He looked up, now, from his meal and gave me a quick, strong smile, his broad face creasing momentarily. Perhaps, I thought, perhaps because Rudolf Fischer was so manifestly not my father, and Hugh Paget possessed all the substantiality of myth, I was seizing too firmly on to this new candidate, all attractive flesh and blood, all very much here and now? It was a form of temptation, I knew, a kind of seduction and, I realised as I contemplated this sturdy, handsome old man, it was one I was not as well equipped to resist as I thought.

When I asked him if he wanted a dessert he said he would prefer to eat another fish. He ordered a poached steak of yellowtail tuna which he consumed slowly and with much intense savouring of its flavours as I ate ice-cream and smoked a cigarette. After his second fish he ordered a cognac, the cheapest in the house. He discreetly picked his teeth with a quill tip (he carried a small packet of them with him) and then seemed to rinse his mouth with the brandy. I started to chatter – most uncharacteristically – to cover my mild embarrassment as this dental toilette, this boccal sluicing, went on. He listened politely as I told him about Santa Monica, Venice and the Malibu as I had known them over the years, but all the while I was aware of him sipping brandy and then, more disturbingly, I could hear the foamy susurrus in his mouth as he swilled and flushed the liquid between his teeth.

' – and the Roosevelt Highway didn't exist,' I was saying. 'I mean, now you can take it all the way up the coast to Oxnard, but I remember I came down here with Pappi once-I must have been about twelve – '

'Twelve?'

'Yes, I -'

He frowned. 'That would be about 1916?'

'Thereabouts. Twelve or thirteen, I guess. Pappi had this client – it was J. W. Considine, in fact – who had a house at the Malibu and we had to catch a boat out there from the Santa Monica pier. It was real cut off in those-'

'Kay I stopped talking at once. I realised he had not been listening to me.

'-If I was looking for a man in California,' he said, 'how would I set about finding him?'

'It depends… Do you know his name?'

'He's called Paton Bobby. All I know is he lives in California. He used to, anyway.'

I stubbed out my cigarette. 'Paton Bobby. Have you got any more information?'

'He's a little bit older than me. And I think he was a policeman.'

'That might help. Anything else?'

'That's it.'

I looked at him. I knew that our business, whatever it would turn out to be, was beginning, now, irrevocably.

'May I know why you want to find him?'

He smiled a faint, dreamy smile. His mood had changed ever since I had mentioned my childhood trip to the Malibu, my age and the date. It had sent him back through time, perhaps to that place where he could never get enough fish, and his thoughts had stayed there.

'I'm sorry, my dear, what did you say?'

'Why do you need to find this Paton Bobby?'

He sighed, looked down at his empty plate, turned his fork so that its tines pointed downward, and returned his gaze to mine.

'I suppose you could say,' he said, his eyes innocently wide, his expression bland, 'that I'm looking for a killer.'

EIGHT

Philip wrote out the cheque with evident but ridiculously disproportionate pride and handed it over with a courtly flourish.

'Pay to the order of Mrs Kay Fischer, two hundred dollars,' he said, through his grin.

'So you got a job,' I said.

'And a bank account. I've got six weeks' work with MGM. I'm the third writer on Four Guns for Texas.'

'Sounds fulfilling.'

'Sounds like money.'

We were sitting in my office on Hollywood Boulevard. From my office window I could see the top three storeys of the Guaranty Building and the dusty fronds of a palm tree. I rented three rooms above a clothing wholesaler – Tex-Style Imports Co.-who specialised in blue jeans, dungarees and work boots that were sold to the petrochemical industry. The room that faced the boulevard was my office, beyond that was a small corridor that led to a windowless cube which was the drawing room where my solitary assistant, Ivan Feinberg, worked. Off the corridor was the reception area with a view of the parking lot. Mary Duveen, my secretary, had her desk here, squeezed between two banks of filing cabinets. It was all a bit shabby, a little make-do, especially compared to what I had become accustomed to at Meyersen and Fischer, but since the great schism and the lawsuit I had been obliged to economise. I had heard from one of my former colleagues that Meyersen had moved into my old office. Perhaps that was what he had been after all the time?…

I took Philip's cheque and folded it away in my pocket book. He had had his hair cut and was wearing a new sportscoat, cotton, a greenish plaid, and wide mushroom-coloured trousers. His short hair, I thought, made him look even younger, a superannuated college kid, and for a moment I felt a brief squirm of self-pity as I reflected on our short marriage and what I had lost when I kicked him out. I kept the appellation 'Mrs', not because it impressed my clients but because it made them relax, but joined it up with my maiden name. The conjunction seemed to me to reflect ideally my social and personal status. But Philip was offended and hurt: I was having my cake and eating it, he said truculently. But isn't that what life's all about, I replied, the goal we're all chasing? A brief squirm of self-pity, but one that disappeared soon enough.

'Movies,' I said, breezily. 'Going to get your name on this one?'

'There's a chance.'

I laughed. 'And pigs may fly one day, they tell me.' I stood up. 'I'll walk down with you, I've got to get some lunch.'

As we descended the two floors to the street I asked Philip if he knew any way of tracking down a man called Paton Bobby, who was in his sixties and might have been a policeman.

'Tried the phone book? Who's Paton Bobby?'

'A friend of mine needs to find him. I thought you might know how.'

He shrugged. 'You could hire a P. I., I guess… Or maybe I could ask the head of security at the studio – ' He grinned. 'Did you hear that? "At the studio" – I'm a natural, success simply cannot continue to elude me. This guy used to be a cop, he might have some idea.'

We sauntered down the sidewalk towards a street vendor. The sun was hot on the crown of my head and I undid the top button on my blouse. It was a fine day with a baby-blue sky up above and a few perfect dawdling clouds. A fresh breeze moved through the fronds of the new palm trees, still only half the height of the streetlamps. They made a sound of nail scissors snipping or of matches tipped on to a glass table. I put on my sunglasses as the sun bounced off the white walls of the buildings across the street. Too much Streamline Moderne for my taste these days. Curved walls, curved glass, mirrored panels set here and there, stringcourses picked out in red and black to emphasise the horizontals, canopies swooping round corners or ducking into forecourts whenever possible… What was going on here? It was all vitiated anyway by the garish lettering, shouting signs in primary colours hanging off buildings or else set on cantilevered wooden hoardings on the flat roofs, good chow! ham 'n eggs, cameras, gifts, parking. We passed through a tangy waft of fried onion as we walked by harrold's charcoal broiled steaks and made for the street vendor with his refulgent silver chariot. I ordered a super chile dog with mustard and extra onions.

Philip touched my arm. 'Listen, you're not in any kind of trouble, are you, hon?' He was sincere, and it was a kind thought. I realised I was still very fond of him.

'Of course I'm not,' I reassured him. 'It's some old fellow I know, needs to track this party down.'