"Coldheart Canyon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive)

PART FOUR. LIVE AFTER FAME

ONE

Three days after Tammy had pursued Marco Caputo up Sunset Boulevard and into the mysterious arms of Coldheart Canyon was Oscar Night: the Night of Nights, the Show of Shows, when billions of people across the world turned their eyes on Tinseltown and Tinseltown did a pirouette and a curtsey and pretended it was a lady not a five-buck whore.

Todd had known from the start that there was no chance of his attending the ceremony. Though he could now see that his wounded face was indeed healing properly, it was plain that he was in no condition to step into the limelight anytime soon. He had briefly considered hiring one of the great makeup men of the city to disguise the worst of the discoloration, but Maxine quickly dissuaded him. Such a plan would require them to share their secret with somebody else (this in itself was risky: makeup personnel were legendary gossips) and there was always the chance that, however good the cover-up was, the illusion of perfection would be spoiled under the blaze of so many lights. All it required was one lucky photographer to catch a crack in the painted mask, and all their hard work would be undone. The rumor-mill would grind into motion again.

"Anyway," she reminded him, "You loathe the Oscars."

This was indeed true. The spectacle of self-congratulation had always sickened him. The ghastly parade of nervous smiles as everyone traipsed into the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the shrill laughter, the sweaty glances. Then, once everyone was inside, the circus itself. The lame jokes, the gushing speeches, the tears, the ego. There was always a minute or two of choreographed mawkishness, when the Academy carted out some antiquated star and gave them a last chance to flicker. Occasionally, when the taste level plummeted further than usual, the Academy chose some poor soul who'd already been stricken by a stroke or was in the early stages of Alzheimer's. There'd be a selection of clips from the poor victim's great pictures, then, fumbling and bewildered, he or she would be led out to stand alone on the stage while the audience rose to applaud them, and you could see in their eyes that this was some kind of Hell: to have their finest moments thrown up on a screen -- their faces strong and shining -- and then have the spotlight show the world what age and disease had done to them.

"You're right," he'd said to Maxine. "I don't want to be there."

So why, if he truly didn't want to be there, was he sitting at his bedroom window tonight, staring down the length of the Canyon towards the city, feeling so damn sorry for himself? Why had he started drinking, and drinking hard, at noon, and by two-thirty -- when he knew the first limousines were beginning to roll up to the Pavilion -- was he in the depths of despair?

Why, he asked himself, would he want to keep company with those hollow, sour people? He'd fought the battle to get to the top of the Hollywood Hill long ago, and he'd won it. He'd had his face plastered up on ten thousand billboards across America, across the world. He'd been called the Handsomest Man in the World, and believed it. He'd walked into rooms the size of football fields and known that every eye was turned in his direction, and every heart beat a little faster because he'd appeared. Just how much more adulation did a man need?

The truth?

Another hundred rooms, filled with people stupefied by worship would not be enough to satisfy the hunger in him; nor another hundred hundred. He needed his face plastered on every wall he passed, his movies lauded to the skies, his arms so filled with Oscars he couldn't hold them all.

It was a sickness in him, but what was he to do? There was no cure for this emptiness but love; love in boundless amounts; the kind of love God Himself would be hard-pressed to deliver.

As the cloudless sky darkened towards night he started to pick out the Klieg lights raking the clouds: not from the Pavilion itself (that lay to the west, and was not visible from the Canyon), but from the many locations around the city where his peers, both prize-winners and losers, would in a few hours come to revel. Members of the press were already assembling at these sacred sites -- Morton's, Spago's, the Roosevelt Hotel -- ready to turn their cameras on the slick and the stylishly unkempt alike. A smile, a witticism, a look of glee from those burdened with victory. They'd have it all in the morning editions.

Picturing the scene was too much for him. He got up and went down to the kitchen to fix himself another drink. By now he was on the second cycle of intoxication; having drunk himself past the point of nausea by mid-afternoon, he was moving inexorably towards a deep luxurious drunkenness; the kind that flirted with oblivion. He'd suffer for it for whatever part of tomorrow he saw of course, and probably the day after that. He was no longer young enough or resilient enough to shrug off the effects of a binge like this. But right now he didn't give a rat's ass. He simply wanted to be insulated from the pain he was feeling.

As he opened the immense fridge to get himself ice, he heard, or thought he heard, somebody, a woman, say his name.

He stopped digging for the ice and looked around. The kitchen was empty. He left the fridge open and went back to the door. The turret was also deserted, and the dining room dark, the empty table and chairs silhouetted against the window. He walked on through it into the living room, calling for Marco. He flipped on the light. The fifty-lamp chandelier blazed, illuminating an empty room. There were several boxes of his belongings sitting there, still unopened. Moved from Bel Air but still unpacked. But that was all.

He was about to go back to the kitchen, assuming the voice he'd heard alcohol-induced, when he heard his name called a second time. He looked back into the dining room. Was he going crazy? "Marco?" he yelled.

There was a long empty moment. Somewhere in the darkness of the Canyon a solitary coyote was yelping. Then came the sound of a door opening, and he heard Marco's familiar voice: "Yes, boss?"

"I heard somebody calling."

"In the house?"

"Yeah. I thought so. A woman's voice."

Marco appeared on the stairs now, looking down at his employer with an expression of concern. "You okay?"

"Yeah. I just got unnerved, is all."

"You want me to go check around?"

"Yeah, I guess so. I don't even know where it was coming from. But I heard somebody. I swear."

Marco, who'd emerged from his bedroom in his boxers, headed back upstairs to get dressed. Todd went back to the kitchen, feeling a little stupid. There wasn't going to be anybody here, inside the house or out. Every stalker, every voyeur, every obsessive was canvassing the crowds around the Pavilion, looking for a way to slide past the security guards, under the velvet rope, and into the company of their idols. They weren't wasting their time stumbling around in the darkness hoping for a glance of Todd Pickett, all fucked up. Nobody even knew he was here, for Christ's sake. Worse; nobody cared.

As he returned to the business of making his drink, he heard Marco coming down back the stairs, and was half tempted to tell him to forget it. But he decided against it. No harm in letting one of them feel useful tonight. He dropped a handful of ice-cubes into his glass, and filled it up with Scotch. Took a mouthful. Topped it up. Took another mouthful -- And the voice came again.

If there had been some doubt in his head as to whether he'd actually heard the call or simply imagined it, there was now none. Somebody was here in the house, calling to him.

It seemed to be coming from the other side of the hallway. He set his drink down on the counter and quietly crossed the kitchen. The turret was deserted. There was nobody on the stairs either above or below.

He took the short passageway down to what Marco had dubbed the Casino, an immense wood-paneled room, lit by a number of low-slung lights, which indeed looked as though it had been designed to house a roulette wheel and half a dozen poker tables. Judging by the distance of the voice it seemed the likeliest place for whoever had spoken to be lurking. As he walked down the passageway it briefly occurred to him that to make this investigation without Marco at his side was foolishness. But the drink made him bold. Besides, it was only a woman he'd heard. He could deal with a woman.

The door of the Casino stood open. He peered in. The windows were undraped; a few soft panels of gray light slid through them, illuminating the enormity of the place. He could see no sign of an intruder. But some instinct instructed him not to believe the evidence of his eyes. He wasn't alone here. The skin of his palms pricked. So, curiously, did the flesh beneath his bandages, as though it were especially susceptible in its newborn state.

"Who's there?" he said, his voice less confident than he'd intended.

At the far end of the room one of the pools of light fluttered. Something passed through it, raising the dust.

"Who's there?" he said again, his hand straying to the light switch.

He resisted the temptation to turn it on, however. Instead he waited, and watched. Whoever this trespasser was she was too far from him to do any harm.

"You shouldn't be in here," he said gently. "You do know that, don't you?"

