“Of course it’s not Carmen. There isn’t any Carmen. It’s an actress named Cathy Vega. Or something. Who knows what her name was before it was Cathy Vega? Does this look familiar?” I took out the nude photo of Cathy Vega and dropped it on the table.

She looked away.

“I know you know her.”

Monica Fullbright played with the bracelet on her left wrist, watching it as she turned it. “I’m telling you for the last time, I don’t know anything you’re talking about. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She started to stand up but I put my hand on her forearm and pushed down.

“What’s the game? Porno? Prostitution? S and M? Somebody lined up a phony photo shoot and sent Cathy downtown. Somebody knew what would happen. You’ve been trying to set me up, use me for a bird dog. I don’t care what you’re into, but I’m not going to let you pull me in on it to take a tumble. Either tell me what you know or you’ll talk to the police.”

By this time I was talking to Monica Fullbright’s back and she was halfway to the door, my voice muffled by the sound of strikes and spares and oriental laughter.

CHAPTER NINE

I had the machine get me another Mai Tai.

Then I sat watching the ice melt in the sticky bottom of the glass, sickly sweet rum and canned fruit juices turning brown, while I tried to figure out what to do.

Why didn’t I just go to the police like I had threatened Monica Fullbright? Because now I was afraid of what she had involved me in. She had hired me to look for a Guatemalan woman named Carmen Luzano. I hadn’t been able to find her, so Monica Fullbright conveniently told me where she was. I went there. A dead woman was on the floor. I’m no expert, but she must have been dead awhile, because her arm was getting rigid. The sound with which it had hit the floor when Lupe turned her over still made me sick. The dead woman was not Carmen Luzano. She was an actress named Cathy Vega. Although Monica Fullbright knew Cathy Vega, she said she didn’t. Monica Fullbright had called Cathy and left a message saying she wanted to see her.

Cathy Vega had died under very bad circumstances. Monica Fullbright had killed her, I guessed, and was trying to use me for an alibi. If I reported my suspicions—and that’s all they could be without a body for the police to examine—they would put the screws to me with the attorney-client privilege. Fuck up my career. Prove my father right. I might even be an accessory after the fact.