"I didn't think that she had."

"And you believe she knew all of this? She knew that Leon Williams was her father."

"I think that's how Jimmie Ray bought his Mustang. I think he went to them with the doc.u.mentation, and they paid to have him sit on it."

She placed both hands in her lap, one atop the other, then stood and went to the window, and then she came back around her desk and leaned against the front of it. "This is silly. It's the nineties. What does she think will happen?"

I shrugged.

She waved her hand. Adamant. "It isn't even compelling evidence. 'Edie Johnson' is hardly an uncommon name. The possibility of coincidence is large."

"Maybe she didn't see it that way."

She shook her head again. "But why hire us to find out something she already knew? Why lie to us about it? She had to believe that we'd find out."

"I'm going to ask her."

Lucy pursed her lips and stared at the floor. She took a breath, let it out, then looked up at me. "So you're going back."

"I don't think I was hired to learn anything about her medical history. They knew Jimmie Ray was blackmailing them, so they didn't hire me to uncover his ident.i.ty. I think she just wanted to know if it was real."

Lucy sighed again and stared out the window. Maybe she, too, was looking for Huck and Jim.

"Also, I don't like being lied to. I like it less because the lying may have had something to do widi getting Jimmie Ray Rebenack killed."

Lucy came over and sat beside me. "I know you're angry, but may I offer something?"

"Always."

"Adopted people often wonder at their histories, but there are more obvious traits by which we define ourselves. How tall we are. The color of our hair. I want you to consider that the entirety of Jodi Taylor's ident.i.ty has been called into question. Not just her name, but what she sees when she looks in the mirror." Lucy's face was softer now, and I wondered if she were putting herself in Jodi Taylor's place. "She has a career and friends, and she is probably wondering if everyone in her life will see her differently. Do you understand?"

"You're making it hard to stay mad."

She smiled, but it was sad. "Mad is always easier, isn't it?"

I nodded. "Are you going to call them?"

"Of course. I don't like being lied to, either, and if my employment is at an end, then we have to terminate the file."

Termination. There didn't seem to be a whole lot left to say. "I guess that's it."

"I guess so."

I nodded at her. "I'm glad we had a chance to meet."

She nodded back. "Yes. I am, too."

We stared at each other. The Lawyer and the Big Time Op, not knowing what to say. She stood and I stood with her. "Well. I hope we stay in touch."

"Christmas. We can do cards."

"That would be nice."

"I write very funny cards."

"I'm sure you do."

We stood like that for a time, and then she put out her hand and I took it. "Tell Ben I said "bye."

"I will."

"I'll see you, Lucy."

"Good-bye, Elvis."

Lucy went back to her desk and I rode the elevator down to my rental car, and four hours and twelve minutes later I was descending through the haze into midafternoon Los Angeles.

It was ten minutes after three, L. A. time, and I was home. There had been no significant earthquakes in my absence, and the temperature was a balmy eighty-four, the humidity twenty-nine percent, winds out of the northwest. Home. The freeways were jammed, the smog was a rusty shade of orange, and Lucy Chenier was two thousand miles away. On the other hand, we didn't have hundred-year-old snapping turtles and mutant Cajuns. Also, I wasn't very likely to get anyone else murdered in the foreseeable future. If I could keep myself from strangling Sid Markowitz, I might even be able to drink enough beer to stop seeing Jimmie Ray Rebenack's body. That's the great thing about LA. - anything's possible. Portrait of the detective looking on the bright side of life.

I phoned Sid Markowitz's office from the terminal. His secretary said, "I'm sorry, but Mr. Markowitz is unavailable."

"This is Elvis Cole. Do you know that I'm working for him?"

"Yes, sir. I do."

"It's important that I speak with him."

"I'll give him the message when he checks in, Mr. Cole. He's at the studio now, with Ms. Taylor."

I hung up and dialed Jodi Taylor's number on the General-Everett lot. A man's voice answered. "Ms. Taylor's office."

