“I made an audition tape for her. I couldn’t find it, but I got the outtake tape. It was a long time ago, so it’s Beta format, but I brought it into the office. We can probably dig out a machine if you wanna see. I did a pretty good job with her.” More of the I’s. I met. I married. I lived. Maybe Karen Shipley wasn’t real. Maybe, like Pinocchio, she was a wooden puppet he had brought to life.

“What’s an audition tape?”

Pat said, “It’s a way for an actor to introduce herself to casting agents. The actor tells you about herself and maybe reads a scene. Peter would’ve shot a lot more tape than Karen would need, then edited it down to three or four minutes. The outtake tape will be the takes they didn’t use in the final product.”

Peter nodded and said something, but his mouth was full of candy again, and I didn’t understand what he said.

I said, “I’ll want to look at it. Do you have a still picture?”

He swallowed the wad of chocolate and peanuts and shook his head.

Pat Kyle opened her briefcase and handed me a black-and-white 8 × 10 head shot of a pretty young woman with dark hair and eyes that would be either green or hazel. “I phoned a friend at SAG and he came up with this.” The woman in the photograph was made up as a waitress with a fluffy apron and cap and a bright the-lemon-pie-is-very-nice-today! smile. She didn’t look convincing. KAREN SHIPLEY was spelled out in block letters along a white border at the bottom of the picture.

I said, “Pretty. Your friend at SAG say if Karen had an agent?”

Pat opened her briefcase again and took out an envelope large enough for the 8 × 10. “A guy named Oscar Curtiss, with two esses. He’s got an office over here, just off Las Palmas. His address is in the envelope.”

Peter came around next to me and looked at the 8 × 10. “Jesus, I remember this.” He gestured at Karen’s face. “Nothing unique about the quality. See the nose, it’s a little too ordinary. See the mouth, maybe it needs to be fuller.” Peter the director. “She had these made before we met. I said Christ, what do you want to look like a dopey waitress for? She said she thought it was cute. I said what a fucking waste.” He stared at the picture a little more, then looked at Pat Kyle. “Can you get me one of these?”

Pat said, “Sure.”