Chapter 2

Wade Carson came out of the west, wearing cowboy boots and faded jeans riding low on narrow hips. Twenty-eight, he had spent his life since the age of twelve batting about from ranch to ranch, from the Mexican border to Canada. An only child, his parents had been killed in a train wreck, and Wade had worked for his keep after that, first on small ranches doing whatever chores he could handle. As he became more skilled around cattle and horses, he worked up to the larger spreads and became a top hand.

He had a way with horses and started following the rodeo circuit. He managed to win enough prize money to keep him at it, yet he wasn't good enough for the leap into big money. Then his hip was broken at Pendleton. In the hospital he took a long, hard look at himself and wasn't particularly enchanted with what he saw.

A few years and he would be walking on his heels, crippled and no longer able to top a bucking bronc. He wouldn't have earned enough money to buy a spread of his own-a rodeo performer's dream-and he could see himself hanging around the fringes, a rodeo ass making a buck when and how he could, drinking too much and yarning about past glories that had never been.

In knocking around he had picked up what schooling he could and was reasonably welleducated. He was also well-read, using the long winters snowbound in line shacks for that purpose. But none of this qualified him toward earning a decent living in another profession.

He decided on Hollywood. He knew of many rodeo performers who had become stunt men in TV westerns and movies. Why couldn't he do it? He knew he was unsophisticated in city ways, but he was in good health and reasonably intelligent, so why couldn't he adapt? He had saved a few dollars out of recent rodeo purses, enough to keep him eating a few months until he learned the ropes.

In Hollywood he found that cowboys were in somewhat the same situation as the beauty contest winners who flocked there by the large numbers. There were hundreds, thousands-or so it seemed to Wade-of cowboys, authentic and fake, who had come to Hollywood with the thought of doing stunt work in westerns. The word was "in." To get work you had to have an in, had to know somebody. Wade didn't know a soul. He had never felt so lonely in his life. In a city of millions, he felt lonelier than he had when riding the high country, the nearest store fifty miles away.

Grimly, he stuck it out. It had to get better; it didn't seem possible it could get any worse. He rented a small bachelor apartment and daily made the rounds of the studios and the casting agencies. like others before him, the trade papers became his Bible. He read them word for word. At the hint of anything hopeful he joined the lemming rush and ended the day dejected and rejected. There were jobs to be had: Gas station jockey, cab driver, et cetera. But he'd be damned if he'd settle for something so mundane, not so long as he had a few dollars left. His encounters with women mostly involved tramps, bar pickups. He didn't have the money to spend on women. He did have one experience during his first week in Hollywood that spooked him, leaving him with the thought that if all Hollywood women were like that....

Lonely, discouraged, he went into a bar late one night. The place was almost empty, a few couples in the booths, a lone woman at the bar. Wade took a stool well down the bar from her and ordered a beer. He'd taken but a sip of the beer when she slid onto the stool beside him, her thigh warm against his.

"Buy me a drink, cowboy?" Her voice was low, raspy.

He glanced around at her. Her hair was a bright red, her face chalk white, a touch of red on each cheek like fever spots.

"Why ... I guess so," he said reluctantly. He had only five dollars. If he spent that, he'd go hungry tomorrow.

He didn't spend all the five. When her drink came, the redhead took half of it in one thirsty gulp. Then her hand stole into his lap. Before he realized it, her hand Was inside his trousers.

"What are you doing?" he demanded with a gasp.

She laughed coarsely. "What does it feel like?"

Wade shot a look around the lounge. Nobody seemed to be watching them. She didn't let up her caress for an instant. Even when he ordered another drink, she picked it up in her left hand.

"I can't take much more of this!" She looked up at him with wide eyes. "Who said you had to."

"Where can we go?"

"Are you ready to go?" Her hand moved. She smiled lewdly. "You are ready, aren't you?" She drained her drink with a toss of her head. "Come along, cowboy."

She slipped off the stool with a flash of silken limbs. Wade followed her toward the back of the bar, weaving slightly. The drinks hadn't affected him; he was lust-drunk. She led him down a narrow passageway and outside into a darkened alley. Once outside, the door closed, she caught his hand and backed up against the wall.

"Here?"

"Here. What better place? See?"

She released his hand briefly, hiked her skirt, then seized his hand again and placed it on her. She had nothing on under the skirt. His hand encountered her female brush. He jerked his hand back with indrawn breath, then put it back again, cupping her. She cried out softly, sagging against him. She fumbled with his zipper, releasing him. He grunted sharply and surged toward her. She caught his maleness and guided him into her.