Again, that subtle motion on the other end of the room. But he still couldn't make out a figure; the darkness beyond the pool of light was too impenetrable.

"Why don't you step out where I can see you?" he said suggested.

This time he got an answer.

"I will ... " she told him. "In a minute."

"Who are you?"

"My name's Katya."

"How did you get in here?"

"Through the door, like everybody else," she said. Her tone was one of gentle amusement. It would have annoyed Todd if there hadn't also been a certain sweetness there. He was curious to see what she looked like. But the more he pressed her, he thought, the more she'd resist. So he kept the conversation off the subject, and casually wandered across the immaculately laid and polished floor as he talked.

"It must have been hard to find me," he said.

"Not at all," she said. "I heard you were coming from Jerry."

"You know Jerry?"

"Oh, yes. We go way back. He used to come up here when he was a child. You made a good choice with him, Todd. He keeps secrets."

"Really? I always thought he was a bit of a gossip."

"It depends if it's important or not. He never mentioned me to you, did he?"

"No."

"You see. Oh yes, and he's dying. I suppose he didn't mention that either."

"No he didn't."

"Well he is. He has cancer. Inoperable."

"He never said a thing," Todd said, thinking not only of Jerry but of sick, silent Dempsey.

"Well why would he? To you of all people. He idolizes you."

Her familiarity with Jerry, and her knowledge of his sickness, only added to the puzzle of her presence.

"Did he send you up here?" Todd said.

"No, silly," the woman replied. "He sent you. I've been here all the time."

"You have? Where?"

"Oh, I mostly stay in the guest-house."

She spoke so confidently, he almost believed her. But then surely if she were occupying the guest-house, Brahms would have warned Maxine? He knew how important Todd's security was. Why would he let Maxine see the property, and not mention the fact that there was somebody else living in the Canyon?

He was about halfway across the room now, and he could now see his visitor's outline in the darkness. Her voice had not misled him. She was a young woman; elegantly dressed in a long, silver gown, highlighted with sinuous designs in gold thread. It shimmered, as though it possessed a subtle life of its own.

"How long have you been staying here?" he said to her.

"A lot longer than you," she replied.

"Really?"

"Well, of course. When I first met Jerry, I'd been here ... twenty, twenty-five years."

This was an absurd invention of course. Even without seeing her clearly, it was obvious she was less than thirty; probably considerably less.

"But you said Jerry was a boy when you met him?" Todd said, thinking he'd quickly catch the woman in her lie.

"He was."

"So you can't have known him ... "

"I know it doesn't seem very likely. But things are different here in the Canyon. You'll see. If you stay, that is. And I hope you will."

"You mean buy the house?"

"No. I mean stay."

"Why would I do that?" he said.

There was a moment's pause, then, finally, she stepped into the light. "Because I want you to," she replied.

It was a moment from a movie; timed to perfection. The pause, the move, the line.

And the face, that was from a movie too, in its luxury, in its perfection. Her eyes were large and luminous, green flecked with lilac. Their brightness was enhanced by the darkness of her eyeshadow, and the thickness of her lashes. Neither her nose nor her mouth were delicate; her lips were full, her chin robust, her cheekbones high; almost Slavic. Her hair was black, and fell straight down, framing her face. She wore plenty of jewelry, and it was all exquisite. One necklace lay tightly in the valley of her throat, another -- much, much looser -- fell between her breasts. Her earrings were gold; her bracelets -- several on each wrist -- all elaborately wrought. Yet she carried all this effortlessly, as though she'd been wearing a queen's ransom in jewelry all her life.

"I'm sure you could find plenty of company besides me," Todd replied.

"I'm sure I could," she replied. "But I don't want plenty of company. I want you."

Todd was totally bewildered now. No part of this puzzle fitted with any other. The woman looked so poised, so exquisite, but she spoke nonsense. She didn't know him. She hadn't chosen him. He'd come up here of his own free will, to hide himself away. Yet she seemed to insinuate that he was here at her behest, and that somehow she intended to make him stay. It was all pure invention.

Still she didn't look crazy; anything but. She looked, in fact, as though she'd just stepped out of her limo at the Pavilion and was about to walk down the red carpet to a roar of adulation from the crowd. He wouldn't have minded being beside her, either, if she had been taking that walk. They would have made quite a couple.

"You haven't looked around the house very much," she said.

"How do you know?"

"Oh ... I have eyes everywhere," she teased. "If you'd been in some of the rooms in this house, I'd know about it, believe me."

"I don't find any of this very comforting," he said. "I don't like people spying on me."

"I wasn't spying," she said, her tone going from pleasing to fierce in a heartbeat.

"Well what would you call it?"

"I'd call it being a good hostess. Making sure your guest is comfortable.

"I don't understand."

"No," she said, more softly now, "you don't. But you will. When we've had a chance to spend some time with one another you'll see what's really going on here."

"And what's that?"

She half-turned from him, as though she might leave, which was the last thing he wanted her to do. "You know maybe we'd be better leaving this for another night," she said.

"No," he said hurriedly. She halted, but didn't turn back.

"I'm sorry," he said. They were rare words from his mouth.

"Truly?" she said. Still she didn't turn. He found himself longing to feel her gaze on him, as though -- absurd as this was -- she might go some way to filling the void in him.

"Please," he said. "I'm truly sorry."

"All right," she said, apparently placated. She looked back at him. "You're forgiven. For now."

"So tell me what I've missed. In the house."

"Oh, all that can wait."

"At least give me a clue."

"Have you been downstairs? I mean all the way down to the bottom?"

"No."

"Then don't," she said, lowering her head and looking up at him with a veiled gaze. "I'll take you there myself."

"Take me now," he said, thinking it would be a good opportunity to find out how real all her claims were.

"No, not tonight."

"Why not?"

"It's Oscar Night."

"So?"

"So it's got you all stirred up. Look at you. You think you can drink the pain away? It doesn't work. Everyone here's tried that at some point or other -- "

"Everyone?"

"In the Canyon. There are a lot of people here who are feeling exactly like you tonight."

"And how's that?"

"Oh, just wishing they'd had a few prizes for their efforts."

"Well they don't give Oscars to actors like me."

"Why not?"

"I guess they don't think I'm very good."

"And what do you think?"

He mused on this for a moment. Then he said: "Most of the time I'm just being me, I guess."

"That's a performance," Katya said. "People think it's easy. But it's not. Being yourself ... that's hard."

It was strange to hear it put that way, but she was right. It wasn't easy, playing yourself. If you let your attention drop for a moment, there was nothing there for the camera to look at. Nothing behind the eyes. He'd seen it, in his own performances and in those of others: moments when the concentration lapsed for a few seconds and the unforgiving lens revealed a vast vapidity.

"I know how it hurts," she said, "not to be appreciated."

"I get a lot of other stuff, you know."

"The other stuff being money."

"Yes. And celebrity."

"And half the time you think: it doesn't matter, anyway. They're all ignoramuses at the Academy, voting for their friends. What do you want from them? But you're not really convinced. In your heart you want their worthless little statues. You want them to tell you they know how much you work to be perfect."

He was astonished at this. She had articulated what he'd felt on a decade of Oscar Nights; an absurd mixture of contempt and envy. It was as though she was reading his mind. "How did you figure all that out?"

"Because I've felt the same things. You want them to love you, but you hate yourself for wanting it. Their love isn't worth anything, and you know it."

"But you still want it."

"You still want it."

"Damn."

"Meaning yes?"

"Yes. That's it. You got me."

It felt good, for once, to be understood. Not the usual nodding, what-ever-you-say-Mr.-Pickett bullshit, but some genuine comprehension of the mess inside him. Which made the mystery of its source all the stranger. One minute she was telling him lies (how could she possibly have known Brahms as a child?) the next she was seeing into his soul. "If you really do own this house," he said, "why don't you live in it?"

