"Damn right. Why do you think I went into writing? I always wanted a job that had no dress code, and no clock to punch. This is what I came up with."

Sloan gazed down at his own faded jeans, and tattered U2 T-shirt. Maybe he had a point. "Coffee?"

Craig regarded him skeptically. He walked over, picked up Sloan's cup and sniffed. "You Canadians have a thing for physical hardship, don't you? Frigid temperatures, wicked blizzards, and coffee that could strip the paint off a Chevy."

"You want some or not?" asked Sloan, his voice flat.

"Yeah, fine. Whatever."

"Help yourself."

"You're not going to serve your guest?"

Sloan merely lifted his eyebrows in the direction of his ankle.

"Wimp."

"Get me a refill while you're up."

Craig grumbled and whined about it, but a few minutes later they were both sitting at the table with fresh,

steaming mugs.

"Did you hear about the latest robbery?" Craig tapped the front page of the paper he had tossed on the

table.

Sloan tilted his head and raised his eyebrows just a hair. "Robbery?"

"Yeah. It looks like the Black Panther struck again."

Sloan raked his fingers through his messy black mane and smiled to himself. Hollywood couldn't have

just any cat burglar. Anyone who stole from the stars had to be special-not just a cat, but a super-cat. A sleek black panther seemed to fit the bill, so Sloan had planted that bug in Craig's ear several months ago. As predicted, Craig had spread it along the star-studded grapevine, and it had tickled the fancy of the California elite. Within a week all of Hollywood and LA was abuzz with talk of the Black Panther Heists.

"Really? Who did he hit this time?"

"One of your favorite people in the world. Morgan Foster."

Sloan snorted. "Looks good on her. She needs to be taken down a peg or two. Her ego could displace

all the water in the Pacific Basin."

"I guess she just missed him," said Craig as he perused the article. "He slipped out a window when shecame home early." "Morgan left a party early?" "She claims she had a headache, and Errol was kind enough to give her a ride home." Craig's smirk turned lascivious. "I guess he dropped her off, and she was terrified to think she was in the house alone with the perpetrator." "Yeah, I'll bet she was. I bet she'd just love to get in the Black Panther's pants. Right after she got into Errol's, that is."

"Speaking of getting into somebody's pants..." Craig reached for Sloan's laptop. "Lemme see what you got." "It's terrible." "You always say that."

Sloan sipped from his mug and tried not to look at his friend as he perused the dialogue. "This time it's true."

But after a few moments of agonizing silence Sloan couldn't keep his eyes averted any longer. Like a motorist passing a wreck on the highway, he just had to look.

One of Craig's eyebrows lifted as he read and he must have sensed Sloan's eyes on him, because he chose that moment to read aloud, his voice a high, breathless parody of an overly ambitious soap queen.

"You know how much I care for you, Michael. How much I trusted in you. And this is how you repay me?" He placed a hand to his breast and batted his stubby eyelashes.

"You should never have trusted someone like me." His voice dropped about four octaves. "I'll disappoint you every time.

"That's not true!" he squealed. "You need someone to believe in you. I can be that someone.

"Sylvia, please don't..."

Craig stopped and scowled at his friend. "What the hell is this? You been watching the daytime soaps again or something?"

"Shut up. I'm in a slump. I knew it was bad. I was just about to delete it."

"Bad doesn't do it justice. And this slump is starting to scare me. It's been more than a month, and we've got a deadline on this one."

"I know!" If Sloan had been mobile he would have vaulted from the chair and crossed to the set of wide, bright windows that looked out over the azure waters of Malibu. He settled for slamming down his cup and sloshing coffee onto the table. "Don't you think I know? I don't know what's wrong. I just can't seem to focus lately."

Craig reached for the pile of mail that was stacked beside the newspaper. "You need a distraction, something to take your mind off your troubles."

"I don't have any troubles. Other than a sprained ankle and a chick who is determined to ignore me, life's great. I've got more money than I ever dreamed. Directors clamor for my scripts, and, contrary to the image of the reclusive writer, I get invited to all the best parties."

"It's your charisma, Sloan. You suck people in like a black hole sucks in photons."

"Yeah. Whatever," scoffed Sloan. But although he downplayed it, he knew Craig was only half-teasing. Few members of the Screenwriters Guild played an active role in the Hollywood social scene. He'd been told by numerous directors that he had the presence of an actor. Too bad he didn't have the inclination. Or the ego.

"And don't forget," continued Craig, "you've got the best partner in the free world."

"How could I forget that?" said Sloan dryly.

Craig continued to shuffle through the assortment of bills and charity solicitations. Writers didn't get fan mail. They got free samples.

"You get anything more from that Deep Throat character?" asked Craig, sniffing a tiny packet of bayberry-scented shampoo.

"Giving her a label like Deep Throat gives her far too much credit." However, Sloan couldn't help but squirm just a little at the reminder of the series of postcards he had received over the last few years. It had been months since the last one, and his efforts to put them out of his mind had been quite successful.

The first one had arrived shortly after Sloan's name had been plastered all over the tabloids in a mini-scandal involving an up-and-coming starlet and a paternity suit. The scandal was bogus, and there had even been a formal apology, but the publicity had been enough to etch his name into the minds of directors and movie buffs alike. Sloan had chalked up the first one to a fluke of the publicity and had thought nothing more of it. But the notes had continued to arrive, about once every six months. They were cryptic, but disturbing-disturbing because they always alluded to a new and extremely imaginative way for Sloan to meet the end of his career.

They assumed it was a woman because she also liked to allude to new and innovative methods for severing Sloan's gonads from the rest of his anatomy. One had involved a chain saw and wood chipper.

