She sat transfixed, not even noticing when her escort asked her what she wanted to drink. And then the number ended. It ended abruptly, as though cut short by a cleaver. Terry didn’t know it yet, but that was a trademark of the Bob McKay group. The abrupt ending catapulted everyone into a silence of tremendous intensity—a silence to be broken in a few moments by the start of a new number.

She stared at the bandleader.

The bandleader stared back. His eyes swung round to meet hers as though drawn by magnetism, and for a long moment they gazed at each other. Terry began to tremble under the intense stare. But it broke, finally, as a waiter approached the bandstand with a tall drink for the leader. Gratefully, McKay took it from him, gulped it down eagerly, smiled at Terry, and turned around to swing into the next number.

And the next, and the next, and the next.…

And then it was ten o’clock, and the band was taking its break. Terry sipped her drink thoughtfully. Beside her, Mike Jurgens was scowling angrily. She had hardly said a word to him since they walked in. She had had eyes only for the bandleader, Bob McKay.

Suddenly McKay appeared at their table. He was red-faced and he was clutching a drink.

“Hello,” he said. “Mind if I join you nice people for a minute?”

“Not at all,” Terry said eagerly, forestalling a grouchy protest from Jurgens.

McKay slipped into the empty seat. “Whew! I really need this drink,” he muttered. “I bet I lose ten pounds a night up there.”

“You really give everything you have, don’t you?” Terry asked quietly.

McKay shrugged. “What other way is there?”

He finished his drink and signaled, and almost as though by magic a waiter glided up with another. McKay took it, laughing. “Little agreement I have with the management,” he explained. “I take part of my pay in free booze every night. Keeps me going.” He leaned forward, his face close to Terry’s, while Jurgens glowered in displeasure. McKay said, “You’re so lovely you must be in pictures. What have you been in?”

Terry grinned. “Nothing, yet,” she admitted. “In fact, I’m still trying to get my first screen test.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Wish I was. But this town is full of starry-eyed hopefuls.”

“I’ll be damned,” McKay mused. “Well, let me tell you right here and now—if you don’t make the big time, and make it really big, I’m no judge of talent. You’ve got it, you know? You just seem to radiate warmth and beauty and—and magnetism—” He laughed. “I guess I’ve had a little too much to drink. You’re a complete stranger and I’m going on and on about you. I don’t even know your name, after all.”

“It’s Terry. Terry Stafford.”

“I’m Bob McKay.”