"Because there are too many memories here," she said simply. "Good and bad. I walk in here and," she smiled, though the smile was thin, "it's filled with ghosts."

"So why not move away?"

"Out of Coldheart Canyon? I can't."

"Are you going to tell me why?"

"Another time. This is a bad time to tell that story." She passed her delicate hand over her face, and for a moment, as the veil of her fingers covered her features, he saw her retreat from her beauty, as though for a moment the performance of selfhood was too much for her.

"You ask me a question," he suggested.

Her hand dropped away. The light shone out of her face again. "You swear you'll answer me truthfully if I do?"

"Sure."

"Swear."

"I said so."

"Does it hurt behind the bandages?"

"Oh."

"You said you'd answer me."

"I know. And I will. It's uncomfortable, I'll tell you that. But it doesn't really hurt anymore. Not like it used to. I just wish I'd never messed with this. I mean, why couldn't I be happy the way I was?"

"Because nobody is. We're always looking for something we haven't got. If we weren't, we wouldn't be human."

"Is that why you came spying on me?" he said, matching her mischief with some of his own. "Looking for something you haven't got?"

"I'm sorry. It was rude of me: watching you, I mean. Spying. You've as much right to your privacy as I have to mine. And it's hard to protect yourself sometimes. You don't know who's a friend and who's not. That can make you crazy." Her eyes flashed, and the playfulness was back. "Then again, sometimes it's good to be crazy."

"Yes?"

"Oh sure. Sometimes it's the only thing keeps you sane."

"You're obviously talking from experience."

"Of getting crazy once in a while? Sure. I'm talking from intimate experience."

"Care to give me an example?"

"You don't want to know. Really you don't. Some of the things I've done in this very room ... "

"Tell me."

"I wouldn't know where to begin."

Her gaze flitted off around the room, as though she was looking for some cue for her memories. If it was an act, it was a very good one. In fact this whole performance was looking better and better.

Finally, she said: "We used to play poker here. Sometimes roulette."

"Marco and I figured that out."

"Sometimes," she said, her gaze returning to him, "I was the prize."

"You?"

"Me."

"I don't think I understand."

"You understand perfectly well."

"You'd give yourself to the winner?"

"See? You understood. I didn't do it every night. I'm not that much of a slut." She was smiling as she spoke, lapping up his disbelief. She began to walk towards him, slowly, matching her approach to the rhythm of her words. "But on the nights when you need to be crazy -- "

"What did you give them? A kiss!"

"Pah! A kiss! As if I'd be satisfied with so little. No! Down on the floor in front of the losers, that's what I'd give them. Like dogs, if we felt like it."

The way she stared at the ground as she spoke, it was clear she was remembering something very specific. The subtlest of motions went through her, as though her body was recalling the sensation of pressing back against a man; to take him, all of him, inside her.

"Supposing somebody won that you didn't like?"

"There was no such man. Not here, in my house. They were all gods. Beautiful men, every single one. Some of them were crude at first. But I taught them." She was watching Todd closely as she spoke, measuring his response. "You like hearing this?"

He nodded. It wasn't quite the way he'd expected this conversation to go, but yes, he liked her confessions. He was glad his pants were baggy, now that she was so close to him, or she'd have seen for herself how much he liked them.

"So let me be sure I got this right. The winner would fuck you, right here on the ground -- "

"Not on the bare boards. There used to be carpets. Beautiful Persian carpets. And there were silk cushions, red ones, which I kept in a heap over there. I like to make love amongst cushions. It's like being held in somebody's hand, isn't it?" She opened her cupped hand in front to demonstrate the comfort of it. "In God's hand."

She lifted the bed of her palm in front of his eyes, and then, without warning, she reached out and touched his face. He felt nothing through the bandages, but he had the illusion that her hand was like a balm upon his cheek, cooling his raw flesh.

"Does that hurt?"

"No."

"Do you want me to go on telling you?"

"Yes, please."

"You want to hear what I did ... "

" ... on the cushions. Yes. But first, I want to know -- "

"Who?"

"No, not who. Why?"

"Why? Lord in Heaven, why would I fuck? Because I loved it! It gave me pleasure." She leaned closer to him, still stroking his cheek. He could smell her throat on the breath she exhaled. The air, for all its invisibility, was somehow enriched by its transport into her and out again. He envied the men who'd taken similar liberties. In and out; in and out. Wonderful.

"I love to have a man's weight bearing down on me," she went on. "To be pinned, like a butterfly. Open. And then, when he thinks he's got you completely under his thumb, roll him over and ride him." She laughed. "I wish I could see the expression on your face."

"It's not pretty under there." He paused, a chilling thought on his lips.

"The answer's no," she said.

"The answer to what?"

"Have I spied on you while your bandages were being changed? No I haven't."

"Good." He took a deep breath, wanting to direct the conversation away from talk of what was behind his mask. "Go back to the game," he said.

"Where was I?"

"Riding the lucky sonofabitch."

"Horses. Dogs. Monkeys. Men make good animals. Women too sometimes."

"Women got to play?"

"Not in here. I'm very old-fashioned about things like that. In Romania a woman never played cards."

"Romania. That's where you're from?"

"Yes. A little village called Ravbac, where I don't think any woman had ever had pleasure with a man."

"Is that why you left?"

"One of many reasons. I ran away when I was barely twelve. Came to this country when I was fifteen. Made my first picture a year later."

"What was it called?"

"I don't want to talk about it. It's forgotten."

"So finish telling me -- "

" -- about riding the men. What else is there to say? It was the best game in the world. Especially for an exhibitionist, like myself. You too."

"What about me?"

"You've done it in front of people. Surely. Don't tell me you haven't. I won't believe you."

What the hell? This woman had him all figured out. Pinned. Like a butterfly. There didn't seem to be much purpose in denying it.

"Yes, I've had a few public moments at private parties."

"Are you good?"

"It depends on the girl."

She smiled. "I think you'd be wonderful, with the right audience," she said.

Her hand dropped from his cheek, and she started to walk back across the room, weaving between imaginary obstacles as she picked up her erotic tale.

"Some nights, I would simply walk naked amongst the tables while the men played. They weren't allowed to look at me. If they looked, I would thrash them. And I mean thrash. I had a whip for that. I still have it. The Teroarea. The Terror. So ... that was one of the rules. No looking at the prize, no matter what it did to tempt them." She laughed. "You can imagine, I had a hundred ways. Once I had a little bell, hooked through the hood of my clitoris. Tinkling as I walked. Somebody looked, I remember. And oh they suffered."

She was at the mantelpiece now, reaching up and under the fireplace and took a long, silver-handled switch from its hiding place. She tested it on the air, and it whined like a vengeful mosquito. "This is the Teroarea. I had it made by a man in Paris, who specialized in such things. My name is chased into the handle." She passed her thumb over the letters: "Katya Lupescu, it says. Actually it says more. It says: 'This is her instrument, to make fools suffer.' I regret having that written there, really."

"Why?"

"Because a man who takes pleasure in being given pain is not a fool. He's simply following his instincts. Where's the foolishness in that?"

"You're big on pleasure," Todd said.

She didn't seem to understand what he meant; she cocked her head, puzzled.

"You talk about it a lot."

"Twice I've mentioned it," she said. "But it's been in my mind a little more than that."

"Why?"

"Don't be coy," she said, a little sternly. "Or I'll beat you."

"I might not like that."

"Oh, you would."

"Really ... " he said, with just a touch of anxiety in his voice. He could not imagine having that thing, her Terror, give him pleasure, however expertly it was wielded.

"It can be gentle, if I want it to be."

"That?" he said. "Gentle?"

"Oh yes." She made a scooping motion with her free hand. "If I have a man's sex in my palm, here." He got an instant, and uncannily sharp picture of what she had in mind. Her victim on all fours, and that scooping motion of hers; the taking up of his cock and balls, ready for her. Completely vulnerable; completely humiliated. He'd never let a woman do anything like that to him, however much she promised it was to give him pleasure.

