“No, she died. During the war.” He caught Lasner’s expectant look and shook his head. “She got sick.” No drama, a daily wearing away, medicines to keep the retching down, then a final exhaustion.

“So now it’s just the brother?” Lasner said, suddenly sentimental. “Let me tell you something. Stay close. What else have we got? Family. You trust blood. Don’t be like-” He took a puff on the cigar, moving farther away, drifting into anecdote again. “Look at Harry Warner. Jack makes him crazy. Screaming. Shouting. Sometimes, they’re in the same room, you don’t even want to watch. Don’t be like that.”

“But they’re still-”

Lasner shrugged. “Who else would work with Jack? He is crazy. You know, I said to him once, you hate him so much, come work with me, partners, your name first, I don’t care. At the time, this is worth a fortune to him. You know what he said? ‘You want that bastard to run my studio?’ His studio. So they’re stuck with each other, till one of them keels over. You put that kind of pressure here,” he said, touching his heart, “and sooner or later they wheel you out on a stretcher. Well.” He stood up, glancing at his watch again, then out the window. “What I hate, this time of night, is you never know where you are.” He put his hand on Ben’s shoulder, an uncle. “Remember what I said. Don’t be like Jack. Stay close.”

And what was there to say to that? Danny had gone to California in ’40, using Otto’s name to get a Second Unit job at Metro. Just to see what it was like. And then the war had closed the door behind him, eight thousand miles away, so that all they’d had for years were sheets of blue tissue V-mail. Danny playing parent. Keep safe, out of combat. Their mother’s health. War news. But still Danny’s voice, the same wink in it. Stories he knew Ben would like, could pass on to his friends. Meeting Lana Turner. Going to hear the King Cole Trio. You have to come out here. The whole make-believe world real when Danny wrote about it, the same kid sneaking cigarettes, talking late at night from his bed across the room. About what? Anything. Ben wrapped up in the sound of it.