"Yes," he said, relieved not to have to lie to the woman. He liked her. "It's not much of a trade."

"None of us have much of a trade," she said. "Let's be honest. We're not finding a cure for cancer. We're indulging, sweetheart. Just indulging."

She drew Grillo across to the locomotive facade which stood out in the garden. "Will you look at this? So ugly, don't you think?"

"I don't know. They've got a certain appeal."

"My first husband collected American Abstract Expressionists. Pollock, Rothko. Chilly stuff. I divorced him."

"Because of the painting?"

"Because of the collecting, the relentless collecting. It's a sickness, Swift. I said to him towards the end-Ethan, I don't want to be just another of your possessions. They go or I go. He chose the stuff that didn't talk back at him. He was that kind of man. Cultured, but stupid."

Grillo smiled.

"You're laughing at me," she chided.

"Absolutely not. I'm enchanted."

She sparkled at the compliment. "You don't know anybody here, do you?" she remarked suddenly.

The observation left him flummoxed.

"You're a gatecrasher. I watched you when you first came in, eyeing the hostess in case she set eyes on you. I thought-at last!-someone who knows n.o.body and wants to, and me who knows everybody and wishes she didn't. A marriage made in heaven. What's your real name?"

"I told you-"

"Don't insult me," she said.

"My name's Grillo."

"Grillo."

"Nathan Grillo. But please...just Grillo. I'm a journalist."

"Oh how boring. I thought you were maybe an angel, come down to judge us. You know...like Sodom and Gomorrah. Christ knows, we deserve it."

"You don't like these people much," he said.

"Oh my dear I'd rather be here than Idaho, but only for the weather. The conversation's s.h.i.t." She pressed close to him. "Don't look now but we've got company."

A short, balding and faintly familiar man was approaching.

"What's his name?" Grillo whispered.

"Paul Lamar. He was Buddy's partner."

"Comedian?"

"So his agent'd claim. Have you seen any of his films?"

"No."

"There's more laughs in Mein Kampf."

Grillo was still attempting to suppress his guffaws when Lamar presented himself to Eve.

"You look wonderful," he said. "As ever." He turned to Grillo. "And who's your friend?" he asked.

Eve glanced at Grillo with a tiny smile on her face. "My guilty secret," she said.

Lamar turned his spotlight smile on Grillo. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

"Secrets shouldn't have names," Eve said. "It spoils their charm."

"I'm suitably slapped down," Lamar said. "Allow me to correct the error and give you a tour of the house."

"I don't think I can manage the stairs, sweetheart," Eve said.

"But this was Buddy's palace. He was very proud of it."

"Never proud enough to invite me," she returned.

"It was a retreat," Lamar said. "That's why he lavished so much attention on it. You should come and look, if only for him. Both of you."

"Why not?" said Grillo.

Evelyn sighed. "Such curiosity," she said. "Well...lead on."

Lamar did so, taking them back into the lounge, where the tempo of the gathering had subtly altered. With drinks imbibed and the buffet scavenged the guests were settling into a quieter mode, eased on by a small band offering languid versions of the standards. A few people were dancing. Conversation was no longer raucous, but subdued. Deals were being done; plots being laid.

Grillo found the atmosphere unnerving, and so, clearly, did Evelyn. She took his arm as they ran the gauntlet of whispers and followed Lamar out the other side to the stairs. The front door was closed. Two of the guards from the gate stood with their backs to it, hands fisted in front of their crotches. Despite the drifting melody of show-tunes all celebration had gone out of the place. What remained was paranoia.

Lamar was already a dozen steps up the flight.

"Come along, Evelyn..." he said, beckoning to her. "It's not steep."

"It is at my age."

"You don't look a day over-"

"Don't sweet-talk me," she said. "I'll come in my own good time."

With Grillo at her side she started to climb the stairs, her age evidencing itself for the first time. There were a few guests at the top of the flight, Grillo saw, empty gla.s.ses in hand. None of them were speaking, even in whispers. The suspicion grew on him that all was far from well here; an instinct confirmed when he glanced back down the stairs. Roch.e.l.le was standing at the bottom, looking up. She stared straight at him. He, certain he'd been recognized and was about to have his bluff called, stared back. But she said nothing. She looked at him until he looked away. When he glanced back down to the hallway she'd gone.

"There's something wrong here," he murmured in Eve's ear. "I don't think we should do this."

"Darling, I'm halfway up," she replied loudly, and tugged on his arm. "Don't desert me now."

Grillo glanced up at Lamar, to find the comedian's eyes were on him just as Roch.e.l.le's had been. They know, he thought. They know and they're saying nothing.

Again he tried to dissuade Eve. "Can't we go later?" he said.

She was not about to be turned. "I'm going with or without you," she said, and carried on climbing.