"I can see you're not convinced," she said, "even when I don't have your face to look at. So you'll just have to take it on trust. I could touch men with this and they'd shoot like sixteen-year-olds. Even Valentino."

"Valentino?"

"And he was queer."

"Rudolph Valentino?"

"Yes. You didn't know he was that way?"

"No, it's just ... he's been dead a long time."

"Yes, it was sad to lose him so quickly," she said.

She obviously had no difficulty agreeing with him about how long the Great Lover had been deceased, even though it made nonsense of her story.

"We had a great party for him, out on the lawn, two weeks after he'd been taken from us." She turned away from him and laid the switch back on the mantelpiece. "I know you don't believe a word of what I've told you. You've done the mathematics, and none of it's remotely possible." She leaned on the mantelpiece, her chin on the heel of her hand. "What have you decided? That I'm some kind of trespasser? A little sexually deranged but essentially harmless?"

"I suppose something like that."

"Hmm." She mused on this for a moment. Then she said: "You'll change your mind, eventually. But there's no hurry. I've waited a long time for this."

"This?"

"You. Us."

She left the thought there to puzzle him a moment, then she turned, the dusting of melancholy that had crept into her voice over the course of the last few exchanges brushed away. She was bright again; gleaming with harmless trouble-making.

"Have you ever done it with a man?"

"Oh, Jesus."

"So you have!"

He was caught. There was no use denying it.

"Only ... twice. Or three times."

"You can't remember."

"Okay, three times."

"Was it good?"

"I'll never do it again, so I guess that's your answer."

"Why are you so sure?"

"There's some things you can be that sure of," he said. Then, a little less confidently, "Aren't there?"

"Even men who aren't queer imagine other men sometimes. Yes?"

"Well ... "

"Perhaps you're the exception to the rule. Perhaps you're the one the Canyon isn't going to touch." She started to walk back towards him. "But don't be too certain. It takes the pleasure out of things. Maybe you should let a woman take charge for a while."

"Are we talking about sex?"

"Valentino swore he only liked men, but as soon as I took charge ... "

"Don't tell me. He was like a naughty schoolboy."

"No. Like a baby." Her hand went to her breast, and she squeezed it, catching the nipple in the groove between her thumb and forefinger, as though to proffer it for Todd to suckle.

He knew it wasn't smart to show too much emotion to the woman. If there was some genuine streak of derangement in her, it would only empower her more. But he couldn't help himself. He took half a step backwards, aware that the trenches of his mouth were suddenly running with spit at the thought of her nipple in his mouth.

"You shouldn't let your mind get between you and what your body wants," she said. She took her hand from her breast. The nipple stood hard beneath the light fabric.

"I know what my body wants."

"Really?" she said, sounding genuinely surprised at the claim. "You know what it wants deep down? All the way down to the very darkest place?"

He didn't reply.

She reached out and took gentle hold of his hand. Her fingers were cold and dry; his were clammy.

"What are you afraid of?" she said. "Not me, surely."

"I'm not afraid," he said.

"Then come to me," she told him, softly. "I'll find out what you want." He let her draw him closer to her; let her hands move up over his chest towards his face.

"You're a big man," she murmured.

Her fingers were at his neck now. Whatever she was promising about discovering his desires, he knew what she wanted; she wanted to see his face. And though there was a part of his mind that resisted the idea, there was a greater part that wanted her to see him, for better or worse. He let her hands go up to his jawline; let her fingers rest on the adhesive tape that held the mask of gauze against his wound.

"May I ... ?" she asked him.

"Is this what you came here to do?"

She made a small, totally ambiguous smile. Then she pulled at the tape. It came away with a gentle tug. He felt the gauze loosen. He stared down into her face, wondering -- in this long moment before it was done and beyond saving -- if she would reject him when she saw the scars and the swelling. A scene from that same silent horror movie he'd seen in his mind's eye many times since Burrows had done his brutal work, flickered in his head: Katya as the appalled heroine, reeling away in disgust at what her curiosity had uncovered. He the monster, enraged at her revulsion and murderous in his self-contempt.

It was too late to stop it now. She was pulling at the gauze, coaxing it away from the hurts it concealed.

He felt the cool air upon his wounds, and cooler still, her scrutiny. The gauze dropped to the floor between them. He stood there before her, more naked than he'd ever been in his life -- even in nightmares of nakedness, more naked -- awaiting judgment.

She wasn't horrified. She wasn't screaming, wasn't flinching. She simply looked at him, without any interpretable expression on her face.

"Well?" he said.

"He made a mess of you, no doubt about that. But it's healing. And if my opinion is worth anything to you, I'd say you're going to be fine. Better than fine."

She took a moment to assess him further. To trace the line of his jaw, the curve of his temple.

"But it's never going to be perfect," she said.

His stomach lurched. Here was the heart of it: the bitter part nobody had wanted to admit to him; not even himself. He was spoiled. Perhaps just a little, but a little was all it would take to shake him from his high perch. His precious face, his golden face, the beauty that had made him the idol of millions, had been irreparably damaged.

"I know," Katya said, "you're thinking your life won't be worth living. "But that's just not true."

"How the hell do you know?" he said, smarting from the truth, angered by her honesty.

"Because I knew all the great stars, in the silent days. And believe me, the smart ones -- when they weren't making the money any longer -- just shrugged and said okay, I've had my time."

"What did they do then?"

"Listen to yourself! There's life after fame. Sure it'll take some getting used to, but people have perfectly good lives -- "

"I don't want a perfectly good life. I want the life I had."

"Well you can't have it," she said, very simply.

It was a long time since somebody had told Todd Pickett that he couldn't have something, and he didn't like it. He took hold of her wrists and pulled her hands away from his face. A quick fury had risen in him. He wanted to strike at her, knock her stupid words out of her mouth.

"You know, you are crazy," he said.

"Didn't I tell you?" she said, making no attempt to touch him again. "Some nights I'm so crazy I'm ready to hang myself. But I don't. You know why? I made this hell for myself, so it's up to me to live in it, isn't it?"

He didn't respond to her; he was still in a filthy rage about what she'd said.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I think I've had it with your advice for the night," he said, "so why don't you just go back wherever you came from -- " In mid-sentence he heard Marco calling. "Boss? Are you okay? Where the hell are you?"

He looked towards the door, half expecting to see Marco already standing there. He wasn't. Todd then looked back at Katya, or whoever the hell she was. The woman was retreating from him, shaking her head as if to say: don't tell.

"It's okay!" he yelled to Marco.

"Where are you?"

"I'm fine. Go make me a drink. I'll meet you in the kitchen!"

Katya had already retreated to the far end of the room, where the shadows from which she had originally emerged were enclosing her.

"Wait!" Todd said, his fury not yet completely abated.

He wanted to make sure the woman didn't leave thinking she would be allowed to come back, come stalking him while he slept, damn her. But she had turned her back on him now, ignoring his instruction. So he went after her.

A door opened in the darkness ahead of him, and he felt a wave of night-air, cool and fragrant, come in against his face. He hadn't known that there was a door to the outside of the house at the far end of the Casino, but she was out through it in a heartbeat (he saw her silhouette as she flitted away along a starlit path), and by the time he reached the door she was gone, leaving the shrubs she'd brushed as she ran shaking.

He stepped over the threshold, and looked around, attempting to orient himself. The path Katya had taken led up the hill, winding as it went. Back to the guest-house, no doubt. That was where the crazy-lady was in residence. She'd made herself a nice little nest in the guest-house. Well, that was easily fixed. He'd just send Marco up there tomorrow to evict her.

"Boss?"

He walked back into the Casino and stared down at the expanse of floor where she'd had him picturing her making love. He'd believed her, too; a little. At least his dick had.