"This is Elvis Cole. Is Ms. Taylor or Mr. Markowitz available?"

"Oh, hi, Mr. Cole. Jodi's on the set, now. May I take a message and have her get back to you?"

"Nope."

I rode the escalator down to baggage claim where a representative of the airline informed me that my bag had been misrouted to Kansas. They said that they would be very happy to deliver it to my home upon its recovery, and they smiled when they said it. I said fine. I caught the airport shuttle to long-term parking to pick up my car. The shuttle bus was jammed with Shriners from Orange County, and I had to stand. No problemo. A fat guy with breath like a urinal stood in front of me. Every time the shuttle hit a b.u.mp he lost his balance and stepped on my toes. Every time he stepped on my toes he would excuse himself and burp into my face. Sour. We were on the shuttle bus for twenty-two minutes, and most of that time I was trying not to breathe. Looking on the bright side. When I got to my car, the top had been slashed and my CD player stolen. A Blaupunkt. I tried to file a report, but the parking attendant didn't speak English. Hey, that's L. A. It took forty-five minutes to get out of the airport and onto the freeway, only to find that the freeway was gridlocked. A bald guy in a deuce-and-a-half truck cut me off in a sprint to the exit ramp. He called me an a.s.shole, but he was probably having a bad day. At the bottom of the ramp he squeaked through on the yellow, but I got caught by the red. No big deal. Look at the bright side. A homeless woman wearing a garbage bag spritzed oil on my windshield and told me Jesus was coming. She said that in the meantime she'd be happy to clean my windshield for a dime. I paid her, and said that if Jesus didn't get here soon I was going to stop looking on the bright side and kill somebody. Welcome home.

I sat at the light and thought about Christmas.

At Christmas, I could send Lucy Chenier a card.

Chapter 17.

S ongbird kept its standing sets on Stage 12 at the rear of General-Everett Studios. I parked at a Sh.e.l.l station across from the front gate, called a friend of mine on the lot, and had them send down a pa.s.s. Much of the time when you walk along the back streets of a movie studio, you see Martians and Confederate soldiers and vehicles of strange design and other magical things. I have visited the different studios maybe a hundred times, and I have never grown tired of that little-boy surprise at seeing the strange and unexpected. But not this time. This time, the magic had been put away and the walk to Stage 12 seemed somehow oppressive and unwelcome.

The little streets around Stage 12 were alive with activity. Big eighteen-wheelers were wedged against the soundstage walk, belly to b.u.t.t with costume trailers and makeup trailers and a honeywagon. Econoline vans and station wagons were parked between the larger vehicles, all of which had little cards with the Songbird logo displayed in the windshields. Burly men wearing ball caps sat in the station wagons reading newspapers or Dean Koontz novels. Teamsters. Sid Markowitz's Jaguar XJS convertible was parked behind a full-sized motor home near a door in the side of the soundstage with a red light over it. The red light was on, and a couple of people who looked like grips were watching it. I walked up like I had business there, and we stared at the light together. When the light went out, a loud buzzer rang inside the soundstage and we went in. I followed the two guys along a stream of heavy electrical cables between false walls and through dark sets: Jodi Taylor's bedroom in the series, her family's kitchen, the big bedroom where all four of her tiny blond children lived. Welcome to Oz, the Land of Make Believe where the nation's favorite family drama comes to life.

I came out at the roadhouse set where Jodi Taylor sang every week in Songbird, chasing her character's dream of becoming a star. Maybe forty people were setting up for a shot: the camera crew positioning the camera on its dolly and gaffers rigging lights and stand-ins and extras waiting for their call to the set. A woman in an L. A. Raiders cap and baggy bush pants was with Jodi and the actor who played Jodi's husband, framing a shot with her hands. She would be the director. A guy with a walkie-talkie and a guy with long gray hair were watching, the guy with the hair suggesting something every once in a while and whispering to the camera crew. The guy with the hair would be the director of photography. Sid Markowitz was talking to a woman in a business suit by a coffee machine in the shadows to the side of the set. I went over and said, "Hi, Sid."

