“I’ve listened to you mouth off a lot of bull to a lot of people over the years, but this is the most offensive thing I’ve heard you say yet.”

“Did she tell you Global planned to toss my place? And did she mention whether they were sowing or reaping?”

His scowl got uglier, but he moved out of the doorway. “You’d better come in and tell me what happened before you go off half–cocked to Alex.”

I followed him into the living room and sat uninvited on one of the couches. He picked up a remote gadget and shut off his stereo, a cute system about as thick as my finger, with silvery speakers like rockets tucked into the corners of the room.

He leaned against the wall: this wasn’t a social visit and he wasn’t going to sit. “Okay. What happened to your place?”

I eyed him narrowly, even though I know you can’t read the truth in most faces. “Someone planted three—large—bags of coke in it while I was out of town last week.”

“Don’t bring it to me. Call the cops.”

“I did that very thing. A specimen named Lemour, who apparently freelances for BB Baladine, or maybe Jean Claude Poilevy, beat me and tried to have me arrested. That was when he couldn’t find the stuff. And he knew exactly where it was supposed to be.” I smiled unpleasantly and cut off Murray as he started to speak. “I ran a secret camera during the search.”

His scowl didn’t lighten, but a shade of doubt came into his eyes. “I’d like to see the film.”

“So you shall. I’m having your very own copy made for you. And today, because we’ve been pals for a long time and I hate to see you turn into a fawning sycophant for the studio, I am hand–delivering to you the LifeStory report I ran on Lucian Frenada two days before Global decided he needed to be discredited.”

Murray’s eyes blazed with fury at my studied insult, but he snatched the envelope out of my hand and sat down opposite me. While he examined the report I looked at the mess of papers on the glass–topped table. He’d been fine–tuning his script for tonight when I arrived: even upside down it was easy to make out Frenada’s name.

After a couple of minutes Murray dug out another report from the pile in front of him—his copy of Frenada’s finances—and began a page–by–page comparison. When he finished, he flung both of them onto the table.

“How do I know you didn’t forge this?”

“Feeble, Murray: the creation date is embedded in the report. What I want to know is what Frenada knew about BB Baladine—or Teddy Trant—that made the studio come after him.”

“He was harassing—”