Wade rammed himself into her with brutal force. She uttered a shrill cry and went wild, clawing and beating at him, her cries like those of a female cat mounted by a torn. Mindless with lust, Wade lunged to her again and again until his passion broke. He shuddered, moaning, and pinned her to the wall. She squirmed against him, her fingers like claws in his back. Then she went limp and sagged. He caught her, holding her upright for just a moment, but the strength was running out of his own limbs rapidly. He loosed his hold on her.

When his sanity returned, she was gone, and he hadn't even learned her name.

His last few dollars were almost gone when he finally got a chance for a week's work as an extra. It wasn't a western but a big-budget comedy-chase picture. Two thousand extras were needed, a number far above normal. To fill the quota the union relaxed the usual restrictions and allowed the producer to hire a number of 'nonunion extras and at a reduced wage scale.

Wade was told to report at the studio at seven-thirty in the morning. He was there, lost in a milling swarm. He had to line up to receive a salary voucher to be turned in at the end of the day. It took him an hour to work up to the head of the line, pick up his voucher, and board the bus that was to take them the two miles from the front gate back to where the movie was being filmed.

He almost gave up and dropped out of the line. He felt smothered and found it hard to breathe; he had never been caught up in such a crush of humanity. In fact, he had never seen so many people together at any one time. At the rodeos there had been crowds, of course, but they had been a group of roaring faces in the stands, nothing so close and so personal.

He gritted his teeth and endured, moving forward inch by inch. Once on the lot, the voucher stuffed in his pocket and forgotten, he was glad he had made it inside.

It was his first time on a studio lot and he found it fascinating. The crowd of extras swarmed like ants, yet he had a certain freedom of movement. Due to the unusual number of people present, the other sets on the enormous lot were off limits, guards posted around the area, roughly a half-mile square, where the movie was being shot. Even so, access was allowed to a number of sets. In the center was a large park with streets on four sides, all lined with business buildings. It was supposed to represent a small town square of fifty years ago, complete with an ice cream parlor with wrought-iron tables and chairs, a fire station with a horse-drawn wagon, a police station with broad steps, et cetera. The park was the holding area for the two thousand extras when the cameras weren't rolling.

Wade wandered behind the false-fronted buildings, amazed at how realistic they looked from the front with nothing behind but scaffolding and catwalks for the cameras. He prowled alone, ducking out of sight when he saw a guard or another explorer. It was easy to hide. He thought about how it would be at night with all the people gone. From the front, the buildings gave the appearance of being occupied, needing only the opening of a door to step back in time and be greeted by a smiling shopkeeper of another age. But behind those doors, the ones that would open, it was shadowed and skeletal. He sensed it would be eerie back there at night, inhabited by the ghosts of those acting in past movies made there.

Some of those exploring clambered up ladders and scrambled across narrow catwalks two, three, four stories high, until shouted down by the guards. Wade didn't climb. He'd always had a dread of heights. Anything higher than a barn loft gave him vertigo.

At lunch his loneliness was eased somewhat. Lunch was provided free by the studio. At noon the extras gathered in the park, lining up before catering trucks doling out the lunches.

Wade received his, opened it to peek inside. A cold beef sandwich, a thimble-sized paper cup of cole slaw, a hard boiled egg, a slab of apple pie. He moved down the line to a table, where huge coffee urns steamed, and received a paper cup of coffee. He turned away with the cup in one hand, lunch box in the other, and looked about for a place to eat. All the benches were filled, the grassy areas as well. Up the street, he saw the steps of the police station; there was room left to sit. He started that way.

He forgot about the curb. He banged his toe against it, lurched to one side, received a bump from behind and the box slipped out of his grasp, sandwich, egg, and pie making a splat-tery, unsavory mess in the street.

A hoarse voice said, "Doesn't look very tasty down there, does it?"

Wade glanced around. Standing a few feet away was a tall, slat-thin man with rust-colored hair and melancholy blue eyes. He was dressed in an ill-fitting blue suit. There was about him the shy, gangling charm of a James Stewart. There was also about him a faint medicinal odor that Wade couldn't identify.

Now his shy smile came, like a grimace in a clown's doleful mask. "Hello. I'm Russell Sylvester."

"Wade Carson," Wade said automatically.

Sylvester's gaze moved over Wade from head to toe. "Cowboy? Range or drugstore?"

Unconsciously, Wade bristled. "I've punched a cow or two."

"And here bucking for a stunt-riding berth. Right? Been in town long?"

