The meeting had been arranged by telephone the week before by a young actor called Ranch whom Larry had first met at the party of a man in the glamour industry who owned a beautiful house in Sausalito. Ranch, looking like an Armani cowpoke, had been trying to impress a very tall black model with his display of karate kata, but the girl, listless from some dieting drug, had wandered off halfway through the action, a level of interest that might have provoked a moment’s resentment in most men, but Ranch had merely shrugged and grinned with chivalrous regret at the swing of her backside as she disappeared into the next room, and then immediately introduced himself to Larry, complimenting him on how ‘fucking great’ he was looking. Since then there had been other parties in other beautiful homes, where Larry had explained some of his predicament, and Ranch had promised to help him somehow, an idea that Larry had not, for a single moment, taken seriously.

But it was Ranch who opened the door to 2714, dressed in a dark suit and purple open-neck shirt with a large collar, his sideburns razored to knife points, his eyes back-lit by the morning’s consumption of something considerably stronger than coffee. He embraced Larry as though he meant it and led him to the television screen where something wet and bloodily intrusive was going on.

‘What is it?’ asked Larry, wincing.

Ranch laughed. ‘It’s the in-house channel. The dentists have got their own TV show!’ He laughed again. ‘Sick fucks,’ he said, then in a quieter voice added, ‘TB’s out on the balcony.’

For a moment Larry hoped it might be the same balcony he had seen Reagan on in the picture, but as he stepped out into the glare he saw that it was more modest, a different grade of opulence altogether.

T. Bone was on a sun chair set in an angle of shade. He didn’t stand when Larry came out, but smiled, and offered a small soft hand like a mole’s paw.

‘Quite a view from up here,’ he said, turning his head slightly to where the afternoon sun and the day’s emission of CO2 had nebulized LA to a fine haze in which the buildings seemed carved from smoke. ‘Shirley Temple used to play down there. And once upon a time it was Tom Mix’s ranch. We like to come here when we’re meeting new friends. It creates a certain “atmosphere”. Have a seat, sir. Ranch, fix Mr Larry something cool and dangerous to drink.’

‘Comin’ up,’ said Ranch. He disappeared through the drapes into the bedroom.