"Okay, but what about the films that featured anti-hero detectives like The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep?"

What about 'em?

"Weren't you a fan of them?"

Sweetheart, I didn't need to see 1,001 frames of Humphrey Bogart to tell me how the world turned. Sure, I watched those pictures-when I was tailing cheating spouses or sniffing out blackmailers and scumbag suspects. The balcony always was a nice, dark place for dirty deeds. And the only thing that made those movies worth my dime were the broads. I can't deny those long-legged starlet types were serious whistle bait.

"You mean like Hedda Geist up there?"

I waited for Jack to answer. He didn't.

"Jack?"

But there was no reply. The ghost had abruptly withdrawn- an annoying habit of Jack's. Shrugging off his sudden departure, I turned my full attention back to the movie screen, where Hedda was playing one of her most famous parts, the femme fatale Sybil Sand.

With her shimmering, torn silver gown, Hedda flagged down the car driven by the haggard salesman "Joe." He pulled his car over and she pulled him into a web of lies about her "abusive" husband. By the time she was done with him, Joe had murdered Sybil's spouse for her, so Sybil could inherit the man's fortune. Unfortunately, the husband's older sister became suspicious, and Sybil once again called on Joe to kill for her.

In the last act, Sybil and Joe were on the run, staying one step ahead of the law until Sybil herself fingered the gullible salesman for the two murders, setting him up for the gas chamber, while she (nearly) walked away-except for that bullet in her back, when Joe finally got wise that he'd been played like a piano then tossed like a used toothpick.

As Wrong Turn's score swelled to a climax and the end credits rolled, I noticed a man moving down the far aisle, then up the side staircase to the theater's stage.

The man wasn't very old, maybe late twenties, with a bulky body and round, baby face. He wore his blond hair in a ponytail and a Hawaiian shirt over baggy jeans.

From the wings, hardware store owner Bud Napp loped back out onto the stage. He nodded at the twenty-something man, set up the standing mike, and returned to the wings.

"Testing, one, two… " murmured Ponytail Man, tapping the mike. The noise came out of the speaker high above his head. The man greeted the audience, and a spotlight shined down from the projectionist's booth, making his gold loop earring sparkle.

"Who's the clown with the earring?" Seymour asked, leaning forward to stick his head between me and Brainert.

"That's no clown," Brainert replied. "That's Barry Yello, and he's been a big help organizing this weekend's events-he and

Dr. Lilly."

"Oh, right," I murmured, "Barry Yello. I should have recognized him from his book cover photo."

After dropping out of film school, Yello had founded the influential Internet site FylmGeek.com

, now read by film students and professionals in Hollywood who routinely left insider comments and opinions in the highly trafficked forum.

He'd recently published his first book, which-he announced to the crowd-he'd be signing at Buy the Book over the weekend.

"Good plug," Seymour whispered in my ear.

I gave a thumbs-up, even though his book-Bad Barry: My Love Affair with B, C, and D Movies-was only trade paper. Unit for unit, the store made better profit on the hardcovers.

"Yello's got a loyal following," Brainert assured me. "You'll be moving a lot of them."

"And now," Barry concluded, "to discuss Wrong Turn better than I ever could, I'd like to introduce a first-rate film historian, Dr. Irene Lilly."

I glanced through my program to refresh myself on Dr. Lilly's bio. A San Fernando University professor, she was best known as the author of Cities in Shadow, an award-winning study of film noir (in hardcover). But in our e-mail exchanges over the past few weeks, she was quite adamant that her appearance at the festival would be devoted entirely to promoting her brand- new hardcover, Murdered in Plain Sight.

There was nothing unusual about Dr. Lilly's wanting to promote her front-list title. Traditional author tours and appearances were geared toward exactly that. But I did find it strangely dismissive of Dr. Lilly not to care about her backlist sales, too.

"Please, Mrs. McClure," she had written, "do not bother stocking my backlist. The new title is the one I wish to promote and sell-and I'll personally handle the order and delivery. Leave everything to me "

When she took the stage, the slender, fortyish Dr. Lilly appeared relaxed and confident-and very Californian with straight, dark blonde hair tied back into a ponytail. Even Dr. Lilly's attire was California relaxed: Her sundress was a loose shift of pale flowers, her necklace was hemp and natural beads, and her flat leather footwear had more in common with beach flip-flops than evening shoes.

With Dr. Lilly's laid-back style, however, came no lack of energy. Her voice was strong, and her spirits obviously high as she addressed the crowd.

"What a treat it is to see Wrong Turn on a big screen, the way it was first shown in 1948! Don't you all agree?"

The crowd applauded.

"Wrong Turn is a classic example of film noir… but what is film noir? And why is this American cinematic style described with the French words meaning black film? To explain, I'll have to take you back to the summer of 1946. For years, the French had been cut off from American cinema. Now that the war was over, ten American films were brought over to Paris and released in one six-week period: The Maltese Falcon; Laura; Murder, My Sweet; Double Indemnity; The Woman in the Window; This Gun for Hire; The Killers; Lady in the Lake; Gilda; and The Big Sleep."

Dr. Lilly gestured to the screen behind her where a slide show of old movie posters was being projected. "The release of these movies in a concentrated time period caused a sensation. The French critics immediately recognized that a new style of film had begun to be made before and during the war. These were darker-themed pictures that dealt with crime, detectives, and middle-class murder. The films were sometimes based on, or similar to, the novels of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and James M. Cain-novels that the French already had labeled serie noire or 'black series.' "

I knew all of this already, but I listened patiently.

"As part of that movement," Dr. Lilly continued, "Wrong Turn was produced in the late 1940s by Irving Vreen's Gotham Features-a Poverty Row studio, operating out of Queens, New York. The film's leading lady, Sybil Sand, played by Hedda Geist, shows us one of the genre's most powerful archetypes, the femme fatale. Tonight, in Sybil, you've seen the same kind of 'sexy but dangerous woman' that you'll also be seeing in other films scheduled this weekend."

"Hear that Jack?" I silently whispered, still wondering if the ghost was with me. "You're not the only one who remembers your filmmaking friends in Queens." I waited for Jack to reply.

"Jack?"

The ghost still wasn't answering me, and I wondered if maybe he couldn't. I grabbed my purse off the seat's armrest, shoved my hand inside, and searched the tiny soft pocket sewn into the lining. The moment I felt the hard, smooth coin, I breathed a sigh of relief. Jack's nickel was there. I hadn't lost it.

What's the matter, baby? Miss me that much?

When the ghost first started haunting me, he couldn't seem to travel beyond the four walls of my bookshop. Then I got hold of his case files and found an old buffalo nickel inside one of the dusty folders. Jack had carried that nickel around with him in life. And, now, whenever I carried it with me, he seemed to be able to travel in death.

"Jack." I swallowed my nerves. "I thought I'd lost the nickel. Why didn't you answer me?"