"What did the sonofabitch want?" she found herself asking. There was a second surprise here. Her mouth put the words in a perfectly sensible order without her having to labor over it.

"He claims he's writing a book. Can you believe the audacity of the creep -- "

"You know, I did know about this," Tammy said.

"So he talked to you."

"He didn't, but Jerry Brahms did." The conversation with Jerry came back to her remotely, as though it had happened several months ago.

"Oh good," Maxine said, "so you're up to speed. I've got a bunch of lawyers together to find out if he can do this, and it turns out-guess what?-he can. He can write what the hell he likes about any of us. We can sue of course but that'll just -- "

"-give him more publicity."

"That's exactly what Peltzer said. He said the book would last two months on the shelves, three at the outside, then it would be forgotten."

"He's probably right. Anyway, Rooney's not going to get any help from me."

"That's not going to stop him, of course."

"I know," Tammy said, "but frankly -- "

"You don't give a damn."

"Right."

There was a pause. It seemed the conversation was almost at an end. Then, rather quietly, Maxine said: "Have you had any thoughts at all about going back up to the Canyon?"

There was a second pause, twice, three times the length of the first, at the end of which Tammy suddenly found herself saying: "Of course."

It felt more like an admission of guilt than a straight-forward reply. And what was more, it wasn't something she'd consciously been thinking about. But apparently somewhere in the recesses of her churned-up head she'd actually contemplated returning to the house.

"I have too," Maxine confessed. "I know it's ridiculous. After everything that happened up there."

"Yes ... it's ridiculous."

"But it feels like ... "

"Unfinished business," Tammy prompted.

"Yes. Precisely. Jesus, why didn't I have the wit to call you earlier? I knew you'd understand. Unfinished business. That's exactly what it is."

The real meat of this exchange suddenly became clear to Tammy. She wasn't the only one who was having a bad time. So was Maxine. Of all people, Maxine, who'd always struck Tammy as one of the most capable, self-confident and unspookable woman in America. It was profoundly reassuring.

"The thing is," Maxine went on, "I don't particularly want to go up there alone."

"I'm not even sure I'm ready."

"Me neither. But frankly, the longer we leave it the worse it's going to get. And it's bad, isn't it?"

"Yes ... " Tammy said, finally letting her own despair flood into her words. "It's worse than bad. It's terrible, Maxine. It's just ... words can't describe it."

"You sound the way I look," Maxine replied. "I'm seeing a therapist four times a week and I'm drinking like a fish, but none of it's doing any good."

"I'm just avoiding everybody."

"Does that help?" Maxine wanted to know.

"No. Not really."

"So we're both in a bad way. What do we do about it? I realize we're not at all alike, Tammy. God knows I can be a bitch. Then when I met Katya-when I saw what kind of woman I could turn into-that frightened me. I thought: yuck, that could be me."

"You were protecting him. You know, in a way, we both were."

"I suppose that's right. The question is: have we finished, or is there more to do?"

Tammy Jet out a low moan. "Do you mean what I think you mean?" she said.

"That depends what you think I mean."

"That you think he's still up there in the Canyon? Lost."

"Christ, I don't know. All I know is I can't get him out of my head." She drew a deep breath, then let the whole, bitter truth out. "For some stupid reason I think he still needs us."

"Don't say that."

"Maybe it's not us," Maxine said. "Maybe it's you. He had a lot of feelings for you, you know."

"If that's you trying to talk me into going back to the Canyon, it's not going to work."

"So I take it you won't come?"

"I didn't say that."

"Well make up your mind one way or another," Maxine replied, exhibiting a little of the impatience which had been happily absent from their exchange thus far. "Do you want to come with me or not?"

The conversation was making Tammy a little weary now. She hadn't spoke to anybody at such length for several weeks, and the chat-welcome as it was-was taking its toll.

Did she want to go back to the Canyon or not? The question was plain enough. But the answer was a minefield. On the one hand, she could scarcely think of any place on earth she wanted to go less. She'd been jubilant when she'd driven away from it with Maxine and Jerry; she'd felt as though she'd escaped a death-sentence by a hair's-breadth. Why in God's name would it make any sense to go back there now?

On the other hand, there was the issue she herself had raised: that of unfinished business. If there was something up there that remained to be done then maybe it was best to get up there and do it. She'd been hiding away from that knowledge for the last several weeks, churning her fears over and over, trying to pretend it was all over. But Maxine had called her bluff. Maybe they'd called each other's: admitted together what they could not have confessed to apart.

"All right," she said finally.

"All right, what?"

"I'll go with you."

Maxine breathed an audible sigh of relief. "Oh, thank God for that. I was afraid you were going to freak out on me and I was going to have to go up there on my own."

"When were you planning to do this?"

"Is tomorrow too soon?" Maxine said. "You come to my office and we'll go from there?"

"Are you going to ask Jerry to come with us?"

"He's gone," Maxine replied.

"Jerry's dead?"

"No, Key West, He's sold his apartment and moved, all in a week. Life's too short, he said."

"So it's just the two of us."

"It's just the two of us. And whatever we find up there."

SEVEN

On several occasions in the next twelve hours Tammy's resolve almost failed her and she thought about calling and telling Maxine that she wouldn't be coming to Los Angeles after all, but though her courage was weak it didn't go belly up. In fact she arrived at Maxine's office twenty minutes earlier than they'd arranged, catching Maxine in an uncharacteristic state of disarray, her hair uncombed, her face without blush or lipstick.

She'd lost weight; shed perhaps fifteen pounds courtesy of the Canyon. So had Tammy. Every cloud had a silver lining.

"You look better than you sounded," Maxine said. "When we first started talking I thought you were dying."

"So did I, on and off."

"It was that bad, huh?"

"I locked myself in my house. Didn't talk to anyone. Did you talk to anybody?"

"I tried. But all people wanted to know about was the morbid stuff. I tell you, there's a lot of people who I thought were friends of mine who showed their true colors over this. People I thought cared about Todd, who were about as crass as you can get. 'Was there a lot of blood?' That kind of thing."

"Maybe I did the right thing, locking myself away."

"It's certainly given me a new perspective on people. They like to talk about death: as long as it's not theirs."

Tammy took a look around the office while they chatted. It was very dark, very masculine: antique European furniture, Persian rugs. On the walls, photographs of Maxine in the company of the powerful and the famous: Maxine with Todd at the opening of several of his movies, Maxine with Clinton and Gore at a Democratic fundraiser, when the President-elect still had color in his hair, and a reputation to lose; Maxine with a number of A-list stars, some of whom had fallen from the firmament since the pictures had been taken: Cruise, Van Damme, Costner, Demi Moore, Michael Douglas (looking very morose for some reason), Mel Gibson, Anjelica Huston, Denzel Washington and Bette Midler. And on the sideboard, in Art Nouveau silver frames, a collection of pictures which Maxine obviously valued more highly than the rest. One in particular caught Tammy's eye: in it Todd was standing along side a very sour, very old woman who was ostentatiously smoking a cigarette.