The girl stood up and walked into the back part of the office, swaying her independently connected hips. “Wait here.”

She returned a minute later. “Go on back, the second office on the right.” She looked at her novel with disappointment, realizing she'd have to find her place again.

The rooms were divided off with the same clumsily cut Sheetrock rectangles that she remembered from Nicole's so-called dressing room. The walls had been recently painted but the surfaces were already scuffed and dirty. The posters and shades were from discount import stores, the sort where newlyweds and NYU students buy wicker, bamboo and plastic to furnish first apartments. There was no carpet.

The Second Office on the Right contained more or less what she'd been expecting. A fat, bearded man in a T-shirt and black baggy slacks.

He looked up and smiled in a curious way. It wasn't lecherous, wasn't provocative, wasn't friendly. The odd thing about this smile was that the face it was etched into didn't seem to understand he was looking at another human being.

“I'm Gutman. Ralph Gutman. You're who?”

“Uh, Dawn.”

“Yah. Dawn what?”

“Dawn Felicidad.”

“I like that. Are you, what? Hispanic or something? You don't look it. Well, doesn't matter. So you want a job. I'm a tough guy to work for. I'm a ballbuster. But I'm the best producer in the business.”

“I think I may've heard of you.”

His Second Office on the Right glance said, Well, of course you've heard of me.

“Where you from?” Gutman asked. “Jersey, right?”

“Ohio.”

“You're from Ohio? I don't think we've ever had any porn stars from Ohio. I like it. Ohio. Hey, lose the Dawn. I like Akron better. Akron Felicidad.”

“But I —”

“Yah. The girls work for me get four hundred a day. Also, a discount from my supplier. We shoot on location two months a year. Used to be Europe but with the budgets and so on now it's usually Florida. I'm the one did Triangle Trap.”

“No kidding. You did that?”

“Yah, sure did. I got nominated for a Golden Stallion. So, you want a job, huh?” He looked her over. “No tits but your face isn't too bad.”

He's going to die and they'll never find all the pieces again.

“Nice ass. Why're you waiting to get your boobs done?”

“I like 'em just the way they are.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself. You look young. Maybe you could play somebody's teenage niece. Get it on with her aunt and uncle. Your typical incest.”

“I could do that, sure.”

“You have a reel?”

“All I know about reels is they go on fishing rods.”

“Ha. Rods.” He laughed, and it seemed that she'd made some kind of joke. Then he explained, “Samples of your work.”

“I've never been in film before. But I do this little act. Kind of a strip. Do you have a place where I can change?”