"And the nature of that transaction?"

"A payoff."

Brewster nodded again. He looked at me. "Is this your eyewitness?"

"No."

"Who is your eyewitness?"

Candy shook her head. "He'll have to remain anonymous for now."

"Of course," Brewster said. "Of course he would. You media types are all the same, aren't you. You have information but you can't give me specifics. You have an eyewitness, but he'll have to remain anonymous."

"Do you wish to comment on the allegations?" Candy said.

"The allegation is without foundation," Brewster said. "And you are without professional ethics. I shall be discussing you with the management of KNBS shortly."

"I'm only trying to do my job, Mr. Brewster," Candy said.

"And I seriously doubt that you'll have a job for very much longer," Brewster said.

"You mean, you're going to get me fired?" Candy's gaze was final, but her voice had softened a little.

"Precisely," Brewster said.

I looked at Holmes, the lawyer. "Is that actionable?" I said.

"And I am sick of your smart mouth too," Brewster said. He did his stare again. "Who is your superior?"

"I have none," I said. "I'm not sure I even have an equal."

"Spenser," Candy said, "please! You're not helping. Do you have any statement for me, Mr. Brewster?"

"I've made it. Now I want you both off of Oceania property. Now."

Candy said, "Mr. Brewster-"

Brewster said, "Now."

Simms, the security type with the tinted gla.s.ses, got to his feet.

I looked at him. "Simms," I said, "this horse's a.s.s that you work for has made me very edgy. If you do anything more than stand up, I will put you in two weeks of traction."

Simms said, "Hey."

"I mean it," I said. "Sit down."

Candy's face was flushed. She moved in front of me. "Come on," she said. "You're making it worse. Come on. I want to go home."

Brewster pushed his desk intercom. "Miss Blaisdell," he said, "send some security people in here at once."

Candy said, "See what you've done. Come on, let's get out of here."

I said, "It is not dignified to run off like this."

"Come on," she said and headed for the door. There was nothing left there for me to do. Telling Brewster he'd be hearing from me seemed graceless. I thought about kicking him, but by the time I got around the desk, the entire security force would be setting up gun emplacements in the reception room. I lingered another few seconds, hoping that Simms would lay hold of me. No luck. n.o.body moved. Everyone looked at me. I felt like I'd stumbled into an Italian Western.

Candy was out the office door. She wasn't waiting. I was supposed to guard her. I went after her. On the way out I picked the globe off the table in the booklined room and dropped it on the floor. That oughta fix 'em.

Chapter12.

IN THE ELEVATOR there were tears in Candy's eyes. In the parking garage her lower lip was shaky. In her car, pulling out onto Santa Monica Boulevard; she cried.

As we pa.s.sed Bedford Drive I said, "If you'll tell me why you're crying I'll buy you a large frappeed margarita at the Red Onion, and maybe a nacho supreme." She sobbed. We crossed Camden.

I said, "It's down here, on Dayton at Beverly. You keep sobbing and driving and you'll miss an outstanding margarita."

She kept crying, but she turned right on Rodeo, drove down past stores that sold eight-hundred-dollar farmer's overalls, and parked near the corner of Dayton. Then she put her head down on the steering wheel and wept full out. I cranked the seat back as far as it would go on my side of the MG and leaned back and stretched my legs out and folded my arms on my chest and rested my head and closed my eyes and waited.

It took about five more minutes before she stopped. She straightened back in the seat, turned the rearview mirror toward her, and began to look at her face. Her breathing was still irregular, and a half sob caught her breath. She took makeup from her purse and began to readjust her face. I was still. When she got through she said, "Let's go."

We walked down to the Red Onion. Pink stucco, Mexicanesque tile, a bar on one side of the foyer and the dining room on the other. The bar was full of young women with very narrow backsides wearing very tight jeans with designer labels on the back pockets. They were talking with very young men with very narrow backsides wearing very tight jeans with designer labels on the back pockets.

We went to the dining room and each drank a margarita. Then we ordered two nacho supremes and another margarita. The waitress went away.

I said, "What happened at Oceania to make you cry?"

"They were so"-she shook her head-"they were so... mean."

"Nice guys work in the mailroom," I said.

She nodded. The waitress brought more margaritas. "I know," Candy said. "I know that. I mean, it's the same in broadcasting. I know. But they were so-" She raised both hands slightly from the table, made a small open gesture, and let them drop.

"First of all why do you say 'they'? The three clucks on the couch barely spoke. Simms just made a few security-chief noises. How else would we know he was tough?"

