"Which one?" He almost seems afraid to ask this.

"I like her."

Julian sighs and starts to sit up. "Clay-"

"And I don't really care what other s.h.i.t is going down."

"Do you really like her, Clay?" Julian asks sadly. "Or do you like something else?"

"What does that mean, Julian?"

"You've been through this before," he says, carefully choosing his words. "You know what this town is like. What did you expect? You barely know her. She's an actress."

"I'm listening to you? you? You're running an escort service and I'm listening to you?" You're running an escort service and I'm listening to you?"

Julian sighs again. "I was just doing favors. It was small time. Come off it. Don't be so nave."

"You're pimping your girlfriend out and you're telling me s.h.i.t like that?"

"Okay, look, I can see where you're at. I can see where this is all going. I just wanted to say I'm sorry." He gets up and leans on the back of the sectional for support. "I should have known that you'd react this way. I thought you would have found it, I don't know, fun...that, y'know, you'd get something out of it and, well, she'd get something out of it and you wouldn't take it so seriously."

"That's why you were so interested in the movie, isn't it?" I say. "Because you wanted me to give your girlfriend a part?"

"Well, yeah." Julian pauses. "We thought it might work. But if you're not going to see her anymore we'll just call it quits."

"That might have to be adjusted."

"What do you mean?"

"Because I'm seeing her tonight," I say.

"I know you are," Julian says. "Because you're still going to help her, right?"

The last time Rain sees Amanda Flew is on the Sunday following the night when I stood outside of the apartment on Orange Grove and, according to Rain, Amanda spends that night in her room and everything is "fine," though because of what I saw that night, I know everything was not "fine," and that something had happened that was pushing Amanda out of town. Amanda is supposed to leave the next day to stay with Mike and Kyle in Palm Springs and just "chill" for a couple of weeks but because she sleeps late and is scattered by the reasons she has to leave L.A. she doesn't get out of the apartment on Orange Grove until after dark. Rain never wanted Amanda-a girl she has now described to me as "too trusting"-to make this drive alone, and definitely not at night, and definitely not with twenty thousand dollars in cash in one of the gym bags she's carrying, but Amanda insists to the point where she's soon threatening not to go at all, so Rain and the two guys in Palm Springs tell Amanda that the only way this will work is if Amanda makes contact with them every ten minutes whether it's with Rain or with Mike and Kyle at the house in the desert, and Amanda agrees and leaves Orange Grove at 8:45 and doesn't call Rain until she's pa.s.sing through downtown L.A. at 9:15. After this initial call things seem to fall apart fairly quickly.

From about 9:30 until 10:00 Amanda doesn't answer her phone. A call is made to the house in Palm Springs around 10:15 and Amanda sounds calm and tells Mike and Kyle that she's going to be later than she thought, that she's meeting someone at a coffee shop in Riverside but it's cool, and not to tell Rain. Apparently, neither Rain nor Mike nor Kyle thinks this is cool and Mike immediately starts driving to the coffee shop in Riverside. The next call to Kyle is at eleven and Amanda says she's not in Riverside anymore but has driven to Temecula. Kyle calls Mike and warns him that she's not in Riverside, and Amanda doesn't answer any of Rain's calls or texts-This is totally f.u.c.ked, one of them reads, you're going to die you're going to die-and an argument ensues about calling 911 and then is quickly dropped, and according to a waitress Mike talks to at the coffee shop in Riverside, Amanda had met two men at the entrance of the coffee shop and Amanda even kissed one of them on the cheek, though the waitress couldn't get a clear view of the one Amanda had kissed. The last call is made an hour later and Amanda is explaining to Kyle that she'll see him tomorrow, even after Kyle has warned her that Mike's leaving Riverside and on his way to Temecula. At this point someone takes the phone from Amanda and listens as Kyle starts shouting for Amanda to tell him exactly where she is, and Kyle can hear Amanda in the background whining, "Come on, stop it, give me back the phone, come on."

"Who is this? h.e.l.lo?" Kyle shouts before the line goes dead.

Amanda never made it to Palm Springs the next morning and when it's confirmed to Rain that Amanda never showed up the following afternoon this is taken for some reason as a bad sign and not something someone who has been described to me as "crazy" and "really messed up" and who Rain slapped across the face in the apartment on Orange Grove and who had read my palm in an airport lounge and who had an affair with Rip Millar, who was, in fact, a member of his "p.u.s.s.y posse," would be p.r.o.ne to do. The first ominous news comes in early this evening: Mike and Kyle find Amanda's blue Jeep in a parking lot off Interstate 10 outside of Indio. All of her bags are gone, including the one with the twenty thousand dollars in cash.

I'm listening patiently as Rain tries to give me a version of the story that's been edited carefully enough that I don't have to ask any questions and she says she shouldn't be telling me this at all but the need is apparently overwhelming even though she has erased the real fear of it as she tries to keep it together with Patron and a joint and a.s.suring herself that Amanda will show up eventually. I keep telling Rain that maybe there was a mystery Amanda needed to solve. I tell Rain that maybe Amanda wanted the answer to something. The other thing that soothes Rain, besides the tequila and the dope and the Xanax I've given her, is the callback for The Listeners The Listeners that I arranged for next week. that I arranged for next week.

"What does Julian think?" I ask when she's been silent too long. "About Amanda?"

She can't answer that question because Julian's name can't be mentioned between us anymore. I finish the drink I'm holding.

"Well, maybe Rip's involved in this," I say, imitating a child investigating a crime. "Isn't Rip f.u.c.king her too? He must be very worried as well."

Rain just shrugs, ignoring me. "Maybe."

