this smile.” The woman also smiled at the memory. “He leaned in close to me, and whispered he’d make them vanish. And he did.” She twisted the handkerchief between her fingers. “He’s been with me ever since. On every film.”

“So where is he?” Benton asked.

“I don’t know,” Kelly wailed.

“Have you checked his house?” Finn asked. Kelly’s eyes slid away.

“How could she?” Benton asked. His voice had lost the stridency of a few minutes before and he was taking on the director’s smooze tone.

“Because the effect obviously doesn’t last very long, which means he’s got to be doing her make-up before every date, every preview, every meeting. She probably has a key to his house.” Finn wasn’t a director and didn’t need to coddle stars. He simply laid it out baldly.

Kelly didn’t relish the tone. She gave him a dirty look. “He’s not there. His car’s there but he’s gone.”

“Was the door locked or unlocked?” Finn had often been an extra on Jokertown Blues. He suddenly realized he was sounding a lot like Captain Furillo.

“Locked.”

“So you have got a key.” Kelly bit her lip, then pulled the key out of a pant pocket, and held it out. Finn automatically took it.

“Any sign of a struggle?” Finn asked.

The actress looked startled as if that hadn’t occurred to her. Probably hadn’t. She was far more concerned with the ravages to her face than Stan’s fate. “No. Well… maybe. His dinner was on the table. He’d eaten a little.”

Finn faced his father. “We need to call the police.”

“No,” wailed Kelly.

“Impossible,” snapped Benton.

“This can’t get out,” they both concluded in concert.

“The man is missing,” Finn argued.

“This is directed at me,” came the duet again. The director and the star paused and looked at each other.

“Somehow I think Stan would think it was directed at him,” Finn said with some asperity.

“Stan’s just a pawn,” said Benton. “Coppola’s been after me for a couple of years.”

True, Finn thought.

“And a lot of actresses resent me,” Kelly said.

Also true, thought Finn.

“So, what are we going to do?” Finn asked.

Neither his father nor Kelly had an answer for that. Instead there was a lot of toing and froing about how she really hadn’t changed all that much. She was still beautiful. Then they moved on to whether Benton was going to recast the movie, since it was unclear how long Kelly was going to be off the set. Finn’s stomach, which had been expecting dinner two hours ago, let out a loud rumble. Kelly gave him a startled look, and his dad frowned at him.

“I took you away from dinner, didn’t I? Let me order in a meal for you,” Kelly said. It was nice of her to offer. Most actresses were far too self-absorbed to notice the people around them. And Grace Kelly had every reason right now to be totally self-absorbed.

Benton shook his head. “We really need to get home. I need to reassure Alice that you’re all right.”

Kelly looked pleased. Proving yet again that an actor always assumed everything was about them.

They let themselves out of the large double doors, and Finn skittered down the steep flagstone path to where the van was parked in the driveway. Behind them the Griffith Park observatory loomed like a white ghost castle on the hilltop.

Finn took over driving. His dad wasn’t terribly adept with the hand controls. “So are you going to recast?” he asked his father as they turned onto Los Feliz Boulevard.

“I’ve got twenty days in the can. The studio would never agree to that much reshooting. If we don’t find Stan this movie is dead.”