Her editor, whose name was Chuck Ellis, glanced at the headline. “Holy shit! This was supposed to be a piece designed to get the tourists out to the Bonanza Creek Movie Ranch!”

“Please finish reading it.”

He did so. “You know, I had a call from the tourist office an hour ago. They were worried about something exactly like this.”

“Don’t worry, the tourists will be flocking to the ranch when they read that.”

“What are your sources for all of this?”

“The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, members of the cast and crew of the movie, employees of La Fonda, the snake wrangler, and for the part about the rattlesnake in Gala Wilde’s bedroom, a source who prefers to remain anonymous. And the quotes from Boris Tirov are, word for word, from my notes. And I recorded them.” She held up a tiny digital recorder and pressed a button. “Let me set you straight, you fucking little bitch,” Tirov was saying. “It’s a solid piece,” she said.

“I don’t like using anonymous sources.”

“Who does? But when it’s a choice between getting a front-page story while keeping someone’s name out of it and not getting the story at all, which way do you come down?”

He threw up his hands.

“I come down on the front page,” she said. “Every time.”

“Okay, okay, we’ll run it tomorrow morning.”

“Thanks, Chuck. Stop by anytime.” He had been stopping by her place in the evenings a couple of times a week for the past six months, and she wanted him to know that he could continue to do so.

—

The following morning, breakfast was delivered to Boris Tirov’s suite at seven AM, and the tray set on his lap as he sat up in bed. The Santa Fe paper was placed on the tray with the headline in plain view, upper right-hand corner of the front page. He grabbed the paper and read it, continued on page 3, then he threw it across the room, spilling his orange juice in the effort. Tirov began screaming in Russian.

—

Stone Barrington, Gala Wilde, and Billy Barnett sat at the breakfast table while Stone read the New Mexican piece aloud. Gala’s face was buried in her hands. “Oh, God,” she said, “Boris is going to explode now.”

“Tell me,” Stone said, “is the anonymous source anyone in this room?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Billy said, buttering his English muffin.

“I’m going to have to go around armed, now,” Stone said.

“I think, perhaps, my work here is done,” Billy said.

“You mean you’re just going to light the fuse, then fly back to L.A.?”

“I’ll stay on, if that’s what you want, but I think my boss back at Centurion, who happens to be your son, would like me back soon. He expects to use his airplane this weekend, to fly up to their place in Carmel.”