"This is the first landing," Lamar announced when they got there. Besides the curious, silent guests there was not much to see, given that Eve had already stated her aversion to Vance's art collection. She knew several of the loiterers by name, and said h.e.l.lo. They acknowledged her, but only distractedly. There was something about their languor that put Grillo in mind of addicts who'd just found a fix. Eve was not one to be so lightly treated.

"Sagansky," she said to one of their number. He had the looks of a matinee idol gone to seed. Beside him, a woman who seemed to have all trace of animation drained from her. "What are you doing up here?"

Sagansky looked up at her. "Sssh...," he said.

"Did somebody die?" Eve said. "Besides Buddy."

"Sad," Sagansky said.

"Happens to us all," was Eve's unsentimental response. "You too. See if it doesn't. Have you had the grand tour of the house?"

Sagansky nodded. "Lamar..." he said, his eyes swivelling in the comedian's direction and overshooting their target, then coming back to settle on him, "Lamar showed us around."

"It better be worth it," Eve said.

"It is," was Sagansky's response. "Really...it is. Especially the upper rooms."

"Ah yes," Lamar said. "Why don't we just go straight up there?"

Grillo's paranoia hadn't been mellowed an iota by encountering Sagansky and wife. Something deeply weird was going on here.

"I think we've seen enough," Grillo said to Lamar.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the comedian replied. "I was forgetting about Eve. Poor Eve. It must be all too much for you."

His condescension, beautifully pitched, created precisely the effect he intended.

"Don't be ridiculous," she snorted. "I may be getting on, but I'm not senile. Take us up!"

Lamar shrugged. "Are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure."

"Well, if you insist..." he said, and led on, past the loiterers, to the bottom of the next flight of stairs. Grillo followed. As he pa.s.sed Sagansky he heard the man muttering s.n.a.t.c.hes of his previous exchange with Eve. Dead fish floating around in the back of his head.

"...it is...really, it is...especially the upper rooms..."

Eve was already a little way up the flight, determined she could match Lamar step for step.

Grillo called after her, "Eve. Don't go any further."

She ignored him.

"Eve?" he said again.

This time she glanced round.

"Are you coming, Grillo?" she said.

If Lamar realized that she'd let slip the name of her secret he didn't register anything. He simply led her to the top of the stairs and round a corner, out of sight.

More than once in his career Grillo had avoided a beating up by taking notice of the very danger signals he'd been getting since they'd started the climb. But he wasn't about to see Eve's ego undo her. In the s.p.a.ce of an hour he'd become fond of the lady. Cursing himself and her in equal measure, he followed where she and her seducer had gone.

Outside, a minor fracas was occurring at the gate. It had begun with a wind that had blown up out of nowhere, running up through the trees that overhung the Hill like a tide. It was dry and dusty, and drove several late-arriving guests back into their limos to fix their streaming mascara.

Emerging from the gusts was a car; in the car a filthy young man who casually demanded entry to the house.

The guards kept their cool. They'd dealt with countless gatecrashers like this in their time; kids with more b.a.l.l.s than brains who just wanted to get a glimpse of the high life.

"No invitation, son," one of them told the boy.

The gatecrasher got out of his car. There was blood on him; not his own. And in his eyes a rabid look that had the guards' hands moving towards the weapons beneath their jackets.

"I have to see my father," the boy said.

"Is he a guest?" the guard wanted to know. It was not impossible this was some rich kid from Bel-Air, head f.u.c.ked with drugs, come looking for Papa.

"Yeah, he's a guest," said Tommy-Ray.

"What's his name?" the guard asked. "Give me the list, Clark."

"He's not on any of your lists," Tommy-Ray said. "He lives here."

"You've got the wrong house, son," Clark told him, having to raise his voice over the roar of wind in the trees, which continued unabated. "This is Buddy Vance's house. Unless you're one of his b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" He grinned at a third man, who didn't return the smile. His gaze was on the trees themselves, or on the air stirring them up. He narrowed his eyes, as if he could almost see something in the dust-dirtied sky.

"You're going to regret this, n.i.g.g.e.r," the kid was telling the first guard. "I'm coming back, and I'm telling you-you're the first to go." He stabbed a finger at Clark. "You hear me? He's the first. You come right after."

He got back into the car, and backed up, then turned around and headed down the Hill. By some unnerving coincidence, the wind seemed to go with him, back down into Palomo Grove.

"f.u.c.king strange," the sky-watcher said, as the last of the motion in the trees died away.

"Go up to the house," the first guard told Clark. "Just check everything's OK up there..."

"Why shouldn't it be?"

"Just f.u.c.king do it, will you?" the man replied, still staring down the Hill after the boy and the wind.

"Keep your t.i.ts on," Clark replied, and did as ordered.

With the wind gone, the two remaining guards were aware of just how quiet it was. No sound from the town below.

No sound from the house above. And them in a silent alleyway of trees.