"Only a few weeks."

Sylvester nodded thoughtfully. He held out his unopened lunch box. "Here, Wade. Have mine."

Wade back a step. "Oh ... I couldn't do that!"

"Of course you can. I only took mine because

I had it coming to me. I never eat lunch. Ulcers." He gestured vaguely toward his stomach, then held up his other hand holding a carton of milk. "This is my lunch."

Wade remembered, suddenly, that in an effort to save money he'd only had a doughnut and coffee for breakfast and was now starving. He took the extended box and ducked his head in thanks.

"So where'll we eat?"

Wade jerked his head toward the station steps.

"Excellent! Let's go."

Sylvester walked with the jerky-knead stride of an animated skeleton. Halfway across the street, he took an inhaler from his pocket, poked the snout into each nostril and sniffed twice loudly. That probably accounted for the medicinal odor. "Damn sinuses," Sylvester said in explanation. "This smog is hell on them. I should move out to your country. Where? Arizona? Colorado?"

"Almost anywhere there's a cow, from the Mexican border to Canada. I've been on the rodeo circuit the last three years."

Sylvester's gaze sharpened. "Big money?"

Wade shook his head. "I wasn't good enough. Only picked up a piddling prize now and then; third place, second place a time or two."

Sylvester nodded and seemed to lose interest. They sat on the top step, leaning back against the plasterboard front of the building which had been constructed to resemble stucco. Sylvester cocked an amused glance at the large letters over the door spelling out "Police Station." He said, "First time I ever ate lunch on the steps to a police station."

His voice held an undertone of irony but Wade took only casual notice. He was already eating. The food was good for a prepackaged lunch. Sylvester leaned his head back and sipped slowly at his milk with his eyes closed. When Wade was finished with the lunch, he took out a pack of cigarettes, but one in his mouth, and offered the pack to Sylvester.

The man shook his head. "Never use them. Cancer." At Wade's look, he chuckled. "Oh, I have my vices, never fear. Women, for example."

Wade grinned. "There's a health danger there, too, I understand."

"Been lucky, I guess." Sylvester rapped his knuckles against the wooden door. Then he laughed fully. "What the hell! Nobody lives forever."

Sylvester was easy to talk to. Wade found himself talking as he hadn't for a long time. He told the man about the loss of his parents, about the many jobs, about the rodeo circuit and his gradual disillusionment with it, and finally about his reasons for coming to Hollywood. Sylvester listened closely, interjecting a question now and again.

Once they were interrupted by a voice over the loudspeakers, summoning the extras to the outdoor set where the movie was being shot.

Sylvester gestured. "Don't pay any attention to that. I'll be surprised if they shoot a foot of film today. This is a business for kooks. They'll fiddle around for hours over camera setups."

Wade noticed that only about half of the extras were obeying the call. The rest stayed in the park. Some dozed on the grass; others played cards, read paperbacks, or just talked.

And Sylvester was right. Not a camera rolled during the day. At three-thirty they were given the word to board the buses parked alongside the park. Huge boxes were placed at intervals along the street for the vouchers. People fought and scrambled to get to the boxes and deposit their vouchers, then board the buses.

Wade had already filled out his voucher with name, address, and Social Security number. He looked with dismay at the crush of humanity around the boxes.

Sylvester chuckled. "Here, let me take care of it. I'm an old hand at this game. And you stay right here. I'll be back and show you how to get on a bus without being trampled to death."

Sylvester took Wade's voucher and disappeared into the crowd. He was back within a very short time and managed, by some minor miracle, to maneuver them onto one of the buses to the accompaniment of a barrage of invective from those not so fortunate.

As they left the bus at the parking lot before the studio gates, Sylvester said, "You have a car?"

"No."

"Neither do I. How about let's take a bus into Hollywood and have dinner together?"

Sylvester knew his way around Hollywood very well. He took Wade to a tiny Italian restaurant off Hollywood Boulevard where they drank red wine as powerful as a mule's kick and ate delicious Italian food. Sylvester's concern for his health apparently didn't extend to alcohol; he matched Wade glass for glass of dago red. Wade wondered, but didn't ask, just how the man's ulcers stood up under the rich, spicy Italian food.

The ate and drank and Wade continued the story of his life. They left the restaurant stuffed with food and awash with wine, stopped at a small bar for two nightcaps apiece, then wended their way to Wade's apartment, Wade talking all the while. In his wanderings, Wade had never remained in one place long enough to form lasting friendships. Now he felt toward Sylvester as though he'd known the man all his life. But he was talking too much. He said so.