Marco was at the other end of the room.

"What the hell's going on?" he said.

Todd was about to tell him there and then -- about to send him up the hill to oust the trespasser -- but Marco was bending down to gingerly pick something up from the ground. It was Todd's discarded bandages.

"You took 'em off," he said.

"Yeah."

The rage he'd felt started to seep out of him now, as he remembered the tender way she'd looked at him. Not judging him, simply looking.

"What happened, Boss?"

"I found another door," he said rather lamely.

"Was there somebody here?" Marco said.

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe. I was just wandering around, and I came down here ... "

"The door was open?"

"No, no," Todd said. He closed the door with a solid slam. "I just tried it and it was unlocked."

"It needs a new lock then," Marco said, his tone uncertain, as though he was suspicious of what he was being told, but playing along.

"Yes, it needs a new lock."

"Okay."

They stood for a moment at opposite ends of the room, in silence.

"Are you all right?" Marco said after a pause.

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"You know pills 'n' liquor'll be the death of you."

"I'm hopin'," Todd replied, his joviality as forced as Marco's.

"Okay. If you say you're okay, you're okay."

"I'm okay."

Marco proffered the bandages. "What do you want me to do with these?"

"What do you think?" Todd said, getting back into the normal rhythm of their exchanges now. The door was closed. The woman and the path and the nodding shrubs were out of sight. Whatever she'd said, he could forget, at least for tonight. "Burn them. Where's that drink? I'm going to celebrate."

"What are you celebrating?"

"Me losing those damn bandages. I looked like God knows what."

"Burrows might want you to keep 'em on."

"Fuck Burrows. If I want to take the bandages off, it's my choice."

"It's your face."

"Yeah," Todd said, staring again at the ground where the crazy woman had claimed she'd laid her body, imagining her there. "It's my face."

TWO

Maxine came up to the house the following afternoon to tell Todd about the Oscar festivities, reporting it all -- the ceremony itself, then the parties -- with a fine disregard for his tenderness. Several times he almost stopped her and told her he didn't want to hear any more, but the dregs of curiosity silenced him. He still wanted to know who'd won and who'd lost.

There'd been the usual upsets, of course, the usual grateful tears from the usual surprised ingenues, all but swooning away with gratitude. This year, there'd even been fisticuffs: an argument had developed in the parking lot at Spago's between Quincy Martinaro, a young, fast-talking filmmaker who'd made two movies, been lionized, and turned into a legendary ego all in the space of fifteen months, and Vincent Dinny, a vicious writer for Vanity Fair who'd recently profiled Martinaro most unflatteringly. Not that Dinny was a paragon himself. He was a waspish, embittered man in his late sixties, who -- having failed in his ascent of the Hollywood aristocracy -- had turned to writing about the town's underbelly. Nobody could have given a toss for his pieces had they not carried a certain sting of truth. The piece on Martinaro, for instance, had mentioned a certain taste for heroin; which was indeed the man's vice of choice.

"So who won?" Todd wanted to know.

"Quincy broke two fingers when he fell against his car, and Dinny got a bloody nose. So I don't know who won. It's all so ridiculous. Acting like children."

"Did you actually see them fighting?"

"No, but I saw Dinny afterwards. Blood all over his shirt." There was a pause. "I think he knows something."

"What?"

"He was quite civilized about it. You know how he is. Shriveled up little prick. He just said to me: I hear Todd's had some medical problems, and now you've got him under lock and key. And I just looked at him. Said nothing. But he knows."

"This is so fucked."

"I don't know how we deal with it, frankly. Sooner or later, he's going to suggest a piece to Vanity Fair, and they're going to jump on it."

"So fucked," Todd said, more quietly. "What the hell did I do to deserve this?"

Maxine let the question go. Then she said. "Oh, by the way, do you remember Tammy Lauper?"

"No."

"She runs the Fan Club."

"Oh yeah."

"Fat."

"Is she fat?"

"She's practically obese."

"Did she come to the office?"

"No; I got a call from the police in Sacramento, asking if we'd seen her. She's gone missing."

"And they think I might have absconded with her?"

"I don't know what they think. The point is, you haven't seen her up here?"

"Nope."

"Maybe over in Bel Air?"

"I haven't been over in Bel Air. Ask Marco."

"Yeah, well I said I'd ask you and I asked."

Todd went to the living-room window, and gazed out at the Bird of Paradise trees that grew close to the house. They hadn't been trimmed in many years; and were top-heavy with flowers and rotted foliage, their immensity blocking his view of the opposite hill. But it didn't take much of an effort of imagination to bring the Canyon into his mind's eye. The palm-trees that lined the opposite ridge; the pathways and the secret groves; the empty swimming pool, the empty koi pond; the statues, standing in the long grass. He was suddenly seized by an overwhelming desire to be out there in the warm sunshine, away from Maxine and her brittle gossip.

"I gotta go," he said to Maxine.

"Go where?"

"I just gotta go," he said, heading for the door.

"Wait," Maxine said. "We haven't finished business."

"Can't it wait?"

"No, I'm afraid this part can't."

Todd made an impatient sigh, and turned back to her. "What is it?"

"I've been doing some thinking over the last few days. About our working relationship."

"What about it?"

"Well, to put it bluntly, I think it's time we parted company."

Todd didn't say anything. He just looked at Maxine with an expression of utter incomprehension on his face, as though she'd just spoken to him in a foreign language. Then, after perhaps ten seconds, he returned his gaze to the Birds of Paradise.

"You don't know how wearying it gets," Maxine went on. "Waking up thinking about whether everything's okay with Todd, and going to sleep thinking the same damn thing. Not having a minute in a day when I'm not worrying about you. I just can't do it anymore. It's simple as that. It's making me ill. I've got high blood pressure, high cholesterol -- "

"I've made you a lot of money over the years," Todd broke in to observe.

"And I've taken care of you. It's been a very successful partnership. You made me rich. I made you famous."

"You didn't make me famous."

"Well, if I didn't I'd like to know who the hell did."

"Me," Todd replied, raising the volume of his voice just a fraction. "It's me people came to see. It's me they loved. I made myself famous."

"Don't kid yourself," Maxine said, her voice a stone.

There was a long silence. The wind brushed the leaves of the Bird of Paradise trees together, like the blades of plastic swords being brushed together.

"Wait," Todd said. "I know what this is about. You've got a new boy. That's it, isn't it? You're fucking some kid, and -- "

"I'm not fucking anybody, Todd."

"You fucked me."

"Twice. A long time ago. I wouldn't do it today."

"Well just for the record neither would I."

Maxine looked at him coldly. "That's it. I've said what I needed to say."

She went to the door. Todd called after her. "Why do it to me now? Why wait till I'm so fucking tired I can hardly think straight!" His voice continued to get louder, creeping up word on word, syllable on syllable. "And then screw me up like this?"

"Don't worry, I'll find somebody else to look after you. I'll train them. You'll be taken good care of. It's not like I'm walking out on you."

"Yes you are."

He turned to look at her, finally. The blood had rushed to the surface of his half-mended face. It was grotesquely red.

"You think I'm finished, so you're leaving me to be crucified by every piece of shit journalist in the fucking country."

Maxine ignored the outburst, and picked up what she was saying. "I'll find somebody to take over, who'll protect you better than I can. Because I'm just as tired as you are, Todd. Then I'm going to have one last party down at the beach-house, and get the hell out of this city before it kills me."

"Well I'm not going to let you go."

"Oh, now don't start threatening -- "

"I'm not starting anything. I'm just reminding you. We've got a contract. I'm not going to allow you to make a fortune out of me and then just walk away when things get difficult. You owe me."

"I what?"

"Whatever's on the contract. Another two years."

"I can't do it. I won't do it."

"Then I'll sue your ass, for every fucking cent you earned off me."

"You can try."

"And I'll win."

