“Of course, we’ll want to see her bio, credits, all of that. We’re looking at some other women now, trying to see as many as possible, to tell you the truth. I understand she’s got quite a good part in this current show.”

The blonde, who was bearing down on us with two miniature Styrofoam cups, laughed. “Actually she only had two lines, but she must have had terrible stage fright because she didn’t even show up last night.”

He glared at her.

“She will be here tonight, won’t she?” I asked, disappointment written all over my face.

“Absolutely,” he said without a trace of conviction. “I talked to her last night after the performance. Just a little stomach flu.”

“When was that?” I asked.

“Yeah, when was that?” echoed the blonde, giving him a look that would have driven a weaker man to his knees.

“What a group, huh? Beautiful, aren’t they? These kids. The way they work together, the camaraderie.”

The blonde slopped the coffee on him and left.

I drank the tepid instant as fast as I could. Cathy Vega had been dead long before the curtain went up. I wondered if he knew she was dead or if he was just a compulsive liar.

Steve handed me two tickets for the evening performance.

“Let me have your card,” he called as I hurried out.

The blonde was outside, twirling her car keys with annoyance. “Too bad about Cathy,” she sneered. “Guess she couldn’t handle a part that called for keeping her clothes on.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

This was the place, if you were a singing nun or a yodeling teddy bear who was new in town. Foxy Elite was busy on Saturday afternoon. An unhappy-looking fat woman was squeezed into a chair behind a desk that was too small for her. I had pumped the blonde into telling me the name of Cathy Vega’s agent by promising I would take some of her photos for the files of Mylar Productions.

“I’m tired of jumping out of the goddamn plastic cake with icing on my tits. I’m a dancer,” complained a woman who was limping up and down the small reception area.

“Cake calls—the worst,” agreed an almost beautiful young man with carefully colored blond hair. “Look at this,” he said, pointing to a bruise near his temple. “I almost knocked myself cold the last time.”

The other people in the room turned magazine pages, apparently waiting for some higher calling.

The phone rang. The fat woman mumbled into the receiver, made notes on a pad, then swiveled toward the group as she hung up.

“You, Louise. We need a bondage nurse out to mid-Wilshire.”

One of the women dropped a magazine on a small table beside her and got up, stretching.