"Well, it was really"-she twirled the stem of her gla.s.s-"it was really just him, I guess, and the rest of them looked threatening."

" 'Him' being Brewster?"

"Yes."

"He scared you by his talk of going to the station management?"

"No, not scared me. But..." She drank some of the margarita. It was a pale green. "A station manager is quite often friends with big shots in town. I mean, they really can make waves when the license comes up for renewal, or when they talk with other big shots about where they advertise."

"You could get fired?"

"Well, it's possible. Or not get more money or not get good a.s.signments. Get a troublemaker reputation-first Hammond, and now Brewster complaining to the station."

"That made you cry?"

"Not just that."

"What else?"

"Well, I was alone and they were all there."

"Well, you weren't absolutely, completely, one hundred percent alone," I said.

"You were making it worse."

"Admitted. I have trouble keeping my mouth shut in boardrooms and penthouses and executive suites and stuff. It's a bad habit. But I was still on your side. You weren't alone."

"You're a man," she said.

I had been leaning forward with my elbows on the table. I sat back and put my hands in my lap. "Jesus Christ," I said.

"I was alone in there with five men, four of them actively hostile. It's very hard. You don't know what that's like. He dismissed me like I was a beetle. A bug. Nothing. 'Get out,' he said, 'I'm going to speak to your boss.' "

"Jesus."

"And my boss will say, 'Sure, Pete, old pal, she's a pushy broad. I'll let her go."'

I took one hand out of my lap and rubbed the lower part of my face with it. The nacho supremes came. We ordered two bottles of Dos Equis beer.

"Okay," I said. "You're afraid for your job."

Her eyes were filling again. "The only woman," she said.

"Only woman is true," I said. "Alone is not true."

"You wouldn't understand."

Suze, where are you when I need you. "Talk a little more," I said.

"Maybe I will."

"You weren't with me. You were there to protect me."

"Ah-hah," I said.

She looked at me. There was no humor in her look. Her eyes were wet and her face was somber. "What's that mean?" she asked.

"It means, loosely, oh-oh. It means that since I've been with you, you've been between ScyIla and Charybdis. You need me to protect you, but the need compromises your sense of self."

"It underscores female dependency."

"And in the office up there, you were scared. And being scared, you were glad I was with you, and that underscored the female dependency even more."

She shrugged.

"And when you told me you could get information from an agent you used to sleep with, you weren't showing off your liberation, you were being bitter. You were trying to make light of your feeling that to get what you needed, you had to go to a man and get an I.O.U. in return for s.e.xual favors, or something like that."

She poked at her food with her fork, and ate a small bite. The nacho was about the size of a bluefin tuna. When they said supreme, they meant supreme.

"Something like that. You misunderstood."

"Yes, I did. Now I don't."

"Maybe."

I finished my beer.

Candy smiled at me a little. "Look," she said. "You're a good guy. I know you care about me, but you're a white male, you can't understand a minority situation. It's not your fault."

I gestured at the waitress for another beer. Candy hadn't touched hers. Appalling.

While I waited for the beer, I worked on the nacho. When the beer came, I drank about a quarter of it and said to Candy, "Extend that logic, and we eventually have to decide that no one can understand anyone. Maybe the matter of understanding has been overrated. Maybe I don't have to understand your situation to sympathize with it, to help you alter it, to be on your side. I've never experienced starvation either, but I'm opposed to it. When I encounter it, I try to alleviate it. I sympathize with its victims. The question of whether I understand it doesn't arise."

She shook her head. "That's different," she said.

"Maybe it isn't. Maybe civilization is possible, if at all, only because people can care about conditions they haven't experienced. Maybe you need understanding like a fish needs a bicycle."

"You're quite thoughtful," she said, "for a man your size."

"You never been my size," I said. "You wouldn't understand."

Chapter13.

THE COPS FOUND Mickey Rafferty lying in the open door of his room at the Marmont with his feet sticking out into the hall and three bullets in his chest. Someone had heard shots and called the cops. but no one had seen anything and no one knew anything.

Candy and I got this from a cop named Samuelson in the empty studio where, mornings from nine to ten, a talk show called New Day L.A. bubbled and frothed. It was four fifty in the afternoon. Candy had some news to read at six.

"We found him this morning," Samuelson said, "about twelve hours ago. We talked to some people at the studio. They said he was close to you."

Candy's face was pale and blank. She sat on a sofa on the set, her legs crossed, her hands in her lap. She nodded.