I stopped suspiciously. Was she, like Bob Alton, going to try to sign me up for a modeling course? A thousand bucks. Ten sessions. Learn to put on makeup and walk like you’ve got something up your butt.

“Cathy was here just a couple of days ago.” She smirked knowingly, like she was glad to be one up on her boss.

“Oh.” Was it acting lessons? I’d have to read A Doll’s House with the creep in the motorcycle cap?

“Cathy told me”—now the receptionist smiled beneficently at me, apparently most pleased with herself that she had this information—”that she’s busy over at a workshop on Carlos Avenue near Gower with some other girls. Singers and dancers. They’re putting together a revue. I think she’s going to leave Mr. Alton.” She seemed very satisfied by this possible turn of events.

I replaced the grimace on my face with something pleasant and nodded as though I knew how to keep a secret.

“When you see her, tell her I got another agent for her. A real one.” She lowered her voice even more. “I’m leaving here, too. Haven’t told him yet.” She jerked her head in the direction of the closed door of the office I had just left. “At a real talent agency.” She wrinkled her nose as she glared over at the bodybuilders. “Give her this card and tell her I’ll be there as of the first of the month. She should call me then.” She edged open the thin center drawer of her desk, palmed a card from a stack and looked around the room before she passed it covertly to me.

The card was thin and cheap. You could see daylight through it. La Belle Artistic Entertainment, it read. I stuck it in my pocket. “You think she’s over at this workshop? Could I find her there today?”

She nodded. “She said she’s there rehearsing every day.”

Of course Cathy wouldn’t be there, but I might find someone who could tell me about her. I drove over to Carlos Avenue, which runs parallel to Hollywood Boulevard between Bronson and Gower. Although I parked the car and walked up and down the block several times, I didn’t see anything resembling a theater or rehearsal hall. There were just a few badly maintained apartment buildings and near Gower a large parking lot. Was this another of the parking lots that had once been something else? A studio? A famous mansion? The site of some terrible crime? Did history just vanish?

CHAPTER EIGHT