"Like I said, you can try. If you want all our dirty washing dragged out for everyone to see, then do it. I guarantee you'll come out looking worse than I will. I've covered for you so many times, Todd."

"And you signed a confidentiality agreement. If you break it, I'll sue you for breaking that, too."

"Who cares? Nobody gives a rat's ass about me. I'm just a professional parasite. You're the movie star. You're the all-American boy. The one with the reputation to lose." She paused. Then murmured, almost ruminatively: "The tales I could tell ... "

"I can tell just as many."

"There's nothing anyone can call me that I haven't been called a hundred times. I know everyone says I'm a cunt. That's what they say right? 'How can you work with that fucking cunt?' If I have to hear it in a courtroom one more time, I can take that, as long as when it's all over I don't have to hear your whining and complaining any more."

"Okay," Todd said. "If that's the way you want to play it."

Maxine headed for the door. "For your information," she said, "I could go down to LAX right now, and I could fill a limo with kids who have ten times your talent. They're all coming here, looking to be the next Tom Cruise, the next Leonardo DiCaprio, the next Todd Pickett. Pretty boys with tight asses and nice abs who'll end up, most of'em, selling their tight asses on Santa Monica Boulevard. The lucky ones'll end up waiters."

"If I wanted to, I could make any one of them a moviestar. Maybe not a star like you. But then again maybe bigger. Right face, right time, right movie. Some of it's luck, some of it's salesmanship. The point is, I sold you, Todd. I told people you were going to be huge, and I said it so often that it became the truth. And you were so sweet back then. So ... natural. You were the boy next door, and yes -- for your information -- I was a little in love with you, like everyone else. But it didn't last long. You changed. I changed. We both got rich. We both got greedy." She put her hand to her mouth, and gently passed her fingers over her lips. "But you know what, Todd? Neither of us was ever happy. Am I right? You were never happy, even when you had everything you'd every dreamed of wanting."

"What's your point?"

"I don't know what the point is," she said softly. "I guess that's the problem in a nutshell, isn't it? I don't know what the point is." She stared into middle distance for a while. "You'll be fine, Todd," she said finally. "Things will work out better without me, you'll see. I'll find someone to take care of you, Eppstadt'll find a movie for you, and you'll be back in front of the cameras in a few months, looking perfect. If that's what you want."

"Why wouldn't I want that?" he said to her.

She looked at him wearily. "Maybe because none of it's worth a damn."

He knew he had a riposte for that; he just couldn't figure out what it was at that particular moment. And while he was trying to figure it out, Maxine turned her back on him and walked out.

He let her go. What was the use of a feud? That was for the lawyers. Besides, he had more urgent business than trading insults with her. He had to find Katya.

The afternoon sun was not just warm, it was hot, and the foliage was busy with hungry hummingbirds and the canyon was quiet and perfect. He threaded his way through the overgrown bushes, past the tennis courts and the antique sundial, up towards the guest-house. The gradient became quite steep after a time, the narrow steps decayed by time and neglect, so that in some spots they'd collapsed completely. After a while, he realized the path had divided at some earlier point, and that he'd taken the wrong turning. The mistake took him on a picturesque tour of the gardens' hidden places, bringing him first to a small grove of walnut trees, in the middle of which stood a large gazebo in an advanced state of disrepair, and then into a garden within a garden, bounded by an unkempt privet hedge. Here there were roses, or rather the remains of last year's blooms, the bushes fighting for space, and strangling each other in the process. There was no way through the thorny tangle to pick up the path on the other side, so he was obliged to try and get around the garden from the outside, staying close to the hedge. It was difficult to do. Though the plants he was striding through didn't have thorns, they were still unruly and wild; twigs and dead flowers scraped at his face, his shirt was quickly soiled, his sneakers filled with stony dirt. By the time he got to the other side of the garden, and took to the path again, he was short of breath and patience; and had two dozen little nicks and scratches to call his own.

His wanderings had brought him to a spot that offered a spectacular view. He could see the big house below him surrounded by palms and Birds of Paradise; he could see the baroque weathervane on the top of the gazebo he'd passed on his way here, and the orchid house, which he had come upon on one of his earlier trips around the garden. All this, bathed in clear warm California light; the crystalline light which had brought filmmakers here almost a century before. Not for the first time since coming to the house he had a pleasurable sense of history; and a measure of curiosity as to the people who might once have walked here, talked here. What ambitions had they plotted, as they ambled through these gardens? Had they been sophisticates, or simpletons? What little he knew about Old Hollywood he'd heard from Jerry Brahms, which meant he'd only ever really been half-listening. But he knew enough to be certain those times had been good, at least for a man like himself. Douglas Fairbanks and Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin, the Barrymore clan, and all the rest had been like royalty, lording it over their new dominion in the West. A bean-counting prick like Eppstadt -- with his demographics and his endless corporate maneuvering -- would have had no power in the world this canyon still preserved.

Having caught his breath, he now continued his ascent. The shrubbery became denser the closer he got to the guest-house. He would have needed a machete to hack through it efficiently; but, lacking one, had to do with a branch he picked up on his way. The flowers gave up their perfume as he beat his way through them, and he recognized their scent. It was her scent. The scent on Katya's skin. Did she walk naked amongst them, he wondered, pressing the flowers against her body? Now that would be a sight to see.

The thought of this had stirred him up; he actually had a hard-on. Not an everyday order of hard-on either, but the kind that was so strong it actually hurt. It was a long time since he'd had a woodie so fierce, and it added immeasurably to his sense of well-being. With the guest-house now in view he pressed towards his goal, feeling curiously, happily, adolescent. So what the hell if Maxine was deserting him? What the hell if he'd never be a Golden Boy again? He was still alive and kicking, still had a stick in his hand, and a woodie in his pants, and the thought of Katya's flower bath in his mind's eye.

The thicket had finally thinned, and he was at last delivered onto a small unkempt lawn. The house before him was a two-story affair, built in the same style as the main house, simply on a much more modest scale. Above the door, set into the stucco, was a single tile, with a man on a horse painted upon it. He glanced up at it for only a moment. Then he pressed his flattened hand down the front of his jeans to push his erection into a less obvious position on the clock, and knocked on the madwoman's door.

THREE

There was no reply from within, nor any sound of movement in response to his knocking. He knocked a second time, and then -- after a short pause -- a third. Still there was no response, so he tried the latch. The door was unlocked. He pushed it open, and stepped out of the sunlight into the cool interior of the house.

At first glance he assumed that he'd misunderstood what Katya had told him, and the house was not occupied after all; merely used as a storage space of some kind. The room before him, which was large and high-ceilinged, was little more than a junk-room, filled with furniture and bric-a-brac. But as his eyes became more accustomed to the murky light, after the blaze of sun outside, he began to make sense of what he was seeing. Yes, the place was over-filled, but the contents of the room were far from junk. On the wall to the left hung an enormous tapestry depicting a scene of medieval revelry; on the wall opposite was a series of white marble bas-reliefs that looked to have been filched from a Roman temple. In the far corner, close to a great oak door, were more slabs of stone, these carved with hieroglyphics. There was an elegant chaise longue in front of the massive fireplace; and a table, its legs elaborately carved with baroque grotesqueries, stood in the middle of the room. All of this had presumably been removed from the big house at some point, but that hardly explained the strange confusion of periods and styles.

Moving deeper into the room, Todd called out again to announce his presence. Again, there was no reply. He didn't linger now to study the furniture or the antiquities, but crossed the room to the large oak door. Here again he knocked, but receiving no reply, he turned the carved handle, and pushed the door open. Given its size, he'd expected it to be heavy, but it wasn't. On the other side was a wide hallway, the walls of which were hung with white masks. No, not masks, life-casts; white plaster faces, all caught with that expression of eerie, enforced repose that such masks always wore. He'd had similar things made of his own face, by special effects men. Once for the facewound in Gunner, once for a bullet wound. It was an eerie experience, to look at the finished work. This is what I'll look like when I'm dead, he'd thought when he'd been shown the final results.