"You hear me complaining, Wade? I'm a good listener." Sylvester smiled sincerely.

At the apartment Wade insisted Sylvester occupy the narrow, pull-down bed while he slept on the couch.

The cameras rolled the next day. In the middle of the afternoon, all the extras were gathered in the street before what was supposed to be a bank building, its false front rising three floors. A chase between four policemen and two bank robbers was to take place on the rickety fire escape down the front of the building, the director explained to the waiting extras. They were instructed to stand grouped together, heads tilted back, looking up and pointing. They were to scream every time one of the six men on the fire escape seemed about to fall. The men were stunt men doubling for the stars of the picture.

Wade and Sylvester stood on the rear fringe of the crowd. As one section of the fire escape broke loose and swung back and forth like a pendulum across the front of the building, Sylvester said, "How'd you like to try a stunt like that, Wade? It pays a hell of a lot better than falling off a horse."

"That's not for me," Wade said emphatically. "I get spooked when I get two feet off the ground. I'd freeze up there."

For some time Wade had been observing, covertly, a woman who stood nearby. She seemed to be alone. She wasn't the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, but she was handsome. Or perhaps striking was the word he wanted. She was tall, with jet-black hair tied back in a bun that gave her a curiously old-fashioned look.

Her complexion was the color of rich cream, seemingly untouched by sun. Her mouth, with the new fashionable pale lipstick, was rather large. Too large, which probably kept her from being unusually beautiful. From where he stood Wade couldn't see the color of her eyes. There was something hauntingly familiar about her face, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

She was in dark slacks and a white sweater that was rather loose, showing the shape of her breasts only when she moved. Yet there was no doubt about her figure. It was rich, full, exciting.

It was difficult to guess her age. He had never been very good at guessing a woman's age, anyway. He judged her to be around thirty-five, give or take a year or two.

A collective indrawn breath from the crowd made Wade realize that his full attention had been on the woman for some time. He looked around and saw that the section of fire escape was swinging wildly, seemed in imminent danger of breaking loose any second. His glance jumped back to the woman. She was swaying slightly as though buffeted by a high wind. She started to fall. Wade took two quick steps and caught her before she crumpled to the ground. Her face turned up to him and he saw that her eyes were gray. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she went limp. There was an empty bench close by. Wade got her to it and stretched her out full length.

He wondered frantically what he should do. He chafed her hands between his; he'd read somewhere that was one thing to do when a person fainted. Apparently it was false information ; it did nothing to revive her. He looked around. Sylvester was watching the activity on the fire escape. Wade opened his mouth to call to him.

"No, please! Don't call anyone." Her voice was low, raspy. One hand closed convulsively on his. "I'm all right. Really I am."

Wade glanced down at her. The gray eyes were open now. He saw tiny, twin images of himself reflected in them.

She smiled warmly. "I'm sorry: It was silly of me, fainting like that. But I'm deathly afraid of heights and watching those men up there...."

"I'm the same way. I get dizzy on a step-ladder."

"You do? That's nice."

Nice? That struck him as an odd comment. He looked at her more closely. Her eyes fluttered closed again. There was a vague, offbeat quality about her, as though she existed in a dream-like state. Before he could ponder it further, she sat up suddenly, without letting go his hand.

"I think I'd better go now." Her eyes opened. "Will you be here tomorrow, hey?"

"Well ... sure," he said, startled. "But should you...? "

"Yes, I'm fine now. But I'd better go. You're nice. I like you," she murmured. Astonishingly, she winked at him. "You be here tomorrow, same place, but before noon, say about ten, and I'll thank you properly."

She squeezed his hand, stood up and started off. Wade, still on his knees, twisted around to stare after her. He saw Sylvester watching now, frowning slightly. The woman was swallowed up by the crowd almost at once. Bemused, Wade got to his feet, dusted at his knees and crossed over to Sylvester. She wouldn't show up, of course, yet he knew instinctively that he would be looking forward to it.

Sylvester said, "And what was that all about?"

Wade told him, briefly, what it had been all about.

At the end of it, Sylvester gestured sharply. "You'd better stay away from her, boy. From the way she's acting, I'd say she's turned on."

"Turned on?"

"Full of dope, probably marijuana. Maybe even heroin. Whatever it is, she could be dynamite."

Wade shrugged. "I think you're wrong, Russell. Anyway, it's the first time a good-looking woman like that ever made...." He grinned. "Well, a pass, I guess you'd call it. So I'm not about to miss the chance. If she doesn't show up ... well, what the hell!"

