"Now," said the echo far down the hill in the night, "just don't stand there, help me!"

"Yes!" Bella closed her eyes and swallowed hard and half fell to sit on the steps, getting her breath back as black-and-White pictures flashed in her head. Suddenly it was 1929 and she Was very small, in a theater with dark and light pictures looming above the first row where she sat, transfixed, and then laughing, and then transfixed and laughing again.

She opened her eyes. The two voices were still down there, a faint wrestle and echo in the night, despairing and thumping each other with their hard derby hats.

Zelda, thought Bella Winters. I'll call Zelda. She knows everything. She'll tell me what this is. Zelda, yes!

Inside, she dialed Z and E and L and D and A before she saw what she had done and started over. The phone rang a long while until Zelda's voice, angry with sleep, spoke half way across L.A.

"Zelda, this is Bella!"

"Sam just died?"

"No, no, I'm sorry-

"You're sorry?"

"Zelda, I know you're going to think I'm crazy, but . . ."

"Go ahead, be crazy."

"Zelda, in the old days when they made films around L.A. , they used lots of places, right? Like Venice , Ocean Park . . . "

"Chaplin did, Langdon did, Harold Lloyd, sure."

"Laurel and Hardy?"

"What?"

"Laurel and Hardy, did they use lots of locations?"

"Palms, they used Palms lots, Culver City Main Street ,' Effie Street ."

"Effie Street !"

"Don't yell, Bella."

"Did you say Effie Street ?"

"Sure, and God, it's three in the morning!"

"Right at the top of Effie Street !?"

"Hey, yeah, the stairs. Everyone knows them. That's where the music box chased Hardy downhill and ran over Him."