"But it wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it was. I kept supplying him. It was in the film's budget. Under 'Miscellaneous Cast-related Expenses.'"

"Was that when your wife left you?"

He smiled. "No, it was a little after."

Meg said, "That was six years ago, Pellam. You mean nobody would let you work? I don't mean this bluntly but it wasn't the end of the world."

"Well, it's funny what qualifies for the end of the world. A year in the Q-that's San Quentin. That's one way to define it. Believe me, that's definitely a way to define the end of the world."

"I'm sorry, John." She touched his arm. This was a different touch. Softer. Closer.

His laugh was bitter. "Hell, there were publicists in L.A.'d shake my hand and say, 'Fucking great promotion idea-you kill the star. Isn't a newspaper in the country won't do a story about you.'" He paused, listening to the mumble of the coffee machine. "Sure, I probably could have gotten it together after I got out. I'd lost a lot of contacts but that wasn't the problem. The problem was I just didn't care. I had no desire to direct any more. So I got a job scouting locations."

"I don't know what to say."

He walked away from her. "It's temporary. Things'll get better."

"You've got to watch that," she said.

"What?"

"Saying that-things are only temporary. Your life could be over before you know it." She said this knowingly.

"I like scouting," Pellam said.

"You don't think your camper's just a place you're hiding out?"

"We all have places we hide out. Mine just happens to have wheels."

"Exactly what are you doing here, Pellam? We aren't going to get ourselves a movie here in Cleary. You aren't real interested in colored leaves. What do you want?"

Pellam reached into his sock and pulled out the clear packet of drugs that the bear had planted on him last night.

Meg glanced at it several times, her eyes flipping back and forth between the powder and his face. "What's that?"

"A gift to me. I think from the same place Sam got that stuff he took." He explained to her about the attack the night before. "One of them planted it on me."

"No! Why?"

"So Moorhouse could throw the book at me and have more leverage to get me out of town." He saw her shocked look. "Oh, the mayor's not behind it. Someone else is."

"Who?"

"Whoever didn't want the movie made here." He looked at her. "Whoever's behind those drugs that Sam got. Whoever killed Marty. That's what I'm doing here. That's why I'm not leaving until I find out who it is."

"In Cleary…" She shook her head. "This is the town where every other car has a red ribbon on the rear-view mirror."

Pellam shook his head, frowning.

"Mothers Against Drunk Driving," Meg said. "The grocery bags at the Grand Union say, 'Say No to Drugs.'"

Pellam opened the packet, sniffed it.

She said, "Why didn't they find it?"

"I swallowed it. Then I got it back last night after they searched me, by a well-known biological process there's no need to go into on this fine morning."

"Jesus, Pellam. What if it'd broken open? You could've died."

"I couldn't really take a felony possession count," He nodded at the printouts.

"Why didn't you just flush it?"

"Sometimes, they test the water in jails."

She smiled. "I can't exactly see Tom testing the John water for drugs."

Pellam laughed. "Who knows what kind of kits he got mail order from Small Town Cop Monthly he's just dying to use."

He stepped to the sink, opened the packet and let the contents disappear into the garbage disposal, under the smiling observation of a cut-out wooden goose wearing a bonnet. "I know people'd cry real tears, see me do this."

Pellam dried his hands then walked up to a tall breakfront. He didn't know anything about antiques. He stood awkwardly in front of the elaborate piece. "This is really something."

The breakfast rolls came out and she set them in front of him. He ate two right away. They had a strongly yeasty flavor. Homemade.

They sipped coffee in an awkward silence for a few minutes. He was on his third roll. "The best compliment there is," she said and ate one herself. "I never gain weight. Oh, I'm not being vain. It's just a fact."

Pellam walked into the hall. Looking at the wallpaper, the furniture. Houses.

He knew what Tommy Bernstein would have said about his little place on Beverly Glen north of Sunset Boulevard. Shit, you got a fallee house, man. You be in trouble… Houses on the top of the canyons were faller houses; at the bottom, fallee. You gonna get squashed in the 'quake, he'd have said. Sell that sucker now. He said to Meg, "I'll bet you have nice holidays here."

"Holidays?" Meg paused. "I guess so. Quiet. Just the three of us. And friends sometimes. A house like this needs big families. It was different when I was growing up. Family all over the place." Her voice faded. Then she said, "I have a confession."

"Okay."

"The accident, when I ran into you?"

"I'm familiar."

"It wasn't an accident. Oh, I didn't want to hit you. But I wanted to meet you. I saw you walk up the sidewalk and I drove up there on purpose. I was going to skid the car or something. Pretend to drive off the road. So I could meet you." She was playing with her cocktail ring. Five thousand dollars of pressurized carbon spun obsessively on a beautiful, thin finger.

He asked, "Why?"

"I thought maybe I could get a part in the movie."

"That's why you came to see me in the hospital?"

"No."

He was standing right next to her. She turned, their eyes met. Outside, miles away, the cracks of shotguns rolled into silence. She said, "Well, maybe."

He leaned down and kissed her.

Just like that.

"No," she said. But that was the only resistance she offered. Her arms were around him, kissing back, and pulling him against her.

Then she stepped back.

"No," she said. And this time she was speaking to herself and, unlike him, she decided to obey the command.

She walked back to the kitchen, stood at the window, wiped the sink absently.

Pellam had long ago given up apologizing for impulse. He followed her, picked up his cup, poured more coffee.

"The thing is." Meg didn't look at him, stared out the window. "I'm having an affair."

He set the cup down.

Good job, Pellam. You can pick 'em like nobody else. Fall for a woman who's got two men in her life, while you're being chased around the ginkgo trees by a drugged-out flower child (and you, with an unblushing rail-thin Hollywood businesswoman you never call waiting at home for you).

He saw she was organizing her thoughts. Confession time. Things to get off her beautiful freckled chest. He sat down again. This might take some time. He knew that straying spouses and bad moviemakers share the same obsessive flaw: excessive explanation.

"Who is he?"

"A man here in town."

"Doesn't word get around?"

"We've been excruciatingly careful. See, Keith's a wonderful person. He's Joe solid. He loves Sam. He's never so much as raised his voice to me. He dotes. He provides. But do I feel magic? No. But should you feel magic?"

"I heard this line once: a relationship's like a fire. You got a few months of flame, a year of embers, then the rest smoke."

"It's comfortable."

"There's a lot to be said for comfort."

"But I want more, Pellam. Or I thought I wanted more. This thing with Sam, the drugs. It scared me bad. It shook me up. I didn't get an hour's sleep last night."

"He's okay, isn't he?"

"Oh, yeah, he'll be fine. It just made me feel so vulnerable. Here I was looking for some-" She glanced at him. "- for some flame and it almost seemed that Sam getting sick was revenge for that."