"You're a fool, you know that?" Sylvester said violently. "A cowpoke down out of the hills who should never have climbed down off his horse! The first woman who swishes her tail at you, you're off and running, like a dog after a bitch in heat!"

Wade blinked. Sylvester's outrage seemed all out of proportion. A man he'd known one day and he was telling him what to do. His own temper surfaced. "I don't see any reason for you to get all riled up just because I...."

But he was talking to himself. Sylvester was striding away. Wade took two steps after him and stopped. He'd be damned if he'd ask any favors of him! He remembered that he'd given Sylvester his voucher that morning. He hoped the man wouldn't forget to drop it into a box. Well, if he didn't, to hell with that, too. The money they were paying for extra work wouldn't make or break him. But he was sorry they'd quarreled, if it could be called that. Sylvester was the only friend he'd gathered unto him in Hollywood. Maybe the woman would make up for the loss. If she showed up.

She showed up. But Sylvester didn't. At least Wade didn't see him. Of course, he could be there; it wouldn't be hard to get lost in the crowd. But he knew where Wade would be, so let him do the searching out. And Wade couldn't find it in him to be too perturbed. His anticipation of his second meeting with the dark-haired woman outweighed any concern over Sylvester's absence.

They were finishing with the shooting of the fire escape sequence and Wade's attention, despite his mounting anxiety, was momentarily on the fire escape when the raspy voice said in his ear, "I'll bet you didn't think I'd be here, hey?"

He glanced around with a start, feeling his mouth already beginning to stretch in a foolish grin. "Why, I ... I...."

"Never mind, sweetie. The thing is, I'm here." She tucked her arm in his and he was instantly aware of the warm fullness of her thigh against his. "I had to come and thank you for being so gallant yesterday. That's why I like you strong, silent cowboys. Just like Coop."

"Coop?"

"Gary Cooper."

"Oh." He recognized it as blatant flattery, but it sent a pulse of warmth through him nonetheless.

"What is your name, sweetie?"

"Wade Carson."

"Hi, Wade. I'm..." she hesitated for just an instant, then tossed her head, "Claire Duncan."

There was something about the way she said it that suggested the name should be familiar to him. He searched his memory but the name didn't ring a bell.

As one of the stunt men dangled from a section of the fire escape by his fingers, she shuddered and turned her face away. In a small voice she said, "Do we have to stay here? I'll bet you haven't seen all the sets, hey?"

"No, I'd like to, but the guards...."

"Pooh on the guards! I know how to get around them. I've been here before. Not for a long time...." A shadow moved across her face, then she smiled brilliantly and tugged at his arm. "Come on, we'll have fun! And don't worry about missing lunch. I've packed enough for both of us." She swung the huge straw bag on her other arm.

And they were off. She led him through a labyrinth of shadowed warehouses filled with stacked scenery, through one after another, until they were out of danger of being seen. Then Claire took him on a tour of the empty sets. She knew them intimately, but Wade was too intrigued by what he saw to wonder how she came about the knowledge. They roamed through a South Sea island village, an opulent

Roman villa, a southern plantation of Civil War vintage, a weird jumble of simulated glass and steel which Claire said was supposed to be a city of the future and had been used in a science-fiction movie. And, finally, a town of the old west.

In the western town was a saloon, an authentic frontier saloon, at least as authentic as the many Wade had seen on television and in the movies. Batwing doors led into it. There was a long bar with a foot rail, a back bar with bottles all empty but painted to them nearly full, a long mirror behind the back bar. Scattered about on the floor were round tables and straight-back chairs. Cuspidors dotted the floor like copper mushrooms. To the right was a staircase leading to the "rooms" upstairs. Only when Wade looked up was the illusion shattered. There was no ceiling, only catwalks climbing to dizzy heights, and arc lights like Cyclopean eyes. After the one glance, he didn't look up again.

There was a thick film of dust over everything. Wade dusted off a table and two chairs, and Claire's huge bag disgorged tuna fish sandwiches, two thick slices of pineapple upside-down cake, and a thermos of martinis, chilled and delicious.

Claire watched him with solemn gray eyes. "Didn't I tell you my lunch would be better than anything from the wagon, hey?"

"You told me. And it is." He toasted her with a paper cup filled with gin and vermouth.

She was in a pink sweater and a light blue skirt today. The sweater was as voluminous as yesterday's, but somehow she appeared more voluptuous than if her clothes had fitted her like a glove. Her hair was down today, a dark cloud almost to her shoulders. Wade felt desire flow thick and hot through him.

