I finished off the brandy. “I’ve spent the last year having the FBI camped on my street and putting a matchbook in the door when I leave the house. I’ve been afraid that my phones are tapped. I’ve been afraid to be seen in public with a man I loved. I’ve been reviled by his family and shunned by my own. I’ve been called filthy names by strangers. I’ve cowered behind the bathroom door because vandals were attacking my house. I’ve lost everything, but at least now I don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

“What are you going to do next?” asked Carleton. “Someone as clever as you must have plans.”

“I have no idea what I’ll do next, but I have about six months to find out before I either go mad or go broke. Whichever comes first.” I surprised myself with this admission. Candor doesn’t come naturally to me.

Someone knocked timidly at the door, and when it opened, Leah Strassman poked her head in and smiled. Leah had always been stylish and petite, with strong features and jet-black hair. Now she was tiny and hawklike, her hair a dull salt-and-pepper, and her clothes fit her like a rumpled pillowcase. The years in Mexico had taken a terrible toll on both of them. We three had a great, tearful, heartfelt reunion while we lamented what had happened to Max, though at least I could tell them he’d found work in England, writing on The Adventures of Robin Hood. Leah offered the hope that maybe one day Max could come home again. I didn’t contradict her, but I knew he hadn’t any hope of that, not unless, like Simon, he resigned himself to the possibility of prison, and Max would never do that to his wife and son.

Susan Strassman came in to collect her parents. She put her arms around me and thanked me again and again. I started to tear up. Maybe I had done some good after all. Maybe I wasn’t a total stinking failure.

When the Strassmans left, Carleton gave me a Kleenex. “Why?” I asked him.

“Because you’ve been crying and your nose is running.”

“Not the Kleenex. Studio heads aren’t philanthropic. They don’t want to make old men happy. Money always figures in. Why did you decide to give Simon screen credit?”

“Spoken like Leon Greene’s granddaughter. Come on, I’ll walk you to your car. I admit,” he said as we trotted down the staircase, “when I read the papers, all those confessions from your writer who fronted for Max Leslie, what was his name?”

“Charlie Frye,” I said, hating the very sound of it.