"They're trying to dig him out. It's noon now. How long before you can get there?"

"An hour. Maybe ninety minutes. What's the big interest?"

"You're too young to remember The Buddy Vance Show."

"I caught the reruns."

"Let me tell you something, Nathan my boy-" Of all Abernethy's modes Grillo hated the avuncular most. "-there was a time The Buddy Vance Show emptied the bars. He was a great man and a great American."

"So you want a sob piece?"

"s.h.i.t, no. I want the news on his wives, the alcohol, and how come he ended up in Ventura County when he used to swan around Burbank in a limo three f.u.c.king blocks long."

"The dirt, in other words."

"There were drugs involved, Nathan," Abernethy said. Grillo could picture the look of mock-sincerity on the man's face. "And our readers need to know."

"They want the dirt, and so do you," Grillo said.

"So sue me," Abernethy said. "Just get your a.s.s out there."

"So we don't even know where he is? Suppose he just took off somewhere?"

"Oh they know where he is," Abernethy said. "They're trying to bring the body up in the next few hours."

"Bring it up? You mean he drowned?"

"I mean he fell down a hole."

Comedians, Grillo thought. Anything for a laugh.

Except that it wasn't funny. When he'd first joined Abernethy's happy band, after the debacle in Boston, it had been a vacation from the heavy-duty investigative journalism in which he'd made his name, and at which, finally, he'd been Out-maneuvered. The notion of working for a small-circulation scandal sheet like the County Reporter had seemed light relief. Abernethy was a hypocritical buffoon, a born-again Christian to whom forgiveness was a four-letter word. The stories he told Grillo to cover were easy in the gathering and easier still in the telling, given that the Reporter's readers liked their news to perform one function only: the ameliorating of envy. They wanted tales of pain among the high rollers; the flipside of fame. Abernethy knew his congregation well. He'd even brought his biography into the act, making much in his editorials of his conversion from alcoholic to Fundamentalist. Dry and High on the Lord, was how he liked to describe himself. This holy sanction allowed him to peddle the muck he edited with a beatific smile, and allowed his readers to wallow in it without guilt. They were reading stories of the wages of sin. What could be more Christian? For Grillo the joke had long since soured. If he'd thought of telling Abernethy to f.u.c.k off once he'd thought of it a hundred times, but where was he going to get a job, hotshot reporter turned dupe that he was, except with a small operation like the Reporter? He'd contemplated other professions, but he had neither the desire nor apt.i.tude to pursue any other. He had wanted to report the world to itself for as long as he could remember. There was something essential about that function. He could imagine himself performing no other. The world knew itself indifferently well. It needed people to tell it the story of its life, daily, or else how could it learn by its mistakes? He had been making headlines of one such mistake-an act of corruption in the Senate-when he discovered (his gut still turned, recalling that moment) that he had been set up by his target's opponents, his position as press prosecutor used to besmirch innocent parties. He had apologized, grovelled and resigned. The matter had been forgotten quickly, as a fresh slew of headlines replaced those that he'd created. Politicians, like scorpions and c.o.c.kroaches, would be there when the warheads had levelled civilization. But journalists were frail. One miscalculation and their credibility was dust. He had fled West until he met the Pacific. He'd considered throwing himself in, but had instead chosen to work for Abernethy. More and more that seemed like an error.

Look on the bright side, he told himself every day, there's no direction from here but up.

The Grove surprised him. It had all the distinguishing marks of a town created on paper-the central Mall, the cardinal point villages, the sheer order of the streets-but there was a welcome diversity in the styles of the houses, and-perhaps because it was in part built on a hill-a sense that it might have secret reaches.

If the woods had any secrets of their own, they'd been trampled down by the sightseers who'd come to see the exhumation. Grillo flashed his credentials and asked a few questions of one of the cops at the barrier. No, there was no likelihood that the corpse would be raised soon; it had yet to be located. Nor could Grillo speak with any of those in charge of the operation. Come back later, was the suggestion. It looked like good advice. There was very little activity around the fissure. Despite there being tackle of various kinds on the ground n.o.body seemed to be putting it to use. He decided to risk leaving the scene to make a few calls. He found his way to the Mall and to a public telephone. His first call was to Abernethy, to report that he'd arrived and to enquire whether a photographer had been sent down. Abernethy was away from his desk. Grillo left a message. He had more luck with his second call. The answering machine began playing its familiar message- "Hi. This is Tesla and Butch. If you want to speak to the dog, I'm out. If it's Butch you need-" only to be interrupted by Tesla.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"It's Grillo."

"Grillo? Shut the f.u.c.k up, Butch! Sorry, Grillo, he's trying to-" the phone was dropped, and there was a good deal of commotion, followed by Tesla's breathless return to the receiver. "That animal. Why did I take him, Grillo?"

"He was the only male who'd live with you."

"f.u.c.k you."