Claire was very gay, with none of the vague melancholy of yesterday. "You're enjoying all this, aren't you?" She swept an arm around.

"Iam, indeed!"

"I'm glad, sweetie." Her delight in his enthusiasm was child-like.

It was apparent to Wade that this was all old stuff to her but he didn't dare question her too closely for fear it would break the spell. And it was a spell. He was enchanted with her, half in love with her. Certainly he had never felt this way toward another woman.

Claire had the larger share of the martinis. She didn't get smashed, but she continued in the vivacious mood, refused to entertain a serious moment. Before he had finished eating, she leaped to her feet, clapping her hands together. "I'll bet you didn't know I was an artist, did you, sweetie?"

"No, I didn't," he said with a smile.

"You don't believe me, I can tell. Wait ... I'll show you." She rummaged through the big bag and took out a pink lipstick and a wad of tissue. Then she hurried around behind the bar and wiped the dust from a wide area of the mirror. With quick, darting glances back over her shoulder at him, she began sketching on the mirror with the lipstick.

Curiosity drew Wade toward her. When he was halfway to the bar, she stopped him with a palms-up traffic cop's gesture. "No, please, don't come any nearer, sweetie! Stay right there, hey, and make like you're posing. Okay?"

He halted, pulled up a table and settled a haunch on it, crossing booted foot. "Like this?"

She angled a glance at him. "That's fine. Just fine."

She sketched in broad sweeping strokes, her hand sometimes blurring with speed. It went on for a half hour, an hour, and Wade became uncomfortable, yet he didn't move a muscle.

Finally it was finished. She stood back. "Come look, sweetie."

He moved around the bar for a close look. It was a caricature, of course, depicting him as a Western badman complete with ten-gallon hat, drooping moustache, a cruel sneer, and two blazing sixguns. And yet she had caught the essence of Wade Carson. It was there under the fun-poking, vague and smokily outlined but there. He knew nothing about painting, but he recognized that she had a strong artistic talent.

"That's good," he said in astonishment. "Damned good."

"Thank you, kind sir," she said with a mock curtsy.

He glanced at his wristwatch with a start. "We had a late lunch, you know that? And all that exploring ... if we don't hurry, we'll miss the last bus."

They hurried back to the bus area, holding hands like small children. They didn't make it back in time, but Claire had a car, a flame-red Mustang, and she drove them back into Hollywood. She was a skillful driver but fast, cutting in and out of the freeway traffic with reckless abandon. She scuttled over Cahuenga Pass and into Hollywood like a low-flying bird.

Wade took her to dinner at an exclusive restaurant, Claire's choice. This was turning into an expensive day, he thought ruefully, but it was a worry he shrugged off easily. Whatever it cost him, it was going to be worth it. He knew, without it once being mentioned, that he was going to make love to Claire before the evening was over. Unless she was making a complete fool of him, and he couldn't see any reason for her going to the lengths she had if that was her purpose.

The luncheon martinis, the before-and-after drinks took their toll; he wasn't accustomed to so much alcohol consumption. Afterward, he was a little vague about the ride to her apartment. And once there she took him by the hand and led him directly to the bedroom without switching on any lights.

Just inside the door she turned into his arms, coming on hungry and strong, her lips hot and seeking. She groaned and drove her tongue into his mouth like a wedge. He could feel the shape of her breasts against his chest and he was certain she wasn't wearing a bra when he felt the nipples stirring. He let his hand drift down her back to rest on the out-curve of her buttocks.

Claire ripped her mouth away with the sound of wet paper tearing. "You make me so hot, sweetie. So hot!" She arched in against him. She chuckled, her head falling back. There was a night light at the bed, throwing enough light to show her wicked grin. "You too, hey? Oh, yes!" Her pelvis moved against him with a lewdness that took his breath away.

She pulled back out of his arms and started toward the bed. Walking, she removed first one shoe, then the other, leaving them where they fell. The outer edges of the room were in shadow. He could see the bed. And that was enough. A queen-size item, it dominated the room. There was a pink bedspread across it and in the middle of that a huge pink something that looked, to Wade, like some sort of an enormous doll. Or an Easter bunny.

At the bed, Claire knocked the bunny-or whatever it was-to the floor with a sweep of her arm. "Not tonight, Bugsy. You don't sleep with me tonight."

She stripped the bedspread away and faced him, both hands beckoning to him. "Come here, sweetie. Undress me. Kiss me. Love me. Do everything! Hurry! God, do hurry!"

