"I'LL be damned if I know why in hell I'm doing this," Crumley muttered, almost driving on the wrong side of the street. "I said, I'll be damned if I know why in hell-"

"I heard you," I said, watching the mountains and the foothills coming closer.

"You know who you remind me of?" Crumley snorted. "My first and only wife, who knew how to flimflam me with her shapes and sizes and big smiles."

"Do I flimflam you?"

"Say you don't and I'll throw you out of the car. When you see me coming, you sit and pretend to be working a crossword puzzle. You're maybe four words into it before I grab your pencil and shove you outta the way."

"Did I ever do that, Crumley?"

"Don't get me mad. You watching the street signs? Do so.

Now. Tell me, why are you heading this damn-fool expedition?"

I looked at the Rattigan phone book in my lap. "She was running away, she said. From Death, from one of die names in this book. Maybe one of them sent it to her as a spoiled gift. Or maybe she was running toward them, like we're doing, heading for one to see if he's the sinner who dared to send tombstone dictionaries to impressionable child actresses."

"Rattigan's no child," Crumley groused.

"She is. She wouldn't've been so great up on the screen if she hadn't kept one heckuva lot of her Meglin Kiddie self locked up in all those sexual acrobatics. It's not the old Rattigan who's scared here; it's the schoolgirl in panic running through the dark forest, Hollywood, full of monsters."

"You whipping up another of your Christmas fruitcakes full of nuts?"

"Does it sound like it?"

"No comment. Why would one of these red-lined friends send her two books full of lousy memories?"