A quick survey around the room told me there was no Hasselblad. Maybe he did have one once. Maybe he pawned it when things weren’t going well, the way musicians pawned their instruments. His coke habit must have been costing him plenty. Maybe that’s why there wasn’t more furniture in the studio. Or photographic equipment. Maybe he himself was dealing coke to supplement his income as a photographer.

“Monica’s gone, Rudy. You knew that, didn’t you?” Why couldn’t they be involved in something simple, like pornography? Straightforward beaver shots. It could be German shepherds, and I wouldn’t care. But drugs, that was bad news. Certainly more people die each year from drug-related causes than from pornography. I didn’t want him to know I was scared. My hand brushed against my skirt. I stood up straighter.

“Some very messy people rearranged your friend Monica’s apartment for her. The kind of people who express themselves artistically with semiautomatic weapons.” I made this up to shake him.

For the first time he looked as if what I was saying was penetrating his consciousness. Now we were starting to get into the reality therapy mode.

“Who are you?” he snarled, looking anxiously about the room. Was he looking for something to protect himself with? Did he have a gun? “What’s this about?”

“You tell me. “

A car with a loose muffler rattled by, breaking the silence as he stared cagily at me.

“Cathy Vega’s dead,” I continued. “She died downtown at a place her agent says was a modeling job you set up for her. Now Monica’s missing. Looks to me like a drug deal gone sour and somebody’s pissed off.”

He chewed his lower lip a bit and shoved his hands in his pockets to hide his nervousness. “Dead! Modeling job! I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t? Call Monica. Ask her.”

The seconds ticked by. He didn’t move, and it infuriated me.

My adrenaline started to pump like crazy. Out of control. Like the last time I saw Ed Harrison. The scene in the motel when he called me frigid and a freak. I had felt all the blood pounding in my head and I thought that I might kill him. That’s how I felt again. “Call her or I’ll...”

He crossed his arms and smirked at me. “You’ll what, bitch?”

I threw myself at him, pushing him off balance and into the wall. “I’ll kick the shit out of you! You’ll piss sitting down for the rest of your life!”