But the reality was, she didn’t stand a chance, even with a little string-pulling. At twenty-nine, she really was too old for this town, to be starting out, anyway. So I didn’t see the harm. Let her try, let her get her hopes dashed, and let her come running back into my arms in tears.

The second agent she tried out for signed her. I chewed Fred out, asking what the hell he thought he was doing, had he twisted this guy’s arm or what?

Fred-a small, compactly muscular, nattily dressed man in his forties with sharp dark eyes, a rumpled face, and a shiny bald head-sat behind his desk in the Bradbury Building and shrugged elaborately. “Who’d a thunk it? I didn’t ask for any favors, except to let Peg read for him. I said she was my partner’s wife and would he please humor her. He said sure, and now this!”

I was pacing. “Humor her is right. She goes out on audition at Fox tomorrow!”

“Having an agent is nothing.”

“Nothing! There’s ten thousand beautiful babes out there that would screw you silly for an in with an agent!”

“Maybe in the future I should keep that in mind.” Fred sat forward, patted the air reassuringly. “Listen, Nate, don’t worry. Roles are not that easy to come by. You think she’s gonna get the first part she reads for? No way in hell!”

Fred was right. She got the second part she read for, a bit as a waitress in a Bob Hope picture at Paramount.

She was thrilled, giddy with it, and I did my best not to be a rat, and seem happy for her.

Anyway, Peggy taking this flier at the movies didn’t bother me as much as the notion of relocating to Los Angeles; and Fred Rubinski wasn’t crazy about it, either, because he was used to running his own office. Taking me on as a partner had been predicated on my ass staying in Chicago.

“I don’t know what to do about it,” I said to him, in a booth at Sherry’s, the swanky restaurant he owned a piece of on Sunset. “I could divide my time between Chicago and here, maybe three weeks back there and one in L.A.”