Sloan tried to cross his legs, but got a shooting pain in his ankle for his trouble.

"The cops ever come up with anything?"

"Nothing," said Sloan, his voice edged with bitterness. "I'm just a lowly behind-the-scenes type guy. I don't warrant the big investigations."

"Now, now," soothed Craig. "I can see that it's not a big priority. The chick's not exactly stalking you. The postmarks are from all over the world. They don't have much to go on."

"Still. It creeps me out to know that somebody out there spends time thinking about how long it would take for all the blood to leak out of my groin."

"I think she's just a frustrated writer, and it's all a big jealousy thing."

"You don't think it's some old girlfriend that I dumped?"

"Nah. Anyone who really knows you, knows you're not worth all that trouble."

"You're a real friend."

Craig shrugged. "Yeah, well, I'm here for you buddy." He tossed down the shampoo sample and continued his quest. "Hey," he exclaimed. "What's this?" He held up a white envelope that glittered like it had been sprinkled with fairy dust.

Sloan frowned and reached for it, but Craig snatched it back. He inspected the handwriting. "This has a Canadian postmark. In fact..." He held it up to the light and squinted. "I think it's from Bay's Haven. And I could swear it looks like an invitation!"

Sloan felt an odd flutter in his gut. "Gimme that."

But it was too late. Craig had already sliced open the envelope. He withdrew a sheet of pale blue paper and Sloan could see the gold lettering glinting in the sunlight. "You ever hear of privacy, Craig? I think you just committed a federal offense."

"Oh, be quiet. You're an invalid. I was doing you a favor." His eyes continued to scan the script.

"I hurt my ankle, not my hands!" Sloan noticed his hand had started to shake again. He gripped the armrest of the chair to hide his rising panic. "Now let me see that."

At last, grinning like an anorexic cat that just swallowed a chubby canary, Craig handed it over. "This is like an answer to prayer."

"What?" Sloan was having trouble concentrating on the text. His eyes scanned it, but had trouble focusing. "What do you mean?"

"Are you kidding? This is just what you need to get you back on track. A hometown party in honor of the boy who made it big in Hollywood?" Craig tapped his fingertips on the tabletop. "I bet they give you the key to the city, and everything!" Craig stood and paced to the window. "It says casual, but what does one wear to such an affair?"

"I'm not going."

Craig looked at him sharply. "What do you mean, you're not going?"

"Just like it sounds. I'm not going. I'm staying here." He tapped the computer. "We have a deadline, remember?"

"Bullshit. We'll never make that deadline at this rate. You need to get away and get those creative juices flowing again." Craig propped his hands on his miserly hips. "Besides, you can't ignore something like this. They're honoring you, for chrissake. You were born there. You can't turn your back on these people."

To his amazement, Sloan managed to lift the coffee mug to his lips and take a long, deep swallow. "I left for a reason, Craig. It wasn't on a whim. I had no intention of ever going back."

Craig stared at him and waited. After several moments he sighed in frustration. "You can't leave it at that. Making a statement like that is like dribbling blood in a pool of hungry sharks."

Sloan cursed his unruly mouth. That had slipped out. He'd have to do some quick damage control. "It's nothing. I just wanted to ditch the whole small-town scene, okay? I wanted to make it in the big times. Find adventure...you know. I've done it, and I don't want to look back. It's nothing more than that."

Craig's eyes drilled into him. "All right," he said slowly. "But if that's all it is, then there's no reason you can't spend a weekend there, accept their adulation, and show your buddy all your old haunts while you're at it."

"No."

Craig sat down and reached for the envelope again. He shook out a small RSVP card, picked up a pen and began to scribble.

"What are you doing?"

"I am informing dear Mrs. Middleton that Sloan Carver and guest would be happy-" He stopped and

tapped his chin with the pen. Suddenly the pen speared toward the heavens. "No, honored to attend."He bent back to his task. Mrs. Middleton ? Who the hell was Mrs. Middleton? Sloan didn't remember any Middletons living in Bay's Haven. "I don't know any Mrs. Middleton," he said, knowing he sounded petulant, and not

knowing what to do about it. "I'm not attending any party put on by someone I don't know."

Craig scoffed. "You can do better than that. You attend parties like that all the time! And it says here that Mrs. Middleton is the coordinator of the Bay's Haven Social Action League."

"What? Bay's Haven doesn't have any social action league. Whatever the hell that is, anyway." "You've been away a long time. Maybe things have changed." "I don't think so." Craig stuffed the card in the envelope and licked the paste. "What possible reason would they have for lying about something like that?"

"I don't know. Why would they?"

"Jesus. You've been in California too long. You're seeing spies and conspiracies everywhere. There

isn't a thief and a murderer hiding behind every rock." "You might be surprised," muttered Sloan. "What?" "Nothing. It doesn't matter, because I'm not going! I don't need any more problems shoveled onto my plate." "You just got finished saying you don't have any problems. I think a little upheaval is exactly what you need." Craig looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "I've never seen you so unnerved. I kind of like it. Every artist needs to suffer a little to make their work worth its salt." Suffer ? Was he kidding? "I suffer enough just having you as a friend." He waited a beat. "And I'm not going!"

"Oh, you're going," said Craig with a smugness that set Sloan's teeth on edge. "Because if you don't I'll tell my mother that you're desperate to get married."

Sloan's heart dropped to his knees. "You wouldn't dare."

"Oh, yes I would. You'll have blind dates lined up around the corner, and they'll all be sweet, sensible Jewish girls who know a thousand ways to serve matzoh balls."

"You are the devil's spawn."

Craig yawned grandly. "Flattery will get you nowhere."