Donnie Brewster said, "Oh, shit," and made more of the how-to-keep-Peter-happy hand moves. "Hey, what a kidder, huh, Pete-man? This guy is the private cop we were talking about. He's-"

Peter said, "I heard him," and came toward me. He put out his hand and we shook. He squeezed harder than he had to and stood closer than you stand to someone you don't know. "I'm sorry you had to see this," he said. "These guys give me the weight of making a major motion picture, then do everything they can to screw me up. It gets a little crazy."

"Sure."

He jerked his head toward the woman. 'That's Dani." He gestured toward the two guys. "That's Nick and that's T.J. They work for me." Nick was the guy in the Stunts Unlimited T-shirt. T.J. had the eelskin boots. Each of them outweighed him by maybe sixty pounds.

Peter said, "You see my movies?"

"I saw Chainsaw and Hard Point."

"What did you think?"

"Pretty good. Chainsaw reminded me of The Searchers.'"

He smiled a little bit at that and nodded. "I was a twenty-six-year-old film-school flunk-out when I made Chainsaw. I didn't know my ass from a hole in the round and I ripped off The Searchers every way I could."

Donnie looked up from where he had gone to a phone. "We were talking about Chainsaw before we came over. A dynamite film. Just dynamite. Tremendous gross."

Peter went to the candy machine, slammed it with the heel of his hand, pulled a lever, and got a bag of M amp;M peanuts without putting in money. He tore open the bag with his teeth, dropped the paper on the floor, and poured half the bag of candy into his mouth. He didn't offer to share. Dani drifted over and picked up the paper.

Peter went to the big marble desk and sat on it, cross-legged. "You look about my age. How old are you?"

"Thirty-eight."

"I'm thirty-nine. We talked to some cop who said you were in the Nam. That true?" He leaned forward and said the Nam like they do on television, full of excitement and appeal and unreality. The way Bart Simpson would say it.

"Uh-huh."

He slurped up more of the M amp;M's. "The cop said you racked ass over there and got a fistful of medals."

"What do cops know?"

"I tried to join up, but they wouldn't take me. I got this bone thing in my hips." He was looking at a poster of John Wayne in Blood Alley. It showed the Duke firing a machine gun at some Commies. More shoulders than hips. "The Nickster was in the Nam, too." The Nickster.

The Nickster nodded. "Airmobile."

Peter said, "Man, I wanted airmobile bad. Ride the skies. Ace a few Cong. I wasn't so old, I'd'a signed up for Saudi."

The Nickster said, "You woulda been a natural, buddy. I'd'a rather had you than half the turds in my unit."

T.J. said, "Fuckin' A."

Peter nodded, regretting the lost opportunity to ride the friendly skies of Vietnam and Saudi Arabia.

Donnie put down the phone and turned back to us, making the big smile and the there's-no-problem-here hand gestures. "Hey, Pete-man, you wanted that TV putz off the picture, he's yesterday. Gone. A memory. So tell me what you wanna do about a production designer? We've gotta make a decision and start building the rest of the sets."

Peter said, "Forget about it, Donnie. I'm into something now."

Donnie's face pinched and he looked nervous. "But, hey, Peter. We got a movie to make, man. We gotta get with it. These things won't wait."

Peter didn't look at him. "Donnie?"

"Yeah, Pete-man?"

Peter spit a chewed M amp;M at him. It hit Donnie's right pants leg, hung there a second, then fell. It left a green smear. "Hit the road."

Pat Kyle made a hissing sound. Donnie's face went white and his body stiffened as if the M amp;M had been a turd pie, and for just a moment, his face was clenched and hard and angry. Then, a little bit at a time, the anger was stored away as if little men inside of Donnie were disassembling it block by block. When enough of the blocks were gone, the little men built a smile. It wasn't a very good smile, but the little men were probably tired from all the overtime they put in. Donnie said, "Sure, Pete-man. Whatever you say. I'll call later. Hey, I'm really sorry you got stuck with those TV clips." His voice was tight. Trainee in the voice-box crew, no doubt.

Donnie Brewster turned and walked out without looking at me or at Pat Kyle or at Nick or T.J. or Dani. Peter poured the rest of the M amp;Ms into his mouth, crumpled the wrapper, then laid a hook shot toward a square wastebasket and missed. Dani picked it up.

The Nickster made a whiny voice. "Sure, Pete-man, whatever you say."

Peter and T.J. and the Nickster laughed. Dani didn't.

I looked at Pat Kyle. Her eyes were hard and her jaw was tight and she was staring at the floor. What, and give up show business? I looked back at Peter Alan Nelsen. Nick and T.J. were rolling around on the zebra couch, laughing and goosing each other and slapping hands. I said, "Peter. I didn't come here for Pee-Wee's playhouse."

The laughter stopped.

"I have come because my friend Pat Kyle asked me to come, and I have answered questions about myself because that's the way most people beat around the bush before they get down to business, but now we are at the end of the road. Unless you knock off the bullshit and get to the point, I will walk out of here and you can get someone else to do the job."

Peter Alan Nelsen blinked at me through surprised, little-boy eyes. T.J. got up from the couch and put his hands on his hips and grinned at me. The Nickster said, "Oh, man, Peter, this guy wants a piece."

Dani uncrossed the big arms and came forward until her right hip was pressed against the desk, very close to Peter. Her left quadricep flexed like a beating heart. Peter stared at me for a long time, sort of smiling, but mostly looking like a little boy who'd been caught eating worms and knew it was wrong. He looked ashamed. Peter said, "Nick, T.J., you guys go grab a beer or something, okay?"

Nick and T.J. glanced at Peter, then walked out, the Nickster making a big deal out of coming very close to me. When they were gone, Peter slid off the desk, dug out his wallet, took out a small color snapshot, and handed it to me. It was creased cleanly once, and yellowed the way old photos are yellowed when they have lain untouched between papers in a box for many years. It was Peter. Much younger and even thinner, with long frizzy hair and a dark maroon T-shirt that said USC FILM. He was sitting on an ugly cloth couch in a plain student's apartment and he was holding a tiny baby. Neither Peter nor the baby looked happy. He said, "I've got an ex-wife and a son. The last time I saw my son, he was maybe a year old. His name is Toby. We named him Toby after Toby Tyler, or, Ten Weeks with the Circus. He's gotta be about twelve now, but I don't know if he's dead or if he's alive or if he's a crip in a ward somewhere. I don't know if he likes pizza. I don't know if he likes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You see?"

I nodded. "Your ex-wife never came to you for child support?"

"No."

"Or alimony?"

He spread his hands. "For all I know she's on the moon."

I said, "Peter, you ever think maybe the woman doesn't want to be found?"

He stared at me.

"It's been ten years and you don't exactly lead a low-profile life. If she wanted to find you, she could've. I've done jobs like this before, and what happens is that everyone ends up wishing well enough had been left alone. The kids end up confused and scared and the parents end up fighting the old fights. You see?"

Peter took a deep breath and shook his head and looked around the office. With T.J. and the Nickster and Donnie Brewster gone, the office felt empty and he looked alone. He said, "I'm worth, what? Maybe two hundred million, something like that? If I've got a kid, part of that's his, right?" Trying to convince me. "What if he needs a car? What if he can't afford college?"