Sid Markowitz's face turned the color of fresh clams. "It's you."

I held up two fingers. "Two words, Sid. Leon Williams."

The fresh clam color went fishbelly white and Sid Markowitz pulled me away from the woman in the business suit. "Jesus Christ, keep your voice down. Whattaya doin' here, f'christ's sake? All this is confidential."

"That was before I found out you lied to me, Sid."

I stepped away from him into Jodi Taylor's line of sight and crooked my finger at her. She looked at me as if she wasn't quite sure who I was, and then she recognized me and her race shut down into a grim chalk mask. Now you're smiling, now you're not. Sid hurried up behind me and took my arm again. "C'mon, Cole, don't make a scene here, okay?"

I said, "If you don't stop touching me, I'm going to break off your hand and stuff it up your a.s.s."

Jodi Taylor left the woman in the Raiders cap and came up to me as if we were the only two people in the soundstage, as if everyone else were only shadows flickering on the wall, cast by a tree through an unseen window. She said, "Leon Williams is my father, isn't he?"

"Yes."

Sid Markowitz had Jodi by the arm now, trying to move her away from me. "Jesus, would the two of you keep it down? Let's go outside." Then he was back with me again. "We had our reasons for not coming clean, all right? What's the big deal?"

"Jimmie Ray Rebenack is dead. A human being died, and now it's time to tell the truth because I have to decide what to tell the police."

Neither Jodi Taylor nor Sid Markowitz said anything for several heartbeats, and then Sid Markowitz said, "I'm gonna call Bel, kid. Bel needs to know." Beldon Stone was the president of General-Everett Television.

I said, "Other people know about this?"

"About this, but not about you. We hired you without telling anybody."

We went out to the motor home, Jodi moving as if she were numb and Sid Markowitz fluttering like a moth around a Bug-Zapper. The motor home was the full-size luxury model, with a bedroom and a bath and a kitchenette with a dining table. Last week's Nielsen ratings had been push-pinned to a little corkboard in the kitchenette, along with a couple of clippings from the Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety: HIT SERIES!!, SONGBIRD SCORES AGAIN! A teamster was sitting in the driver's seat, listening to the afternoon race report and reading the paper. Sid said, "Eddie, we need a little privacy here, okay?"

The teamster left without a word. Jodi Taylor curled up on the motor home's couch, and folded her hands in her lap while Sid went to the phone. Jodi looked small and frightened.

A few minutes later a studio limo double-parked next to the motor home, and two men in suits and a woman in a short skirt got out. One of the men was in his fifties, and the other was in his thirties. The woman was in her twenties, but she looked older. Sid Markowitz saw them and said, "Oh, Christ, Beldon's gonna be p.i.s.sed." He shook his head and chewed at his lip and went into the Bug-Zapper routine again. "I told you, Jodi. Didn't I tell you?"

Jodi pulled herself tighter and nodded without looking at him. On TV, Jodi Taylor was strong and resilient and exuded confidence. But that was TV, and this was real. I guess they don't put you on the cover of People for being real.

They came into the motor home without knocking, Beldon Stone first and his two a.s.sistants in trail. Beldon Stone had a great hawk nose and tiny eyes, and he looked like he wanted to swoop down and eat someone. Sid plastered on a big smile and said, "Hey! Bel!" and offered his hand, but Beldon Stone ignored him. Stone looked first at me, then at Jodi, and then at Sid, and you could tell that he read it before the first word was spoken. "Well," he said, "it seems someone else is in on our little secret."

Jodi said, "I'm sorry, Bel." A voice like a child.

I said, "Okay, Markowitz, the gang's all here. Knock off the bulls.h.i.t and tell me what's going on."

Beldon Stone said, "Yes, Sid." His voice was resonant and smooth and filled with authority. "Tell us how this gentleman conies to know our secret." He said it to Sid Markowitz but his eyes never left me, as if I were a potential adversary and might attack him.

