“When she does it she’s in plain sight of the security guard. She can find a name and address for us all right. But she’d attract suspicion if she opened more than one drawer per trip, and sometimes weeks go by between trips to any particular drawer—maybe even months. They’ve had this operation seven years now and there are only eleven hundred individuals and families in those files. Figure it out—even if they’re doing more business now, entering another new case every few days, there’s still a couple of dozen file drawers in there and the odds of hitting the right one are kind of puny. We give her a name, we might get the answer overnight and then again we might have to wait a month or six weeks before she gets into that drawer.”

Ezio watched Charlie screw a long cigarette into a silver holder. He didn’t prompt Charlie. When the cigarette was burning Charlie spoke again:

“We’ve got to wait for her to get a new file that fits alphabetically into the same drawer that’s got one of the four files we want. Am I boring you?”

“When I get bored I’ll yawn.”

“For instance we want her to find the file on Walter Benson, right? But she’s got to wait for them to get a new file on somebody whose name starts with B. You follow?”

Charlie’s smile hardened like a trap abruptly sprung. “I’ve got Benson for you. She came through with it last night. He’s calling himself William Smithers, he’s working as an assistant manager in Maddox’s Department Store in Norman, Oklahoma, and he lives at one-eighteen Bickham Place in Norman.”

Ezio wrote it down. He made a point of showing no emotion. “All right. Now go back and get the other three.”

CHAPTER TWO

Los Angeles: 29 July–1 August

1

FRED MATHIESON LOCKED THE OFFICE SAFE AND WENT OUT through the reception office. He heard movement across the room—Phil Adler, leaning through the doorway of his office. “Didn’t realize you were still here, Fred.”

“Heading home.”

“Got a minute?”

“Jan will roast me if I’m late.”

“Only take two minutes. Time me.” Adler, red-faced and forty pounds overweight, backed out of sight.

By the time Mathieson strolled into the office Adler had sat down behind the desk, as if to assume command.

“Good thing you caught that sequel-and-remake clause in the Blackman contracts.” The air whistling through his nose commanded Mathieson’s perverse attention.

“That’s what I get my ten percent for.”

“The lawyers missed it. You caught it. I always told you you should’ve been a lawyer.”

“That’s right, I should have been a lawyer. Your two minutes are ticking, Phil. We’ve got dinner guests.”

“I just wanted to ask you one question.”

“Ask.”

“Well it’s kind of hard. I’ve been rehearsing how to do this but there just isn’t a simple way.”

Mathieson tried not to look uneasy.

Adler said, “To put it bluntly, what would you say if I offered to buy you out?”

“That’s out of left field.” It was; but he was relieved.

“I know. I’ve been thinking about it but I didn’t know how to put it to you without it sounding like an insult. God knows it’s not an insult. You’ve been a terrific partner. The absolute best.”

“Then why do you want to buy me out?”

Adler leaned back. He was trying to look relaxed but his hands gripped the chair arms and he might have been waiting for the dentist’s drill. “Five years ago you and I figured we could multiply our clout by joining forces. We did a pretty fine job of …”

“Spare me the history, Phil, your two minutes are up.”

“I have an ego problem, I guess. I’d rather be Adler Enterprises than Mathieson and Adler. I’m getting more into the production end of the business—I’ve got an associate producer credit on the Colburn movie, did you know that? And I just feel I’d prefer to have a free hand.”

If it had been anyone else he would have laughed. But Adler had no sense of humor, no picture of himself other than the surface image he’d buffed and polished; laughter would hurt him, so Mathieson didn’t laugh. What he said was, “What would happen to the clients?”

“Your clients, you mean. Nothing would happen to mine.”

“My clients, then. Do you keep them, is that the idea? Or do I take them away with me and set up my own independent agency again?”

“That’s however you’d prefer to do it, Fred. I certainly don’t want to steal your clients away from you. But if you’d like to sell your end of it completely, I’d be willing to pay a substantial hunk for your string of clients. Provided each of them was willing to be represented by me instead of you, of course.”

“What’s a substantial hunk?”

“You pick a figure and we’ll dicker.”

Mathieson said, “You wouldn’t have maybe sent out a feeler or two in the direction of my principal clients?”

“I might have. But I made it clear it was hypothetical.”

“I see. Something like, ‘If Fred should retire, or die, or anything, how would you boys feel about being represented by good old Phil Adler?’ Something like that, Phil?”

“Don’t get mad at me, damn it. Don’t try to put a sinister cast on it. I’m not doing anything underhanded.”

“I’m a little slow today but I still don’t understand why you want to dissolve the partnership. We’re making damn good money. We’re having fun—at least I am. What’s wrong with it?”

“I want to be on my own. I don’t want to have to consult anybody about decisions. Call it power hunger, call it vanity. I can’t explain it, really. I just want my own business again. Look, Fred, you’re late, you’d better get on home to Jan and your guests. But just think about it, all right? Will you do that?”

“Yes, I’ll think about it.” He left the office uncertain whether to be angry or only sad.

2

The traffic on Sunset Boulevard had thinned out and he made good time up over the top of the canyon and down the turns to his house on Beverly Glen. He recognized the Gilfillans’ Chrysler wagon parked in the oval driveway: They lived only five hundred yards away but they had become true Californians. He navigated the Porsche into the garage beside Jan’s convertible and went inside.

Roger and Amy Gilfillan were down in the Pit looking at television news. They rattled their highball glasses at him. Jan came out of the kitchen, cross with him but she put on her company smile. It changed the patterns of her freckles. They kissed with dry lips.

“It’s late, you’re sore and I’m contrite.”

“All right.” She glanced at the clock. “You may as well go and pacify our lonely guests. I’ll have it on the table in fifteen minutes.”

He went down into the room. An aspiring television star had built the house in the era of the Conversation Pit and this one looked like an indoor Olympic pool that had been emptied for the winter. It dwarfed even Roger Gilfillan, who had made a career out of being big enough to stand up to Duke Wayne in Republic prairie operas before he’d won a Supporting Actor Oscar as a genial drunken Texas millionaire in a soapy MGM titillation. Forty-six and still bemused, he seldom made anything but mindless action movies but he stood well up in the box-office top ten.

Amy was tiny and blonde and cherubic. “You look like you just got trampled in a thousand-cow stampede. Come and set and let Roger mix your drink.”

Mathieson settled into black leather cushions. Roger was uncoiling his grasshopper legs. “Bourbon?”

“God no. See if you can find Bloody Mary mix in there.”

“Rough lunch?” Roger pawed through the bar refrigerator.

“You could say that. Like a combat mission.”

Roger had a high whinnying laugh. “We ought to take Amy and Jan on patrol some time, let them find out how their warriors earn combat pay. Who was it?”

“McQueen’s people. Business manager and two lawyers.” Mathieson stretched his legs out and bent his head back until something cracked in his neck.