There were thirty or forty masks displayed on the wall; mostly of men. He thought that he vaguely recognized some of the faces, but he couldn't have put names to any of them. They were all handsome; some of them almost beautiful. He remembered Katya's crazy talk about the parties she'd had in the house. How she'd seduced Valentino. Was this collection the inspiration for that fantasy? Had she dreamed of fucking the famous because she had plaster copies of their faces up on her wall?

The door at the other end of the wall of life-masks was, like the last, deceptively light. This time he paused to puzzle out why, and examining it a little more closely, had his answer. It was fake. The large rusted nails weren't iron at all, but carved and stippled wood; the patina of antiquity had been achieved by a skilled painter. It was a door from a movie-set; all illusion. And if the doors had been made that way, what about the tapestry and the bas-reliefs and table carved with grotesqueries? They were all most likely fakes. Stolen off a back-lot, or bought from a studio fire-sale. None of it was real.

He pushed the door open, and came into a second room, this one much smaller than the first, but just as cluttered. On the wall opposite him hung a large mirror, its gilt frame elaborately carved with naked figures, men and women knotted together in configurations which looked both sensual and tormented. He seldom let a mirror go by without putting it to use, and even now -- knowing he wouldn't like what he saw -- he paused and assessed his reflection. He was a sad sight, his clothes in disarray from his trip through the shrubbery, his face like an inept copy of its finer self. He wondered if perhaps he shouldn't turn back; he was in no condition to present himself to Katya. Even as he was thinking about this the door to the left of the mirror creaked a little, and -- caught by the wind -- opened a couple of inches. Forsaking his sorry reflection, he went to the door and peered into the room beyond.

The sight before him put all thought of retreat from his mind. Inside was an enormous four-poster bed, its columns decorated in the same lushly erotic style as the gilded frame of the mirror. A swathe of dark purple velvet hung in ripe folds like a half-raised curtain. The red pillows heaped on the bed were just as excessive, creamy silk fringed with lace. The sheet, which was also silk, was pulled back, so that the sleeper was left uncovered.

It was Katya, of course.

There she lay, face-down; her hair unloosed, her body naked. He stood at the door, enraptured. The pillow she lay on was so soft and deep that her face was almost concealed, but he could still see the high curve of her cheek, the tender pink of her ear. Was she awake behind her pale lids, he wondered, her nakedness a deliberate provocation? He suspected not. There was something too artless about the way her legs were splayed, too childlike about the way her hands were tucked up against her breasts. And the final proof? She was snoring. If this was indeed a performance then that was a touch of genius. The perfectly human thing which made all the rest so believable.

His eyes went to the cleft of her buttocks; to the gloss of the hair that showed between her legs. He was suddenly stupid with lust.

He took a step towards the bed. The floor creaked under his weight, but thankfully the noise wasn't loud enough to stir her. He continued his approach, his gaze fixed upon her face, looking for the merest flutter of a lash. But there was none. She was deeply asleep; and dreaming. He was close enough now to see that her eyes were in motion behind her lids, watching something happening in another place.

At the bedside, he dropped down onto his haunches, his left knee popping loudly. There was a faint dusting of goose-flesh on her limbs, he saw. He couldn't resist the temptation to reach out and touch her skin, as though he might smooth the gooseflesh away with his fingertips. Surely she would wake now, he thought. But no, she slept on. The only sign that she might be surfacing from sleep was the slowing of the motion of her pupils. The dream was leaving her; or she was departing from the dream.

He was suddenly alarmed. What would she think, if she woke to find him this close to the bed, his intent so unquestionably voyeuristic? Perhaps he should go; quickly, before she woke. But he couldn't bring himself to move an inch. All he could do was kneel there, like a suppliant, his heart beating furiously, his face a furnace.

Then, in her sleep, she murmured something. He held his breath, trying to catch the words. It wasn't English she was speaking, it was an Eastern European language; probably her native Romanian. He could make no sense of what she was saying, of course, but there was a softness to the syllables; a neediness, which suggested they were supplications. She turned her face up from the pillow, and he saw that her expression was troubled. Her brow was furrowed, and there were tears welling beneath her lids. The sight of her distress bothered him. It brought back memories of his mother's tears, which he'd watched her shed so often as a child. Tears shed by a woman left to raise her sons alone. Tears of frustrated rage, sometimes; but more often tears of loneliness.

"Don't ... " he said to her softly.

She heard him speaking, it seemed. Her entreaties grew quieter. Then she said: "Willem?"

"No ... "

The frown nicking her brow deepened and her lids began to flutter. She was waking up now, no doubt of that. He got to his feet, and began to retreat to the door, keeping his eyes fixed on her face. Only when he reached the door did he finally, regretfully, relinquish sight of her and turn away.

As he slipped through the door he heard her speak. "Wait," she said.

He was sorely tempted to exit rather than turn and face her, but he resisted his cowardice and looked back towards the bed.

She had pulled the sheet a little way up, to partially cover her nakedness. Her eyes were open, and the tears her dreams had induced were now running down her cheeks. Despite them, she was smiling.

"I'm sorry," Todd said.

"For what?"

"Coming in here uninvited."

"No," she said sweetly. "I wanted you to come."

"Still, I shouldn't have stayed ... watching you. It's just that you were talking in your sleep."

"Well it's nice to have somebody listening," she said. "It's a long time since anyone was with me when I slept." She wiped the tears from her cheeks.

"Are you all right?" he asked her.

"Yes, I'm fine."

"Were you having a bad dream?"

"I can't remember," she said, glancing away from him. He knew from his acting coach what such glances indicated: a lie. She knew exactly what she'd been dreaming about; she just didn't want to tell him. Well, that was her business. God knows everybody was allowed their share of secrets.

"What time is it?" she said.

He glanced at his watch. "Almost four-thirty."

"You want to go for a walk before it gets too dark?" she said.

"Sure."

She threw off her sheet, and got up out of bed, glancing up at Todd as she did so, as though to assure herself of his scrutiny.

"I'm going to bathe first," she said. "Would you do me a little favour in the meantime?"

"Sure."

"Go back to the Gaming Room, where we met last night, and -- "

"Don't tell me. Fetch your whip."

She smiled. "You read my mind."

"As long as you promise not to be beating me with it."

"Nothing could be further from my mind," she said.

"Okay. I'll get it ... but no beating."

"Take your time. There's still plenty of light in the sky."

He left her feeling oddly light-footed, pleased to have an errand from her. What did that say about her relationship, he wondered as he ran? That he was naturally subservient? Ready to do her will at the snap of her fingers. Well, if so, so.

He found his way back down to the big house without difficulty. Marco heard him in the Gaming Room, heavy-footed as ever, and came to see what all the noise was about.

"You okay?"

"That's all you ever ask. Am I okay? Yes. I'm better than okay."

"Good. Only I heard from Maxine -- "

"Fuck Maxine."

"So it doesn't bother you?"

"No. We had a good run together. Now it's over."

He picked up the switch from the mantelpiece.

"What the hell is that?"

"What does it look like?"

He beat the air two or three times. The switch was beautifully balanced; he could imagine learning how to use it with considerable cunning. Perhaps she would let him stroke her body with it.

Marco studied him in silence for a few moments; then he said: "You never told me why you took your bandages off. Were they too tight?"

"I didn't take them off. She took them off."

"Who's she?"

"The woman who owns this house. Katya Lupescu."

"I'm sorry, you've lost me."

Todd smiled. "No more explanations," he said. "You'll meet her later. I gotta go."

He left Marco standing at the door with a befuddled expression on his face, and headed out into the light again, climbing the slope towards Katya's house, aware that he was behaving like a man who'd just been given a new lease on life.

