“We’ll call you the minute we know anything,” Graham said as he stepped to the door.

“I’ll leave word that you’re to be put right through,” Anne answered.

Jim Collier hustled to shake their hands.

“A real pleasure to meet you,” he said.

“Yeah,” Neal said.

“I do know the difference between movies and real life,” Anne said to Neal.

“Yeah? Well, maybe you can teach it to me sometime.”

On the way out they passed Anne’s eleven-thirty, two nervous screenwriters clutching a couple of notebooks and a pile of dreams.

“So what have we found out about ‘these people,’ Graham? And what people are we talking about?” Neal asked when they got back in the limo. It was as much an accusation as a question.

“Well, we found out what accounted for Harley’s cleaning up his act.

“What?”

Graham told the driver to go to the corner of Hollywood and Vine.

“What’s at Hollywood and Vine?” the driver asked sullenly.

“What’s it to you?” answered Graham.

Neal perused the bar, found a little bottle of Johnny Walker Red, and poured it into a glass as the limo eased out of the lot onto the street.

“What’s going on, Graham?” he asked.

Neal tossed back the whiskey. It was like sitting by a fire on a winter’s day. He noticed that Joe Graham was rubbing his artificial hand into the palm of his real one. It was something he did when he was nervous, when he had something on his mind that he wanted to get off. Neal finished his drink and waited.

“So,” Graham asked, “are you on?”

Neal didn’t want to be on. God, he didn’t want to be on. He wanted to be off in the world of old books, sitting in a quiet room taking orderly notes. But if this was just a simple custody case, they wouldn’t need him. Graham would track Harley down, call in muscle if he needed it, and take the kid home. So there was something else.