He went to her quickly and undressed her with fingers suddenly thick as sausages. She didn't help him in the least. She stood with her hands dangling limply, her eyes closed, head tilted back. She seemed dazed or in a hypnotic trance.

His hunch had been correct. She wasn't wearing a bra. Her breasts were firm, uptilted, the nipples a dark rose. Her skin was incredibly white, marbled with delicate blue veins.

Under her skirt she wore a black garter belt and black panties. Wade's breathing had a raspy, laboring sound as he removed the final two garments. Finally she stood before him without a stitch. His gaze roamed over the rounding belly, across the curling blackness of pubic hair, and down the long slender sweep of leg. He glanced up and saw that her eyes were open now, watching him. They had a bright, hot glitter. He took a step toward her and his knuckles brushed, inadvertently, across her taut abdomen. It was then he realized that she had been holding herself under iron control.

She came at him in a frenzy, her mouth working. "God, sweetie! Dear God!" Her fingers were talons fastening in his back, her mouth a steaming, honeyed cave.

Her hips ground against him. When she took her mouth away her breath came in a warm expulsion, sweet as nectar. With growing need, his hands roved over her. Her breasts were warm to his fingertips. Glowing nipples rose under his hands. It seemed to Wade that her breasts were like explosives; touch the nipples in a certain way and they would go off. The imagine dizzied him. He closed his eyes as a shudder passed over him. When he opened them, she was on the bed, one leg drawn up in the classic invitation. And somehow, almost without his knowledge, his clothes were gone, flung aside like so much confetti, and they were together on the huge bed.

Despite the urgency of his desire, he was tender with her. He cradled her in his arms while he filled his mouth with her nipples, first one, then the other. They were like moist, heated pebbles as he drew the flat of his tongue back and forth across them. Under his caresses, she lay with her head thrown back, the tendons in her neck standing out. Her eyes were wide but somehow sightless, her lips pulled back over her teeth. He searched for the touch buds of her passion with his fingers and lips. His hand opened, fan-fingered, on her thigh, moved and then moved again.

A strangled moan escaped her and veins pulsed in her straining throat. Her breasts rolled unevenly. Finally, as his nerve centers raged with desire, she drew him over her. "Please, sweetie. Do it!"

Wade positioned himself, hesitated briefly, then surged quickly, taking her.

Her eyes flared as though in surprise. "Hey!" Then her face clenched tight as her ecstasy began. She searched for him with her loins as his hands cradled her hips. She was strong and demanding. She was artful and violent. Her mouth next to his ear, she screamed obscenities. Her nails ripped and tore at his back and he savored the pain. Pleasure stained her cheeks and an expression of the sweetest purity blossomed on her face. Her rhythm quickened. Then her body shuddered violently, and her beatific cries contracted to guttural whimpers.

Release came to Wade with stunning suddenness. Spasms of ecstasy ripped and tore at him. For a long moment he was mindless; his was pure sensation. Nothing existed for him but the bursting of his passion.

He was dimly aware of collapsing on her and of rolling off and onto his back. He lay fighting for breath. It seemed a long time before full awareness finally seeped back, then he realized that Claire had left him. He heard her in an adjoining room which he assumed was the bathroom. He pulled the sheet up over himself and lay with an arm thrown across his eyes. In a little while he heard the whisper of her bare feet on the rug. He took his arm down. She was still naked. She was smoking a cigarette, the smoke spiraling up lazily. She stopped when her knees touched the bed. The cigarette had an unfamiliar, acrid odor.

"Have one, sweetie?"

He stared with awakening suspicion at another cigarette she held out to him. It was brown in color and looked to be hand rolled, not machinemade.

Wade took it gingerly. "Is this...? "

She said amusedly, "Right, sweetie. It's pot. Light up and have a ball, hey?"

Marijuana? So Sylvester had been right about that at least; she'd been doped up yesterday. Wade experienced a surge of disillusionment. But he took the reefer, without looking at her, and lit it. He didn't want to appear unsophisticated in her eyes.

Claire had smoked hers down until it was too short to hold; now she leaned down, breasts bobbing, and ground it out in the ashtray on the nightstand. Then she got on the bed beside him. She lay on her side turned away from him, knees drawn up slightly.

Wade smoked the cigarette cautiously. It had a strange taste and the smoke pouring into his lungs was strong. But it seemed to have no immediate effect on him. After a few more pulls, he felt some dizziness, a slight exhilaration, and by the time he crushed it out, he felt drowsy, his eyelids very heavy. Claire was already asleep. He chuckled. Smoking a marijuana cigarette was certainly no prelude to an orgy, as he'd been led to believe. He stretched out on his back and tumbled into a deep well of sleep.

