"I have been happy to indulge him in this… my father would have said weakness, I suppose. As I say, I enjoy my father's affection and his largesse. Les is an artistic man, and like many artists he is whimsical. He is full of quirky needs. Sensitivities, one might say, that other men, perhaps like you, worldly men, do not necessarily have. In the past I have paid his debts and been happy to have contributed in my way to his artistic fulfillment."

She went back to the sideboard and poured herself another drink. It looked like something she did easily. She drank some.

"But this, $100,000 to a man like Lipshultz." She shook her head as if she couldn't continue, or saw no need to. "We talked, I said that it was time for him to become responsible, to grow a bit more worldly. I hoped, frankly, to snap him out of his childishness in this regard. I said he would have to liquidate this debt himself."

I finished my cigarette and stubbed it out in a polished abalone shell that sat on the end table in the middle of the desert. I looked at the photographs of young women on the wall. I wondered how many sensitivities Les had to be indulged in.

"Does he work out of his home?" I said.

The bilious hooch she was drinking was beginning to work. She shifted her hips restlessly as she stood by the sideboard. Her thighs beneath the black silk lounging slacks were full of energy. There was a smudge of red along the high cheekbones on the schoolmarm face.

"Like a part-time plumber? Hardly. He has an office in Los Angeles."

"Do you have the address, Mrs. Valentine?"

"Certainly not. Les comes and goes as he will. Our marriage is perfectly founded on trust. I don't need to know his office address."

I let my eyes run over the glamour photos mounted on the wall. Several of the women were famous, two movie stars, one a model who'd been on the cover of Life. All were signed in the lower right corner in gold in the distinctive small hand.