"Your words."

"I said that?"

"You said that."

"Out of my mind! I got good news, Grillo. I got a development deal for one of the screenplays. That castaway picture I wrote last year? They want it rewritten. In s.p.a.ce."

"You're going to do it?"

"Why not? I need something produced. n.o.body's going to do any of the heavy-duty stuff till I have a hit. So f.u.c.k Art, I'm going to be so cra.s.s they'll be coming in their pants. And before you say it, don't give me any of that artistic integrity s.h.i.t. A girl's got to feed herself."

"I know, I know."

"So," she said, "what's new?"

There were a lot of answers to that: a litany. He could tell her about how his hairdresser, with a palmful of straw-blond clippings, had smilingly informed Grillo that he had a bald patch at his crown. Or how this morning, meeting himself in the mirror, he'd decided his long, anemic features, which he'd always hoped would mature into an heroic melancholia, were simply looking doleful. Or that he kept having those d.a.m.n elevator dreams, trapped between floors with Abernethy and a goat Abernethy kept wanting Grillo to kiss. But he kept the biography to himself; and just said: "I need help."

"It figures."

"What do you know about Buddy Vance?"

"He's down a hole. It's been on the TV."

"What's his life-story?"

"This is for Abernethy, right?"

"Right."

"So it's just the dirt."

"Got it in one."

"Well, comedians aren't my strongest point. I majored in s.e.x G.o.ddesses. But I looked him up when I heard the news. Married six times; once to a seventeen-year-old. That lasted forty-two days. His second wife died of an overdose..."

As Grillo had hoped, Tesla had chapter and verse on the Life and Sordid Times of Buddy Vance (ne, of all things, Valentino). The addictions to women, controlled substances and fame; the TV series; the films; the fall from grace.

"You can write about that with feeling, Grillo."

"Thanks for nothing."

"I only love you because I hurt you. Or do I mean the other way around?"

"Very funny. Speaking of which: was he?"

"Was he what?"

"Funny."

"Vance? I suppose, in his way. You never saw him?"

"I must have, I suppose. I don't remember the act."

"He had this rubber-face. You looked at him, you laughed. And this weird persona. Half idiot, half slimeball."

"So how come he was so successful with women?"

"The dirt?"

"Of course."

"The enormous appendage."

"Are you kidding me?"

"The biggest d.i.c.k in television. I got that from an unimpeachable source."

"Who was that?"

"Please, Grillo," Tesla said, aghast. "Do I sound like a girl who'd gossip?"

Grillo laughed. "Thanks for the information. I owe you dinner."

"Sold. Tonight."

"I'll still be here, looks like."

"So I'll come find you."

"Maybe tomorrow, if I'm still here. I'll call you."

"If you don't, you're dead."

"I said I'll call; I'll call. Go back to Castaways in s.p.a.ce."

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do. And Grillo-"

"What?"

Before answering she put the phone down, winning for the third consecutive time the game of who hangs up first they'd been playing since Grillo, in a maudlin stupor one night, had confessed he'd hated goodbyes.

V.

"MOMMA?".

She was sitting by the window as usual. "Pastor John didn't come last night, Jo-Beth. You did call him like you promised?" She read the look on her daughter's face. "You didn't," she said. "How could you forget a thing like that?"

"I'm sorry, Momma."

"You know how I rely upon him. I've got good reason, Jo-Beth. I know you don't think so, but I do."

"No. I believe you. I'll call him later. First...I have to speak to you."

"Shouldn't you be at the store?" Joyce said. "Did you come home sick? I heard Tommy-Ray..."

"Momma, listen to me. I have to ask you something very important."

Joyce looked troubled already. "I can't talk now," she said. "I want the Pastor."

"He'll come later. First: I have to know about a friend of yours."

Joyce said nothing, but her face was all frailty. Jo-Beth had seen her turn that expression on too often to be cowed by it.

"I met a man last night, Momma," she said, determined to be plain in her telling. "His name is Howard Katz. His mother was Trudi Katz."

Joyce's face lost its mask of delicacy. Beneath, was a look eerily like satisfaction. "Didn't I say?" she murmured to herself, turning her head back towards the window.

"Didn't you say what?"

"How could it be over? How could it ever be over?"

"Momma, explain."

"It wasn't an accident. We all knew it wasn't an accident. They had reasons."

"Who had reasons?"

"I need the Pastor."

"Momma: who had reasons?"

Without replying Joyce stood up.

"Where is he?" she said, her voice suddenly loud. She started towards the door. "I have to see him."

"All right, Momma! All right! Calm down."

At the door, she turned back to Jo-Beth. Tears welled in her eyes.

"You mustn't go near Trudi's boy," she said. "You hear me? You mustn't see him, speak to him, even think of him. Promise me."

"I can't promise that. It's stupid."

"You haven't done anything with him, have you?"

"What do you mean?"