"Nicole Kidman, this is Nora's dear friend Alexa Scully and her husband, Shane." The beautiful Australian actress smiled warmly, shook their hands, and they exchanged a few remarks. Then Farrell moved them on. "And this is L. A.'s resident bad boy, Jack the Mack… Jacko, want you to meet some friends of Nora's…" Jack fucking Nicholson, Shane thought, feeling starstruck as he shook the famous actor's hand.

More small talk until Farrell carried them along… "Barbra and Jim live just down the street. Meet Nora's dear friends, Shane and Alexa." It was Streisand and Brolin.

It went on like that until finally Alexa got pulled away by Nora to meet some of the other bridesmaids, and Shane had to go to the bathroom. He used the one in the hall, thinking he was having a great time in spite of himself. This was one pretty amazing party.

When Shane came out of the bathroom he ran into the last person he would have ever expected to find at Farrell Champion's house.

Chapter 2.

THE BAD JOKE

Nicky Marcella was waiting to get into the guest john as Shane exited. They looked at each other like competing art thieves casing a Sotheby's auction.

"My God, Shane Scully," Nicky said. He was wearing a beautifully tailored, if somewhat gaudy, orangish-brown suit-or was it brownish-orange?-hard to tell because the colors strobed when he moved. Either way, it took some doing to pull off. Maybe the suit was helped by the fact that there wasn't all that much of it-Nicky being only five-foot-five, top to bottom, including his stacked Cuban heels. He was also rail thin-Mick Jagger thin. He had black hair, close-cut on the sides and slightly longer on the top. He was wearing an open-collared silk shirt with a few too many gold chains. His smile was warm, but he was narrow-faced and strangely ferretlike.

"Nicky, how you been?"