I’d forgotten the tiresome way my father’s colleagues all use a nickname I hate. “I wish. No, I’m an investigator, private, not public.”

“Yeah, private, that’s where the money is. You’re smart to do that. Plus you don’t face the hours or the dangers you do on the force. I’m a hundred percent happier now that I’m doing private security.”

Yep. That was my life. Filled with money and safety. I explained frankly that Global had hired me to keep Lucian Frenada from harassing their big star and that I wondered how much of a pest he really was. After consulting with the doorman, Siekevitz said that Frenada had been around once, on Thursday, but Lacey had brought him to her suite, where he stayed for over an hour. He had phoned twice, and she had taken both calls. Their switchboard kept a list of the people phoning her just in case a question of harassment arose.

Siekevitz actually let me look at the phone log—he knew Tony would want his little girl to get all the help she needed. “Not that you were very little when I met you, Vicki, playing forward on that high–school team of yours. My, my. Tony was that proud of you. He’d love to know you walked in his footsteps.”

I gave a sickly smile, wondering what my father would really make of the life I was leading these days, and bent over the log. Teddy Trant called every day. Sometimes Lacey spoke to him, sometimes she told the operator to say she was in the health club. Regine Mauger, the Herald–Star’s gossip columnist, was the only person whose calls she absolutely refused to take. I felt meanly pleased by that.

When I asked if I could speak with the star myself, Siekevitz shook his head regretfully. “She went off to California for a few days, since they weren’t ready to start shooting. She’ll be back Thursday, from what I hear. Of course the studio is keeping the suite for her. It’s only eight thousand a week. For Hollywood that’s the same as a buck for you or me.”

We chatted another few minutes about his private life. No, he’d never married. Never met the right woman, he guessed. He escorted me to the entrance, where I gave the doorman a ten for his pains. I walked across the park to my car: I hadn’t wanted to raise doubts in the hotel staff’s minds by letting them see the wreck I was driving.