‘Hey! You’re English,’ cried Jo-babe, approvingly. ‘Sick!’ She offered him the joint. He grinned at her, the lovely violet blankness of her eyes. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘Jo-babe.’

‘You’re welcome,’ she answered, in the voice of a cartoon character he was not familiar with. The others laughed. Then they all went into Ranch’s place.

The annexe, one-time hideout of Harold and John before they had gone to make their way in the Sunshine State, consisted of a single large bedroom and adjoining bathroom. There were three televisions of different sizes in the bedroom, a Burt Reynolds poster, a stringless Fender guitar, and a big soapstone Buddha whose lap served as an ashtray. The floor was littered with CD covers and magazines, a mix of comics and pom and fashion. Jo-babe aimed the remote at the music system in the corner. There was a pause, then the room filled with Nirvana, and she began to dance, free-form, stringy arms, stringy legs, sometimes hopping nimbly over Rosinne, who had flopped on to the floor to pool through the latest issue of PLEASE!.

Ranch sat cross-legged on the rumpled bed, a mirror on his lap with a picture of Bogart on it and the legend ‘Here’s looking at you, kid!’.

‘Don’t mention this to T. Bone,’ he said, dividing a little heap of powder into four lines, then leaning over his reflection to snort energetically through a length of McDonald’s milk-shake straw.

‘Not a word,’ promised Larry, hoovering up his line from Bogart’s hat and passing the mirror to Rosinne, who thanked him as mildly as if he had handed her a glass of milk.

‘Are these girls in the film?’ asked Larry.

‘These girls? They’re way too skinny,’ said Ranch. ‘We only use professionals. Cindy X. Selina D’Amour. Sasha Martinez before she went to rehab. A Chinese called Patty Wang. Maybe she’s Filipina. Then there’s Scarletta Scarr, who’s kinda my godmother. We use her if there’s any S&M stuff.’

Larry thought briefly of his own godmother, a woman called Penny who had been at teacher training college with Alice in the sixties. He asked: ‘Were you nervous the first time you did it in front of the cameras?’

‘No way,’ said Ranch. The mirror had come back and he had immediately begun to cut up another four lines, scooping the drug out of a plastic envelope with the corner of the razor. ‘I was born to do this kind of work.’

‘You never had an occasion when you couldn’t do it? Couldn’t perform?’

‘You’ve just gotta be professional,’ said Ranch. ‘Stay focused.’

‘Focused,’ repeated Larry, nodding.

‘Think of the money,’ said Ranch.

‘Money turns you on?’

‘Dumb question,’ replied Ranch, grinning. ‘Hey, didn’t Dr Barry fuck everyone at Sun Valley?’

‘Not on camera,’ said Larry.