He didn't call her name as he entered this time. He simply made his way through the rooms of fake relics.

The sound of running water came from the room adjacent to the bedroom. Apparently, Katya was still running her bath.

He paused and looked around the bedroom. There were several enormous posters on the wall, which he had not noticed until now. Framed posters: one-sheets for movies, many decades old to judge by the stylized graphics, and the yellowing of the paper they were printed on. The same image dominated all seven posters: that of a woman's face. She was represented in two of them as a waif, a child-woman lost in a predatory world. But in the others she'd matured beyond the orphan, and these were the images that reminded him of the woman he'd met last night -- an exquisite femme fatale glowering from the frames as she planned her next act of anarchy. There was, of course, no question who the woman was. Her name was on the posters, big and bold. The Sorrows of Frederick, starring Katya Lupi. The Devil's Bride, starring Katya Lupi. She is Destruction, starring Katya Lupi.

What the hell was he to make of this new piece of evidence? Of course it was possible that Katya had paid to have seven posters representing fictitious films printed on aged paper and framed to look like objects of antiquity, but it wasn't very likely. Was it possible this Katya Lupi -- who bore such a resemblance to the Katya he knew -- was hardly the same woman at all but a granddaughter, with an uncanny resemblance to her older relative? It was a more plausible solution than any other he could think of. Certainly the flawless woman he'd seen naked minutes before, her face without so much as a wrinkle upon it, could not be the woman who'd starred in these movies. There had to be some other explanation.

He was about to call out and announce his presence when he heard a soft intake of breath echoing off the bathroom walls. He went quietly to the door, and glanced in. In a large, old-fashioned ceramic bath, half-filled with water, lay Katya, her legs spread, her hips lifted clear of the water so that he could see how her fingers slid inside her. Her eyes were closed.

Not for the first time this afternoon, Todd could feel the head of his dick tapping out the rhythm of his pulse against the inside of his pants. But he had no desire to interrupt Katya's game. He was perfectly happy to watch her: her face in ecstasy, her breasts clearing from the water as her body arched, her legs lifted up and straddling the sides of the bath. The mysteries of who she was and how she came to be here suddenly seemed absurdly irrelevant. What the hell did it matter? Look at her!

"Did you bring it?"

He'd had his eyes on her cunt; but when he looked back up at her face she was staring at him, her expression fierce with need.

"The Teroarea. Did you bring it?"

He was mortified with embarrassment, but plainly she couldn't have cared less. She had other priorities.

"Yes," he said, showing her the switch. "I brought it."

"So use it."

"What?"

She lifted her hips even higher, spreading her legs to give him a full view of her sex. It was ripened by her own touches; but also, he knew, from the anticipation of his return.

"Touch it," she said. "Lightly."

His target stood proud of its hood, presented for his delectation.

"Please," she begged.

He took four steps to the bottom of the bath, keeping his eyes fixed upon her. He felt the weight of the switch in his hand. He'd never done anything remotely like this before, but something about the way her body was contorted to offer her sex up to him lent him confidence.

"Are you ready?"

"Just do it!"

He lifted the Terror. Her clitoris looked as hard and as red as a ruby. He lay the switch on it with a short little stab that made her sob.

"Again!" she demanded immediately.

The ruby was already a little redder.

"Again!" she said.

He struck her again, twice, three times, four and five and six, while every muscle in her body went rigid so as to be his perfect target. "More?" he said.

There were tears on her face, but she simply growled at him between gritted teeth. He took it to mean yes, and went to work again, until the sweat was running from his face, and down his back, his breath was rough with exertion. But she would not let him stop. Her gaze, her sneer, her offered body spoke the same demand, and he dutifully answered it, over and over and over and --

Suddenly her eyes rolled up in her head. Her mouth opened. He could barely make sense of the words, they were so thick with feeling. "Again." Her pupils had almost gone from sight. "Once." He lifted the Terror, which for all its litheness, its lightness, suddenly felt brutal in his aching hand. Her body had started to shake. He was shaking too, now. But the Terror had its own imperative. Down it came once more.

She let out a cry that sounded more like something a bird would utter than a woman. Then her limbs lost their solidity, and her legs slipped gracefully off the sides of the bath. A tiny plume of crimson tinted the water.

He dropped the switch and retreated to the door, in a kind of childish terror at what he'd done; and at how much it had aroused him. Katya's eyes had closed. The expression on her face was one of childish contentment; an infant sleeping in the arms of innocence.

He slid down the door-frame into a squatting position, and there -- exhausted by the intensity of the previous minutes -- he must have briefly fallen asleep, because when he opened his eyes again the water was still moving, but Katya had vacated the tub. Vacated the bathroom too, in fact. He didn't have to get up to find her. He merely had to swing his head round, to see that she was sitting on the edge of the bed, her legs open, looking at her reflection in the long oval mirror. The expression of contentment had not left her face; but now there was a little smile on her lips too.

She had a wide repertoire of smiles, he thought; or at least it seemed he'd seen a lot in the short time they'd known one another. There was her teasing smile, her mischievous smile, her dark smile, her dry smile. This one had a little of everything in it. She knew he was watching her, so there was something of her performance smile in it. But it certainly wasn't phony. How fake could someone be when she'd just let her body lead her into such extremes? Surely he was one of a rare order of men: those to whom she'd given herself in that profound way. He thought of the tinted blood rising up between her legs, and felt a peculiar mingling of retroactive alarm (what had he been doing, risking her most tender anatomy with nothing but the look on her face to guide him?) and exhilaration that they'd come through it together: their first shared insanity. Whoever she was, trespasser, lunatic, stalker, star, all other possible definitions paled before this: she was the woman who had taught him how insignificant the flesh between his legs was when it came to the pleasuring of certain women.

"Come here," she said.

He pushed himself up off the doorframe and went over to her. "Let me see," she said, unbuckling his pants.

"I came ... "

"I know."

His trousers were massively too big, which was the way he liked to wear them. As soon as his belt was unbuckled, they fell down. He was afraid his dick would make a sorry show by now, shriveled up in a crinkled skin of dried semen. But no. His erection had been so furiously hard it remained quite impressive, even though it was sodden. He could not imagine any other woman with whom he'd had sex taking such guileless pleasure in the perusal of his quarter-hard dick. Nor would any of those women have leaned forward, as Katya now did, and kissed it.

"May I look at you?" he said.

She assumed he didn't mean her face. She spread her legs. He hoisted his pants back tip and went down on his knees.

"Does it hurt?" he said.

"Yes," she said. She put her hand on the back of his head, gently pressing him towards her body. "Look inside me," she said. "Don't be afraid. You did it. See what you did?"

He could see without opening her up. Her whole pubic region was puffy and inflamed.

"Go on, look," she said. "Enjoy what you did."

He gently parted her labia, which were sticky beneath his fingertips. Not blood, not sweat. Just the natural juices of an aroused body.

"You see?" she said, pressing his fingers deeper into her. She was like a furnace in there. "You've got thoughts going round in your head you never imagined having. Am I right?"

He replied by gently scooping her juices out on his fingers and putting them deep into his mouth.

"You want to lick me out?"

He shook his head.

"I'm afraid I'd draw more blood."

"Maybe I'd like that."

"Give me time."

She took his fingers out of his mouth and replaced them with her tongue.

"You're right," she said, when they'd finished kissing. "We've got all the time in the world."

She stood up. He stayed where he was, at her feet, still not quite believing they'd come so far so fast.

"It isn't a dream," she said, reading his doubts as she'd read so many other thoughts of his in the last twenty-four hours. "Sometimes it seems that way, but that's just the Canyon."

He held onto her leg for a moment, kissing the inside of her thigh.

"We were going to walk, remember?" she said.

"You still want to?"

"Oh yes. I'd love to. It's a perfect night for introductions."