The next morning he put in a call to the Myth Patrol. He knew he needed help, and he didn’t know who else to ask. They met at Dupar’s, and Finn outlined the situation.

“So tell me again how all us wild cards are brothers under the skin, and how I ought to spend my free time rescuing an ace,” Goathead mumbled around his double bacon cheeseburger.

Finn hadn’t counted on ace envy entering into the equation. “He’s not an ace. He’s a deuce. This is not a major league power.”

“He’s a seventy year old man who can make woman look young,” Goathead argued. “If that’s not a sure means to unlimited sex I don’t know what is.”

“I wish you wouldn’t always put your head in the gutter,” Clops said. He rolled his eye at Cleo.

“She can’t understand a fucking thing I say.” Goathead leered at her. “Hey baby, want to fuck like frenzied ferrets?”

” Cleo dumped her chocolate malt in Goathead’s lap.

Clops grinned as Goathead cursed and mopped at the sticky mess. “Looks like she understands just fine.”

“Guys, could we focus here,” Finn said, waving his hands in the air. “Where do we start?”

“ Hollywood and Cahuenga,” Clops said confidently.

The Myths were standing beneath an old brownstone building on the corner. The dark upper windows threw back the sunlight in sharp jagged glints. Cleo was glaring at a drunk who stood swaying and leering at her from across the street. Goathead was leering at a couple of female hookers just down the block. Finn stared at Clops.

“Okay. We’re here. Why are we here?” Finn asked.

Clops pointed to a corner window. “That was Philip Marlowe’s office.”

Finn fought down the urge to rip off the cyclops’s head. Forcing a mild tone, he said, “I hate to break this to you, but Marlowe was a character in books. Then he was a character in the movies. He’s not real.”

Okay, Finn thought, as Clops looked like a kicked puppy, it wasn’t your most diplomatic moment.

Surprisingly it was Goathead who came to the big joker’s defense. “No, he’s right. We’ve got to get in the space. Think like a detective. Find the character.”

Wonderful, beneath Goathead’s hairy chest beats the heart of a method actor, Finn thought.

“I think a tough, no nonsense Bogart approach,” Clops began, only to be interrupted by Goathead.

“Well, that leaves you right out.” replied Goatboy. “Whoever plays our detective, you’re destined to be the loyal sidekick. You’re not leading man material.”

Cleo glared at Goathead, and all the snakes hissed at him. The joker jumped back. Cleo laid a hand on Clops’s arm, and gave him a blazing smile. Finn was dazzled. She really was beautiful, if you just ignored the snakes. There was a barrage of Turkish being directed at Clops, then one halting English word.

“Gorgeous,” Cleo said, and smiled up at the Cyclops again.

A tide of red swept from the base of Clop’s throat to the top of his ears. “You really think so?” he asked the joker girl. She nodded vigorously. “Would you like to have dinner tonight?” he asked. Cleo nodded again.

“Gee, isn’t that just… swell,” muttered Goathead. “I’m going home.”

“Wait,” Finn cried. “We haven’t…”

But Clops and Cleo were strolling off with her arm tucked through his, while tourists on a bus gawked out the window and shot photos. Goathead went clattering off around the corner. Finn took a last look up at Marlowe’s window. Inspiration did not descend. Finn headed off down Hollywood.

In the old days the Boulevard had been a magical, glamorous place. Now it had fallen on hard times. The street was lined with cheap tourist shops selling tee shirts, tacky memorabilia and maps to stars houses. Hookers, male, female and joker, worked the corners, fading down side streets when an L.A.P.D. cruiser would roll past. Down those side streets the robbers waited. They generally left the hookers alone. Tourists were easier targets.

Finn, depressed and in a brown study, wasn’t paying much attention to where he was going or who he passed. He had to tell his father he couldn’t do this, and they had to call the police. Then a familiar voice called out to him. “Hi, Bradley.”

“Tanya.” He looked around, but he didn’t see any evidence of a boyfriend or even one or two of the Bimbo Battalion. “Are you alone?”

“Yeah.”

“This is not a good part of town for you to be in.” She laughed. “No, I’m serious.”

“So escort me,” she demanded.

Finn felt like a sun had started burning down in the pit of his belly. The warm good feeling spread upward and broke out in a broad grin. “Sure. Where do you want to go?”

“I was going to Musso and Franks. Have you eaten?”

Banishing the thought of the short stack of pancakes, egg and sausage he had consumed only two hours before, Finn shook his head no. “But Musso’s is tough for me. Pretty much nothing but booths and narrow isles. Do you like Chinese?”

Tanya nodded. “But only in Chinatown.”

“Do you know Hop Li’s?” She shook her head. “Come on, you’re in for a treat. I’m parked over by Grumann’s.” She slid her arm through Finn’s and the bright glow seemed to explode out the top of his skull. He forgot about Grace Kelly, the movie, even Stan. He was prancing down the Walk of Fame with the prettiest girl in Hollywood.

Tanya did have a pretty good location. Off Melrose on the fringes of Beverly Hills. Lunch had been terrific, and he didn’t mean the food. They had talked for two hours, and by the second hour Tanya kept laying her fingers gently on his wrist. Once she had even brushed a hand through the hair at the nape of his neck. Finn offered to drive her home. She agreed with a secretive little smile and then briefly touched the tip of her tongue to her bottom lip. Finn sensed she was going to invite him in. Then during the drive to North Hollywood Finn had started to worry. What if she lives in one of those nineteen fifties apartment buildings with the concrete and metal exterior stairs. There is no way I can negotiate those.

Tanya directed him up a quiet street off Melrose, and Finn felt his spirits soar. The street was lined with nineteen twenties duplexes. Most were not aging well. There was missing stucco, missing tiles on the Spanish roofs. Tanya’s was differentiated by the fact it had beautiful landscaping. She followed his look. “I take care of the landscaping in exchange for half the rent.”

“Wow, you’re an incredible gardener. You could do this professionally,” Finn said enthusiastically then realized from way the skin around her mouth tightened that he’d said the wrong thing. “Look, I wasn’t suggesting it as the fall back position when you don’t make it as an actress.”

She gave him a smile, and it was the first one Finn had seen that didn’t seem calculated. “You’re a nice guy, Bradley Finn.” He felt the same rictus tightening of his cheek muscles as his smile went thin. “And no, I don’t mean that as a kiss off. I mean it as a come on.” And she leaned over and kissed him on the lips. Her tongue flicked out to explore his lips. Finn suddenly couldn’t breath. “Now come on in.”

The duplex was sparsely furnished, something which he suspected had more to do with poverty then design. But it was clean and almost obsessively neat and the spicy scent of incense gave it an exotic feeling.

Tanya walked backwards down the short hallway, unbuttoning his shirt as they went. Finn was willing to follow. At that moment he would have followed her anywhere. She yanked off her tank top, took Finn’s hands, and cupped them around her breasts. The skin was warm, slightly sweaty, and very soft. He ran his thumb across her nipples, feeling the roughness as they puckered. She pushed his shirt off his shoulders. He felt it slid across his back and down his side and his horse hide quivered at the tickle.