On the accelerated tape, the strobes flashed almost continuously as Madonna stepped from her limousine and preened. “Want to slow it down? You interested in this?”

Connor said, “Not tonight.”

“Well, we probably have a lot on her,” Jenny said. She pushed the very high-speed fast-forward and the image streaked gray. When she punched back, Madonna was wiggling toward the elevator, leaning on the arm of a slender Hispanic boy with a mustache. The image blurred as the camera swung back toward the street. Then it stabilized again.

“There’s Daniel Okimoto. Expert on Japanese industrial policy. That’s Arnold, with Maria. And behind them is Steve Martin, with Arata Isozaki, the architect who designed the Museum—“

Connor said, “Wait.”

She punched the console button. The picture froze. Jenny seemed surprised. “You’re interested in Isozaki?”

“No. Back up, please.”

The tape ran backward, the frames flicking and blurring as the camera panned off Steve Martin, and went back to record the next arrival from the limousines. But for a moment in the pan, the camera swung past a group of people who had already gotten out of their limousines, and were walking up the carpeted sidewalk.

Connor said, “There.”

The image froze. Slightly blurred, I saw a tall blonde in a black cocktail dress walking forward alongside a handsome man in a dark suit.

“Huh,” Jenny said. “You interested in him, or her?”

“Her. “

“Let me think,” Jenny said, frowning. “I’ve seen her at parties with the Washington types for about nine months now. She’s this year’s Kelly Emberg. The athletic modelly kind. But sophisticated, sort of a Tatiana look-alike. Her name is… Austin. Cindy Austin, Carrie Austin… Cheryl Austin. That’s it.”

I said, “You know anything else about her?”

Jenny shook her head. “Listen, I think getting a name is pretty good. These girls show up all the time. You see a new one everywhere for six months, a year, and then they’re gone. God knows where they go. Who can keep track of them?”

“And the man with her?”

“Richard Levitt. Plastic surgeon. Does a lot of big stars.”

“What’s he doing here?”

She shrugged. “He’s around. Like a lot of these guys, he’s a companion to the stars in their time of need. If his patients are getting divorced or whatever, he escorts the woman. When he’s not taking out clients, he takes out models like her. They certainly look good together.”

On the monitor, Cheryl and her escort walked toward us in intermittent jerks: one frame every thirty seconds. Stepping slow. I noticed they never looked at each other. She seemed tense, expectant.

Jenny Gonzales said, “So. Plastic surgeon and a model. Can I ask what’s the big deal about these two? Because at an evening like this, they’re just, you know, party favors.”

Connor said, “She was killed tonight.”

“Oh, she’s the one? Interesting.”

I said, “You’ve heard about the murder?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Was it on the news?”

“No, didn’t make the eleven o’clock,” Jenny said. “And it probably won’t be on tomorrow. I can’t see it myself. It’s not really a story.”

“Why is that?” I asked, glancing at Connor.

“Well, what’s the peg?”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Nakamoto would say, it’s only news because it happened at their opening. They’d take the position that any reporting of it is a smear on them. But in a way they’re right. I mean, if this girl got killed on the freeway, it wouldn’t make the news. If she got killed in a convenience store robbery, it wouldn’t make the news. We have two or three of those every night. So the fact that she gets killed at a party… who cares? It’s still not news. She’s young and pretty, but she’s not special. It’s not as if she has a series or anything.” .

Connor glanced at his watch. “Shall we look at the other tapes?”

“The footage from the party? Sure. You looking for this particular girl?”

“Right.”

“Okay, here we go.” Jenny put in the third tape.

We saw scenes from the party on the forty-fifth floor: the swing band, people dancing beneath the hanging decorations. We strained for a glimpse of the girl in the crowd. Jenny said, “In Japan, we wouldn’t have to do this by eye. The Japanese have pretty sophisticated video-recognition software now. They have a program where you identify an image, say a face, and it’ll automatically search tape for you, and find every instance of that face. Find it in a crowd, or wherever it appears. Has the ability to see a single view of a three-dimensional object, and then to recognize the same object in other views. It’s supposed to be pretty nifty. But slow.”

“I’m surprised the station hasn’t got it.”

“Oh, it’s not for sale here. The most advanced Japanese video equipment isn’t available in this country. They keep us three to five years behind. Which is their privilege. It’s their technology, they can do what they want. But it’d sure be useful in a case like this.”

The party images were streaming past, a frenetic blur.

Suddenly, she locked the image.

“There. Background camera left. Your Austin girl’s talking to Eddie Sakamura. Of course he’d know her. Sakamura knows all the models. Normal speed here?”

“Please,” Connor said, staring at the screen.

The camera made a slow pan around the room. Cheryl Austin remained in view for most of the shot. Laughing with Eddie Sakamura, throwing her head back, resting her hand on his arm, happy to be with him. Eddie clowned for her, his face mobile. He seemed to enjoy making her laugh. But from time to time, her eyes flicked away, glancing around the room. As if she was waiting for something to happen. Or for someone to arrive.

At one point, Sakamura became aware he did not have her full attention. He grabbed her arm and pulled her roughly toward him. She turned her face away from him. He leaned close to her and said something angrily. Then a bald man stepped forward, very close to the camera. The light flared on his face, washing out his features, and his head blocked our view of Eddie and the girl. Then the camera panned left, and we lost them.

“Damn.”

“Again?” Jenny backed it up, and we ran it once more.

I said, “Eddie’s obviously not happy with her.”

“I’d say.”

Connor frowned. “It’s so difficult to know what we are seeing. Do you have sound for this?”

Jenny said, “Sure, but it’s probably walla.” She punched buttons and ran it again. The track was continuous cocktail party din. Only for brief moments did we hear an isolated phrase.

At one point, Cheryl Austin looked at Eddie Sakamura and said, “…can’t help if it’s important to you I get…”

His reply to her was garbled, but later, he said clearly to her, “Don’t understand… all about the Saturday meeting…”

And in the last few seconds of the pan, when he pulled her to him, he snarled a phrase like “…be a fool… no cheapie…”

I said, “Did he say ‘No cheapie’?”

“Something like that,” Connor said.

Jenny said, “Want to run it again?”

“No,” Connor said. “There’s nothing more to be learned here. Go forward.”

“Right,” Jenny said.

The image accelerated, the party-goers becoming frenetic, laughing and raising glasses for quick sips. And then I said, “Wait.”

Back to normal speed. A blond woman in an Armani silk suit shaking hands with the bald-headed man we had seen a few moments before.

“What is it?” Jenny said, looking at me.

“That’s his wife,” Connor said.

The woman leaned forward to kiss the bald man lightly on the mouth. Then she stepped back and made some comment about the suit he was wearing.

“She’s a lawyer in the D.A.’s office,” Jenny said. “Lauren Davis. She’s assisted on a couple of big cases. The Sunset Strangler, the Kellerman shooting. She’s very ambitious. Smart and well connected. They say she has a future if she stays in the office. It must be true, because Wyland doesn’t ever let her get air time. As you see, she makes a good appearance, but he keeps her away from the microphones. The bald guy she’s talking to is John McKenna, with Regis McKenna in San Francisco. The company that does the publicity for most high-tech firms,”