She found a taxi on Hollywood Boulevard. It was a long ride down the whole length of the Boulevard, through the Sunset Strip where the driver said, the only time he spoke, “That’s the Trocadero where they go. I’m available for tours, tell you where the stars live and all…”

They turned up a narrow road that wound among hills. Through trees and thick plantings of bushes, above sloping lawns, lights shone from mansions of such multiform character that they were more like exhibits than homes. It was as though the owners had feared they might miss even one architectural style, and so had crammed together in one structure turrets, Greek columns, Spanish balconies, and colonial façades.

When the taxi stopped, Annie heard the sound of a running brook. A Saint Bernard dog was throwing itself against the taxi door, wagging its tail violently. Then the dog was heaved aside by a man in a dark jacket who paid the driver and led Annie up a driveway toward open doors. She was suddenly conscious, as brightness poured from a brilliantly lit hall, of how bedraggled she must look. She stepped inside uneasily. A voice from another room called out, “Come in, lass. Come in!” Annie followed instructions and entered a large dining room.

Motionless, grim-faced, two women and a young boy sat at the long table, all three heads bent slightly forward over serving plates. At the head of the table sat a man with a linen napkin completely covering his head. As he spoke, the napkin quivered where his mouth must have been.

“You look like neither of them,” said the napkin. “What do you think, my dears?”

The woman who sat next to him kept her head stubbornly bent, but the other woman looked briefly at Annie and said in a tired voice, “I’ve not seen either of them in years. How would I know?”

“How would I know?” mimicked the man ironically. “It’s an endearing way you have of speaking. What was it made out of, that sentence? Hand-hewn stone? Sit down, poor girl, and tell me about your old man.”

But Annie remained on her feet, staring at the napkin. There was a muffled laugh. He said, “I can’t bear to look at these darlings of mine. I’m hiding out.”

The boy gave Annie a covert glance. A colored woman came through a swinging door at that moment carrying an elaborately iced cake. It had fallen in on one side as though someone had pressed a hand down on it.

“You want coffee, mister?” asked the woman listlessly, hardly bothering to wait for an answer as she went back toward the kitchen. The Saint Bernard, Annie observed, was creeping forward from the hall on his belly, moving with great artfulness as he silently advanced one heavy paw after another.