"Maybe he's worried or maybe he's f.u.c.king her or maybe he's involved in this?"

She says nothing, just stares out the window of my office, slumped on the chair while I sit behind my desk watching her.

"If you think her disappearance is connected to Rip shouldn't you go to the police?" I ask, my voice idle and detached.

Rain turns and looks at me like I'm insane.

"You don't care, do you?" she asks.

"You never told me what happened between you and Kelly Montrose."

"It was nothing. Whatever anyone told you, it's not true." She turns back to the drink and finishes it. "Nothing ever happened between me and Kelly."

"I don't believe you," I say, swiveling slowly back and forth in my chair, planning how this scene will play out. "You must have promised him something."

"Not everyone's like you."

I don't say anything.

"Maybe Kelly wanted something to happen," she finally admits. "Maybe that's why he made the call for me. I don't know."

"And maybe that explains why Rip got so angry," I say, trying to remain calm, trying to rein in my excitement. "Maybe he felt Kelly was about to make a move on you..."

"Rip Millar is just...very f.u.c.ked up."

"Maybe that's why the two of you got along so well."

"Are you seriously talking to me like this?"

"You knew something that day," I tell her. "You knew that something had happened to Kelly. The day before you left for San Diego with that piece of s.h.i.t. Kelly hadn't been found yet, but you knew that Rip had done something-"

"f.u.c.k off," she screams.

"I don't really care anymore," I finally say, moving toward her, stroking her neck.

"You really don't care, do you?"

"I didn't know her, Rain."

"But you know me."

"No. I don't."

I lean in to kiss her face.

She turns away. "I don't want to," she mutters.

"Then get out of here," I say. "I don't care if you ever come back here."

"Amanda's missing and you're-"

"I said I don't care." I take her hand. I start pulling her toward the bedroom. "Come on."

"Just let it go, Clay." Her eyes are closed and she's grimacing.

"If you're not going to do this, then you should leave."

"And if I leave, what will happen?"

"I'll make a call to Mark. I'll make another call to Jon. I'll call Jason." I pause. "And I'll cancel everything."

She immediately moves into me and says she's sorry and then she's guiding me toward the bedroom and this is the way I always wanted the scene to play out and then it does and it has to because it doesn't really work for me unless it happens like this.

"You should be more compa.s.sionate," she says later, in the darkness of the bedroom.

"Why?" I ask. "Why should I be more compa.s.sionate?"

"You're a Pisces."

I pause, letting the statement hang there while it defines where I've ended up.

"How do you know that?"

"Amanda told me," she says quietly.

I don't say anything, even though it's hard to leave that statement alone.

"What's the worst thing that ever happened to you?" she asks, and it sounds like an echo. I know what it is but pretend that I don't.

At the Getty there's a dinner thrown by two DreamWorks executives for a curator of a new exhibit and I go alone and I'm in a better mood, just floating through it all, looking good, a little buzzed, and I'm standing on the terrace gazing out over the blackest sky and asking myself, What would Mara say? And on the tram ride up the hill I was in the same car as Trent and Blair and I was listening to Alana share her frustrations about a plastic surgeon and I nodded while watching the traffic speeding by on the 405 below us and from where I'm standing now nothing is visible in the darkened canyons until the lights of the hushed city fan out of that darkness and I keep checking my phone for messages and I'm almost done with my second martini when a boy in a catering uniform tells me that dinner will be served in fifteen minutes and then that boy is replaced by Blair.

"I hope you're not driving tonight," she says.

"Hey, I had a bad feeling when I showed up but I'm happy now."

"You look like you're in a good mood."

"I am."

"When I saw you at Spago the other night I didn't think you could possibly be happy."

"Well, I am now."

She pauses. "I don't think I want to know why."

I finish the martini and place the gla.s.s on a ledge and then smile harmlessly at her, and I'm lightly swaying and Blair's looking at the shimmering sea curving toward us and it's miles and miles away.

"I thought of ignoring you but then decided not to," she says, moving closer to me.

"Now I feel pressured but I'm glad you're talking to me." I turn back to the view of the city. "Why didn't you talk to me for so long? What was that about?"

"I was thinking about my own safety."

"Why are you talking to me now?"

"You don't scare me anymore."

"So you've become an optimist."

"I kept thinking I could change you," she says. "All those years."

"But would that have been who you really wanted?" I stop and think it through. "Or would that have been who I really wanted to be?"

"What you really want to be doesn't exist, Clay."

"Why are you laughing when you say that?"

"I wanted to know if you'd talked to Julian," she asks. "Or did you do what I asked you to and just leave it alone?"

"You mean follow your instructions?"

"If you want to put it that way."

"Yeah, I saw him a couple of times and now I guess he's left town for a little while." I pause, then go for it: "Rain told me she doesn't know where he is."

At the mention of her name, Blair says, "You all have a very interesting relationship."

"It's just complicated," I offer casually. "Like it always is."

"She gets around, doesn't she?" Blair asks. "First Julian, then Rip, then Kelly and then you..." She pauses. "I wonder who's next."

I don't say anything.

"I'm not judging." She moves closer to me. "But Rain knows where Julian is. I mean, if I know where Julian is, then of course she knows."

"What is the source of your information?" I stop. "Oh, right. Your husband reps her."

"Not really. There's really nothing to rep." She pauses. "I think you know this, too."

"So where is Julian?" I ask.

"Why do you want to know where he is?" she asks. "Are you still friends?"

"Well, we used to be friends," I say. "But, I guess...well, no, now we're not. It happens." I pause, then I can't help it. I ask again, "Where is he? How do you know where he is?"

"Just stay out of it," Blair answers softly. "All you need to do is stay out of it."