“What about Meserve?” said Milo. “He didn’t fail you?”

“No one failed me. Michaela failed herself. Yes, Dylan should have known better but he got swept along. And he comes from a different place.”

“How so?”

“The gifted are allowed more leeway.”

“Was the hoax his idea or Michaela’s?”

Five more steps. “No sense speaking ill of the dead.” A beat. “Poor thing.” Dowd’s mouth turned down. If she was trying to project empathy, her chops were rusty.

Milo said, “How long did Michaela take classes with you?”

“I don’t give classes.”

“What are they?”

“They’re performance experiences.”

“How long was Michaela involved in the experiences?”

“I’m not sure— maybe a year, give or take.”

“Any way to fix that more precisely?”

“Pree-cise-lee. Hmm...no, I don’t think so.”

“Could you check your records?”

“I don’t do records.”

“Not at all?”

“Nothing ’tall,” Dowd sang. She rotated her arms, breathed in deeply, said, “Ahh. I like the air today.”

“How do you run a business without records, ma’am?”

Nora Dowd smiled. “It’s not a business. I don’t take money.”

“You teach— present experiences for free?”

“I avail myself, provide a time and place and a selectively judgmental atmosphere for those with courage.”

“What kind of courage?”

“The kind that enables one to accept selective judgment. The balls to dig deep inside here.” She cupped her left breast with her right hand. “It’s all about self-revelation.”

“Acting.”

“Performing. Acting is an artificial word. As if life is here”— cocking her head to the left— “and performance is out here, on another galaxy. Everything’s part of the same gestalt. That’s a German word for the whole being bigger than the sum of the parts. I’m blessed.”

Milo said, “With teaching— availing talent?”

“With an uncluttered consciousness and freedom from worry.”

“Freedom from record-keeping’s pretty good, too.”

Dowd smiled. “That, as well.”

“Does not charging mean freedom from financial worry?”

“Money’s an attitude,” said Nora Dowd brightly.

Milo pulled out the photo of Tori Giacomo and held it in front of her face. Her pace didn’t falter and he had to speed up to keep it in her line of vision.

“Not bad looking in a Saturday Night Fever kind of way.” Dowd fended off the photo and Milo dropped his arm.

“You don’t know her?”

“I really can’t say. Why?”

“Her name is Tori Giacomo. She came to L.A. to be an actress, took lessons, disappeared.”

Nora Dowd said, “Disappeared? As in poof?”

“Did she ever avail herself at the PlayHouse?”

“Tori Giacomo...the name doesn’t ring a bell but I can’t give you a yes or no because we don’t take attendance.”

“You don’t recognize her but you can’t say no?”