I'm sorry, Mrs. Lopez. I wouldn't interrupt your day if it wasn't important. Angel was a witness in a criminal investigation three years ago, and now some conflicting evidence has surfaced.

I understand. I will tell him all this when we speak.

Did you tell him that Jack Eisley called?

I left a message on his machine. You call him, that machine is all you get. I am sure he is busy rehearsing.

She pronounced rehearsing with a snooty theatrical accent.

So Angel is back here in Los Angeles?

He is. And, by the way, Angel is no longer Angel. He is now Andy.

She pronounced Andy without a trace of her Spanish accent, as if it were the most boring name in the world.

Excuse me?

Angel Tomaso was too ethnic, he says. He is now Andy Thom. As if Hollywood has been waiting for the one and only Andy Thom!

Angel probably hadn't gotten much artistic support back home.

I said, Please call him right away. He'll remember my name. Tell him I need to speak with him as soon as possible.

I'll tell him you're Steven Spielberg. You'll hear from him more quickly that way.

I put down the phone, thinking about Angel's new name and the likelihood of hearing back from him in the foreseeable future. I decided it wasn't likely.

I checked the L.A. area codes for an Andy Thom, found nothing, then called a casting agent I knew named Patricia Kyle. Pat Kyle had worked for every major studio and network in town, along with most of the commercial and video producers. She was currently successful, prosperous, and happy, which was much different from the day she hired me to help with an abusive ex-husband who thought it within his rights to shatter her windshield and terrorize her at work. I convinced him otherwise, and Pat Kyle has thought well of me ever since. If Angel Tomaso aka Andy Thom was serious about being an actor, three months was plenty of time to enroll in acting classes, pound the pavement for auditions, and send headshots to casting agents.

Pat Kyle said, Never heard of him.

His real name is Angel Tomaso. Out of Austin.

Latin?

Yeah. Does it matter?

Only in how you search. Actors are faces and a face is what you look like. Some of the smaller agencies specialize in ethnic actors. Do you know if he's SAG or AFTRA?

Don't know.

Ever had a paid acting job?

The way his aunt was talking, I doubt it. First time he was out here didn't work out. That's why he went back to Austin. He's only been back for three months.

Pat told me she would ask around, then we hung up and I settled back in my broken office to read over Chen's reports. I thought about the Mexican oxycodones. If Byrd was in so much pain he couldn't walk or drive, he probably needed a steady supply. If he couldn't walk or drive, someone might have delivered, and maybe that same someone might know how he came by the pictures. I decided to ask his neighbors.