"Okay, so you're not the best actor in Hollywood. You're not the worst either."

"No. I grant you, there's worse."

"A lot worse."

"All right, a lot worse. Still doesn't make me a good actor."

He obviously wasn't going to be moved on the subject, so Tammy left it where it was. They drove on in silence for a while. Then he swung the mirror round, and checked out his face. "You know I'm nervous?"

"Why?"

"In case there's anybody at Maxine's place." He went back and forth between studying his face and checking the road.

"You look fine," Tammy told him.

"I guess it's not so bad," he said, assessing his features.

"You just look a little different from the way you used to look."

"Different enough that people will notice?"

Tammy couldn't lie to him. "Sure they'll notice. But maybe they'll say you look better. I mean, when everything's properly healed and you've had a month's vacation."

"You will come in with me, won't you?"

"To see Maxine? My pleasure."

"Mind if I smoke?" He didn't wait for a reply. He just rolled down the window, pulled out a battered pack of cigarettes, and lit up. The rush of nicotine made him whoop. "That's better! Okay. We're going to do this. You and me. We're going to ask Maxine a lot of very difficult questions, and figure out whether she's lying to us or not."

They had reached the Pacific Coast Highway, and the roar of the traffic through the open window made any further talk impractical for a time. They drove north for perhaps five miles, before coming off the PCH and heading west. The area wouldn't have been Tammy's idea of idyllic. Somehow she'd imagined Malibu being more like a little slice of Hawaii; but in fact it was just a sliver of real estate two or three houses deep, with the incessant din of the Pacific Coast Highway on one side and a narrow strip of beach on the other. They'd scarcely driven more than a quarter of a mile when they came to the Colony gates. There was a guard-house, and a single guard, who was sitting with his booted feet up beside a small television. The set went off as soon as they drove up, a broad smile appearing on the man's face.

"Hey, Mr. Pickett. Long time, no see."

"Ron, m'man. How goes it?"

"It goes good, it goes good."

The guard was clearly delighted that his name had been remembered.

"Are you going to Ms. Frizelle's party?"

"Oh ... yeah," Todd said, throwing a panicked glance at Tammy. "We're here for that."

"That's great." He peered past Todd, at the passenger. "And this is?"

"Oh, this is Tammy. Tammy, Ron. Ron, Tammy. Tammy's my date for the night."

"Good goin'," Ron said, to no one and about nothing in particular. Just a general California yea-saying to the world. "Let me just call Ms. Frizelle, and tell her you're on your way down."

"Nah," Todd said, sliding a twenty dollar bill into Ron's hand. "We're going to surprise her."

"No problem," Ron said, waving them by. "Good to see you, by the way -- "

It took Tammy a moment to realize that Ron was talking to her.

"It's always good to meet a new friend of Mr. Pickett's." There didn't seem to be any irony in this: it was a genuine expression of feeling.

"Well, thank you," Tammy said, thrown a little off-kilter by this.

"Fuck. She's having a party," Todd said to her as they left the guardhouse behind them.

"So."

"So there'll be lots of people. Looking at me."

"They've got to do it sooner or later."

Todd stopped the car in the middle of the street.

"I can't. I'm not ready for this."

"Yes you are. The more you put it off the more difficult it's going to be."

Todd sat there shaking his head saying: "No. No. I can't do it."

Tammy put her hand over his. "I'm just as nervous as you are," she said. "Feel how clammy my hand is?"

"Yeah."

"But we said we'd get answers. And the longer we take to ask her the more lies she'll have ready."

"You do know her, don't you?" he said.

"She's my nightmare."

"Really. Why?"

"Because she stood between me and you."

"Huh."

Silence.

"So what are we going to do?" Tammy said finally.

"Shit. I don't want to do this."

"So that makes two of us. But -- "

"I know, I know, if we don't do it now ... All right. You win. But I will beat the living shit out of the first person who says one word about my face."

They drove on, the houses they were driving past far more modest in scale and design than she'd expected. There was very little here of the kitsch of Beverly Hills: no faux-French chateaux sitting side by side with faux-Tudor mansions. The houses were mostly extremely plain, boxlike in most cases, with very occasional architectural flourishes. They were also very close to one another. "You wouldn't get much privacy there," Tammy commented.

"I guess everybody just pretends not to look at everybody else. Or they just don't care. That's more like it. They just don't care."

"That's the connection between you and Katya, isn't it? You've both been looked at so much ... and the rest of us don't know what that feels like."

"It feels like somebody's siphoning out your blood, pint by pint."

"Not good."

"No. Not good."

They rounded a corner, bringing their destination into view. The party-house was decorated with thousands of tiny white twinkle lights, as were the two palm trees that stood like sentinels to left and right of the door.

"Christmas came early this year," Tammy remarked.

"Apparently."

There were uniformed valets working the street; taking cars from the guests and spiriting them away to be parked somewhere out of sight.

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" Todd asked Tammy.

"No more than you are."

"Want to go one more circle around the block?"

"Yes."

"Uh-oh. Too late."

Two valets were coming at the car bearing what must have been burdensome smiles. As the doors were opened, Todd caught tight hold of Tammy's hand. "Don't leave my side," he said. "Promise me you won't."

"I promise," she said, and raising her head she put on her best impersonation of someone who was rich, famous and belonged at Todd Pickett's side. Todd relinquished the keys to the valet.

"May I assume this is your first A-list Hollywood party in the flesh?" Todd said to Tammy.

"You may."

"Well then this could be a lot of fun. In a grotesque, 'there's a shark in the swimming pool' sort of way."

SEVEN

There came a point, as Jerry's car was carrying Katya out of for the first time in the better part of three quarters of a century, when her fears seemed to get the better of her. Jerry heard a voice, as dry as a husk, out of the darkness behind him: "I'm sorry ... I don't know that I can do this."

"Do you want me to turn around?" he asked her. "I will if you want me to."

There was no reply. Just the soft sound of frightened weeping. "I wish Zeffer was still here. Why was I so cruel to him?" None of this seemed to be for open discussion. It was more like a private confessional. "Why am I such a bitch? Jesus. Jesus. Everything I've ever loved ... " She stopped herself, and looked up at Jerry, catching his reflection in the mirror. "Don't mind me. It's just a crazy old woman talking to herself."

"Maybe we should go back and find Mr. Zeffer? He could come with you. I realize there was some bad blood between you -- "

"Zeffer's dead, Jerry. I lost my temper with him, and -- "

"You killed him?"

"No. I left him in the Devil's Country. Wounded by one of the hunters."

"Lord."

Jerry brought the car to a halt. He stared out of the window, horrified. "What would you like me to do?" he said after a while. "If you can't go on without him, I mean."