"Here you go," the usher said, unlocking the doors at the end of the corridor, and letting Todd out into an area lit only by the ambient light from the Boulevard.

"Thanks," Todd said, giving him a twenty-buck bill. "I'll be back out front by the time the credits roll."

The usher thanked him for the twenty-note and left him to himself. Todd took out a cigarette, but it never got to his lips. A wave of nausea overtook him, so powerful and so sudden that it was all he could do not to puke down his own tuxedo. Up came the scotches he'd had in the limo as he drove on down to the premiere, and the pepperoni pizza, with three cheeses and extra anchovies, he'd had to add ballast. With the first heave over (something told him there were more to come) he had the presence of mind to look around, and confirm that this nasty little scene was not being spied on, or worse, photographed. Luckily, he was alone. All he had for company back here was the detritus of premieres past; piles of standees and gaudy scenery pieces designed to advertise movies gone by: Mel Gibson against an eruption of lurid flame; Godzilla's eye; the bottom half of a girl in a very short dress. He got to his feet and stumbled away from the stench of his vomit, making his way through this graveyard of old glories, heading for the darkest place he could find in which to hide his giddy head. Behind him, through the still-open door, he could hear the sound of gunfire, and the muted sound of his own voice:

"Come on out, you sonofabitch," he was yelling to somebody. By now, if the movie had been working, the audience would have been yelling and screaming, wild with blood-lust. But despite the over-amped soundtrack, nobody was yelling, because nobody gave a damn. The movie was dying on its feet.

Another wave of nausea rose up in him. He reached out to catch hold of something so that he didn't fall down and his outstretched hand knocked over a cardboard cut-out of Tom Cruise, which toppled backwards and hit a cardboard Titanic, which in turn crashed against a cardboard Mighty Joe Young, and so on and so forth, like a row of candy-colored dominoes, stars falling against ships falling against monsters, all toppling back into a darkness so deep they were an indistinguishable heap.

Luckily, the noise of his vomiting was covered by the din of his own movie. He puked again, twice, until his stomach had nothing left to give up. Then he turned his back on the vomit and the toppled idols, and stepped away to find a lungful of dean air to inhale. The worst was over. He lit his cigarette, which helped settle his stomach, and rather than returning inside, where the picture was two minutes from finishing, he walked along side of the building until he found a patch of street-light where he could assess himself. He was lucky. His suit was unspattered. There was a spot of vomit on his shoes, but he cleaned it off with his handkerchief (which he tossed away) and then sprayed his tongue and throat with wintergreen breath-cleanser. His hair was cropped short (that was the way it was in the movie, and he'd kept the style for public appearances), so he had no fear that it was out of place. He probably looked a little pale, but what the hell? Pale was in.

There was a gate close to the front of the building, guarded by a security officer. She recognized Todd immediately, and unlocked the gate.

"Getting out before it gets too crazy?" she said to him. He smiled and nodded. "You want an escort to your car?"

"Yeah, thanks."

One of the executive producers, an over-eager Englishman called George Dipper, with whom Todd had never worked before, was standing on the red carpet, his presence ignored by the press, who were standing around chatting to one another, or checking their cameras before the luminaries reappeared. George caught Todd's eye, and hurried over, dragging on his own cigarette as though his life depended on its nicotine content.

There was scattered applause from inside, which quickly died away.

The picture was over.

"I think it played brilliantly," George said, his eyes begging for a syllable of agreement. "They were with us all the way. Don't you think so?"

"It was fine," Todd said, without commitment.

"Forty million, the first weekend."

"Don't get your hopes up."

"You don't think we'll do forty?"

"I think it'll do fine."

George's face lit up. Todd Pickett, the man he'd paid twenty million dollars to (plus a sizable portion of the back-end) was declaring it fine. God was in His Heaven. For a terrible moment Todd thought the man was going to weep with relief.

"At least there's nothing big opening against it," Todd said, "So we've got one weekend clear."

"And your fans are loyal," George said. Again, the desperation in the eyes.

Todd couldn't bear to look at him any longer.

"I'm just goin' to make a quick getaway," Todd said, glancing towards the theater doors.

The first of the crowd were emerging. If the expressions on the first five faces he scanned were an omen, his instincts were right: they did not have a hit. He turned his back on the crowd, telling George he'd see him later.

"You are coming to the party?" George said, hanging on to him as he headed down the carpet.

Where was Marco? Todd thought. Trusty Marco, who was always there when he was needed. "Yes, I'll pop in later," he said, glancing back over his shoulder at George to reassure him.

In the seconds since he'd turned away the audience spilling from the theatre door had jumped from five to a hundred. Half of them saw him. In just a few seconds they'd be surrounding him, yelling his name, telling him they loved this and they hated that, touching him, pulling on him --

"Here, boss!"

Marco called to him from the curb. The limo door was open. God bless him! Todd raced down the carpet as people behind him started to call his name; cameras started to flash. Into the limo. Marco slammed the door. Todd locked it. Then Marco dashed around to the driver's seat with a remarkable turn of speed given his poundage, and got in.

"Where to?"

"Mulholland."

Mulholland Drive winds through the city like a lazy serpent for many miles; but Marco didn't need to know where along its length his boss wanted to be taken. There was a spot close to Coldwater Canyon, where the undulating drive offers a picture-perfect view of the San Fernando Valley, as far as the mountains. By day it can be a smog-befouled spectacle, brown and gray. But by night, especially in the summer, it is a place of particular enchantment: the cities of Burbank, North Hollywood and Pasadena laid out in a matrix of amber lights, receding to the dark wall of the mountains. And moving against the darkness, the lights of planes circling as they await their instruction to land at Burbank Airport, or the police helicopters passing over the city, spitting a beam of white light.

Often there were sightseers parked at the spot, enjoying the scene. But tonight, thank God, there were none. Marco parked the car and Todd got out, wandering to the cliff-edge to look at the scene before him.

Marco got out too, and occupied his time with wiping the windshield of the limo. He was a big man with the bearded face of a bear recently woken from hibernation, and he possessed a curious mixture of talents: a sometime wrestler and ju-jitsu black belt, he was also a trained Cordon Bleu cook (not that Todd's taste called for any great culinary sophistication) and a twice-divorced father of three with an encyclopedic knowledge of the works of Wagner. More importantly, he was Todd's right-hand man; loyal to a fault. There was no part of Todd's existence Marco Caputo did not have some part of. He took care of the hiring and firing of domestic staff and gardeners, the buying and the driving of cars, and of course all the security duties.