When he awoke, Claire was gone. He held his watch up to the light and blinked at it. He had slept for more than four hours. He sat up. "Claire?"

There was no answer. The apartment was silent as a tomb, but he saw a glow of light from the living room. She must have gone out there for another reefer, or a drink, and had fallen asleep. Wade got out of bed and dressed quickly. His head throbbed and there was a foul taste in his mouth.

He moved stumblingly down the hall and into the living room. The room blazed with light. It was tastefully furnished, with a deep white rug, modernistic furniture that reminded Wade of mammoth, squatting insects, a small bar, a picture window with the drapes drawn. In the corner by the window was a white piano. On the piano and on the walls were many framed pictures; pictures of a smiling Claire alone, pictures of her posing with people Wade dazedly recognized as movie stars. He started around the couch and stopped short. Claire, still as naked as when he'd last seen her on the bed beside him, lay on the rug on her back in a wanton sprawl. In the crook of one arm, cuddled in a lover's embrace, was the pink bunny she'd knocked off the bed.

"Claire?" he said uncertainly. He started toward her. She must have really belted the booze to have passed out like that. He dropped to one knee beside her. It was then he saw that her eyes were open, staring emptily. A chill sped down his spine. He touched her cheek with his finger. The touch was just enough to cause her head to roll the other way, and he saw that the back of it was crushed like an egg shell. The black hair was matted with blood, the white carpet stained scarlet with it. Then he saw something else. A few feet away lay a piece of sculpture, a female head that vaguely resembled Claire. The heavy pedestal was also stained with blood.

His stomach heaved and for a moment he thought he was going to be sick. He closed his eyes and fought back waves of nausea. Abruptly the full import of his situation struck home to him. Alarm tingled along his nerve ends like electric shocks. He had to get the hell out of there!

Then the front door flew open with enough force to bang it back against the wall, and he knew it was too late. He came to his feet as a small, dapper man in a blue Italian silk suit came toward him with mincing steps. His face was small, the triangular shape of a fox; his eyes were like black buttons, hard and knowing. Wade, his thought-stream frozen, stood as though his shoes were nailed to the floor as the man detoured around the couch. At the sight of Claire's body, he stopped short, his thin lips pursing in a soundless whistle. A small gun, in keeping with his size, appeared magically in his right hand, the snout aimed at the general vicinity of Wade's heart.

"Well, now, I got a phone call about a murder here," he said in a mild voice. "And for once the information is correct." With his left hand he took a card case from his pocket, flipped it open, passed it once before Wade's face, then returned it to his pocket. "Lieutenant Brewer, Homicide. Why'd you kill her, friend?"

"Kill her? I didn't kill her."

"Of course you didn't, friend. They never do. You just dropped in to hold hands with the corpse. I'll say this for you ... you picked a good one. The newspapers'll love this one."

"The newspapers?"

"They like nothing better than the juicy murder of a once-famous movie star."

Wade's glance flickered around the room at all the framed pictures of Claire posing with movie personalities. And, finally, he knew. Ten years ago Claire Duncan had been big, in the top ten of box office stardom year after year. Then something had happened to her; she had dropped out of sight. She still appeared regularly in the late, late movies on television.

He blurted, "I didn't know who she was!"

"Oh, come now, friend," the man said amusedly. Then he shrugged narrow shoulders. "Not that it matters a damn. You can tell us all about it down at the station."

The knowledge that Claire had been the Claire Duncan was, incongruously, the last straw. Panic hit him and he bolted, running straight at Lieutenant Brewer. Perhaps it was the unexpectedness of it, perhaps the sheer foolhardiness of it-whatever the reason, he took the man completely by surprise, bowling him over, sending him tumbling aside, the gun flying out of his hand.

Wade ran on, racing at top speed through the open door, down the stairs and out into the street. It was very late; the streets were deserted. Within a few blocks, he was on Hollywood Boulevard. He spotted a cruising cab, hailed it, and gave the driver his address. He was possessed by one overpowering thought; get to his apartment, collect what money he had hidden in a bureau drawer, pack his few clothes, and get out of town.

It took him three tries before he could key his door open. He pushed it wide and stepped inside, fumbling along the wall for the light switch. He heard a whisper of sound to his left, turned that way, and the building fell in on him. He plummeted down into pain-filled blackness....