"Are you afraid of him?"

"All I'm trying to tell you," Skip said, "I think he's the kind of fella we could've cut a deal with. Stays out of our way long as we don't make a lot of noise." Skip drew on the cigarette and his voice changed, tightened.

"I didn'teven want to do it to him, send him over there to be crippled."

"I guess he could've picked up a gun," Robin said.

"But to start shooting-" "Listen," Skip said.

"I was across the street. These guys come by me like they're out to set a new four-forty record. He goes after the other guy, finds him and I swear fires twenty shots into that car before he's through. You see him as some broke dick with his hand out. I saw him holding a gun in it that never stops firing."

"What did he do then?"

"I told you, I took off. He might've gone back to the bar. He knows who set him up."

"You're saying he might come here."

"I was him I'd already be here. That's why we have to clear out. What I've been trying to tell you."

"You have a gun, don't you?"

Skip said, "You want me to do it? You keep changing the plan, come up with different ideas, shit, now you want me to clean up your mess. He comes in, shoot him right here in your apartment. That what you want?"

He inhaled and reached out, offering her the joint.

Robin shook her head; she straightened. Skip watched her step away from the desk but not going anywhere. Inside her head now, still stroking her braid.

Skip said, "I think we better move out to your mom's for the night."

"He knows you were there."

"Then let's go to a motel."

She stopped pacing and turned to him and he liked the schemy smile coming into her eyes.

"I've got a better idea," Robin said. he part Greta played in the movie they shot in Detroit was GIRL IN BAR, filmed in an actual bar, Jacoby's, on Brush Street. The camera follows an actor playing a detective as he enters and comes over to the bar where she's standing with another actor. (Both of them had familiar faces, but she didn't know their names.) The one at the bar says to the one that comes in, "She's trying to figure out what I do for a living."

GIRL IN BAR: "Don't tell me, okay?"

The guy is wearing a tie with a plaid wool shirt and a suitcoat that doesn't match the pants. GIRL IN BAR: "You teach shop at a high school, right?" Then there's the sound of a beeper going off. As the one that comes in takes the beeper from his belt, she sees his bolstered gun. GIRL IN it BAR: "You're cops. That's the next thing I was gonna say."

When she told Chris about the scene he said, "Yeah, then what happens?"

Nothing. That was all she did in the movie, the one scene. Every once in a while she'd imagine being in Jacoby's and wonder what might happen next if it were real life. If for some reason she's there alone and the guy with the wool shirt and tie comes up to her and starts talking… It still wouldn't go anywhere, because she wasn't GIRL IN BAR. Played by Ginger Jones. She wasn't either of them.

She was Greta Wyatt, resting on her elbows at the kitchen table, the only place in the empty house to sit down, outside of her bed, and she didn't want to go upstairs yet.

The idea of being alone was to have time to look at her situation: see where she was in relation to her goal in life, if she had one, and figure out why she was confused-if it took all night.

As it turned out, she had a revelation in less than half an hour.

Dance Fever appeared on the black-and-white TV her folks had left for her on the kitchen counter. Dance Fever was a talent contest judged by semi-well-known names from the entertainment world. Greta watched couples come out and perform acrobatic dances in sequined costumes that would catch the studio lights and flash on the black-and-white screen.

She watched the girls especially, studied each one and thought, Oh my God, she's a Ginger Jones. Four part-time Ginger Joneses, one after another, with their huge thighs and show-biz smiles locked in place, throwing themselves into their routines and trusting their muscular little partners to catch them. She had even said to Chris the other night, "You know how many Ginger Joneses there are just in Detroit?" Talking about if she had talent or not. And he said, "There's only one Greta Wyatt that I know of."

She realized now a revelation could be right smack in front of you all the time, but so simple you miss it.

Why use a fake name that makes you think of yourself as a third-rate performer?

The movie director had told her she was really good, a natural, as GIRL IN BAR. Greta Wyatt acting, playing a part that wasn't anything like her. Why give Ginger Jones the credit? Someone she didn't respect.

She'd call up the movie company in Hollywood and tell them she'd like her credit changed to read: GIRL IN BAR, dot dot dot, Greta Wyatt.

How many Gretas were there in Hollywood these days?

Next. See Woody and relieve her mind of that part.

Settle with him fairly; accept his original offer. Even if he did rape her, or try to, it didn't mean she should take advantage of him.

Twenty-five thousand was plenty. She didn't need a car anymore. Or need to get mixed up in what could become a mess, his brother already dead, and find herself caught in the middle. End up being one of those girls that gets her hair done, then opens her door for the news people, the TV cameras, and acts innocent, holding a hanky to her nose… Or open the door wearing sunglasses and act mysterious, escorted through the crowd to a big car, and the next thing you know Farrah Fawcett wants to play you in the movie.

New rules to live by. One, be yourself. No more Ginger. Two, see Woody and get that over with. Three…

Three was still up in the air but seemed okay. What to do about Chris Mankowski. His voice on the message recorder said, "Greta, I haven't changed one bit," and it made her feel good, the way seeing him walking around in his underwear made her feel good. She was herself with him, or she could play around acting cute with him and he loved it. Now she missed him and wanted him to hurry up and call. But then thought of the scene in Jacoby's again and wondered what she would look like on the screen.

She thought of Woody and saw him handing her a check.

Thought of Chris in bed wearing his dad's glasses.

Thought of the director, the way he looked at her when she finished the scene, the way he put his hand on her arm.

She saw Woody, he was making her take a check for a hundred thousand, insisting, and saw herself coming out of his house putting on sunglasses.

Greta smiled.

She thought of Chris, his body, the scars on his legs.

And now she was in a dark movie theater, watching titles appear on the screen, waiting for her name…

It was after seven by the time Chris got hold of the building manager, back from somewhere with his toolbox, and told him Miss Abbott didn't answer when he buzzed her apartment. The manager, grim as ever, said when that happened it meant the person wasn't home. Not trying to be funny. Chris came close to grabbing him by the throat.

He held on and said in a fairly nice tone, What he was about to ask, would it be too much trouble to look in her apartment and make sure?

The manager said he was already late sitting down to his supper.

Standing in that dingy hall by the manager's apartment Chris said, "I better inform you, you could be charged here with creating an improper diversion in violation of ordinance 613.404. Carries, I think, up to a year."

The manager, frowning, thinking about it, said, "Creating a what?"

Chris hunched in close to the guy's flashing bifocals and said, "Get the goddamn pass key."

Robin wasn't home.

He got back in his dad's car and drove out to Bloomfield Hills.

Northbound traffic was light on the freeway and he was able to go seventy or better, feeling an urgent need to get Robin and Skip nailed down, located, under some kind of surveillance. He knew where to find Donnell.