Sid identified me as a private investigator who had been recommended by Peter Alan Nelsen. He used Peter's name at least six times in the telling, as if that might take the edge off. He said, "Jodi couldn't just let it hang there, Bel. She had to know if all this stuff Rebenack was saying was true. You can understand that, can't you? She hired this guy to find out if it was true.

Everything was Jodi, even the business about not telling me the whole story. Putting the blame on her. When Markowitz was finished weaseling to Beldon Stone, he looked back at me. "Rebenack was threatening to sell the stuff to the tabloids. Hey, all the guy wanted was thirty grand and thirty grand's nothing to keep the lid on something like this, so we paid him. Everybody agreed." He glanced at Beldon Stone like he expected Stone to chime in with how much he agreed, but Stone was silent. Markowitz said, "I don't see what you're so p.i.s.sed about, Cole. We were paying this guy, and we wanted to find out if what he had was really real." Really real. "We didn't wanna stir the water, so we didn't hip you to the whole deal. So sue us. We wanted you to go into this with a fresh eye. That makes sense, doesn't it? We wanted to see if you'd get to the same place as the goof with the hair. If he had bupkis, you didn't need to know. If it was emmis, then you'd confirm it and we'd know it's real.

Okay, it's real. We know what we wanted to know and you got paid. Whattaya makin' a case for?"

"The goof with the hair was found murdered two days ago. He was probably murdered because I was in something that I should"ve known about but didn't."

Sid Markowitz rolled his eyes. "Oh, a f.u.c.kin' blackmailer was murdered! What a loss!"

I grabbed Sid Markowitz and pushed him against the table and the woman in the short skirt made ee-ee noises and the younger guy tripped over himself trying to get out of the way. Markowitz tried to back away from me, but there was no place to go. "Lemme go! Lemme go! There's witnesses here!"

Everything seemed to slow and grow silent. My eyes felt large and dry, and my shoulders felt swollen. The woman in the short skirt kept making the noises, and I pressed Markowitz back into the table, but once he was there I didn't know what to do with him, as if he was suddenly beside the point. Jodi Taylor said, "I'm sorry we lied to you. I didn't know what else to do and I'm sorry."

I let go of Markowitz and stepped away from him. I was breathing hard and blinking, but my eyes still felt dry. I said, "Maybe it hasn't dawned, genius, but when an extortionist turns up dead, they always suspect the extortee."

Markowitz said, "Hey, we didn't even know!"

Beldon Stone had not moved. I guess people at his level grab each other all the time. He said, "The gentleman who was extorting Ms. Taylor is dead?"

"Yes."

"And his doc.u.ments?"

"I have them."

He nodded. "And what do you want?"

"I don't know." My head began to ache, and that made me even more angry. I thought I had known why I was coming back, but now I didn't. Maybe I was expecting to find some great evil, but instead there was only a frightened woman and the greedy men around her.

Beldon Stone settled onto the couch beside Jodi Taylor and patted her leg. Rea.s.suring. Fatherly. He reached into his jacket and came out with a slender cigar, looked at it for a moment, then ran it beneath his nose. He neither put it in his mouth nor lit it, but the smell seemed to comfort him. "I realize you're upset, Mr. Cole, but would you do me the courtesy of telling me if Mr. Rebenack's a.s.sertions were correct?"

"Yes."

"And how do you know this?"

I blinked at him.

He made a small gesture with the cigar. "You were paid for your services, were you not?"

Sid Markowitz said, "G.o.dd.a.m.n right he was. Three grand."

Stone made the gesture again. "Then please tell these people what you found."

I didn't give them all of it, but I gave them enough. I told them about finding the woman who I believed to be Jodi Taylor's birth mother, and I told them about Leon Williams. As I told it, Jodi Taylor watched me as if she were peering out from a cave. When I finished, she said, "You found my birth mother?"

"Yes."

Stone patted her knee again. He was larger and older, and his touch cut her off. He said, "And no one else knows these things, or suspects?"