“All the pansies in the U.S. of A. come here and get themselves little nests and drag these boys off the street and corrupt them …they wanta be actors so they can show their asses to the world under the hot lights, rubbing up against women like they like it when all the time they got their eyes glued to some poor little hick who’s running errands for the director…you notice how their eyes look when they’re supposed to be mooning over some actress? I’ve studied them, studied them. They’re thinking of all these lost little boys that come out here for fortune and fame, and not asses, like they do. And the women, they’re all crazy because there’s no men out here, just pansies and gypsies and fortunetellers and Communists…”

“Carson, cut it out,” interrupted Jake amiably. “You’re talking too rough.”

Carson lifted his lip in what might have been a smile.

“We ought to get in that war,” he said. “Purify the whole country, get them all in uniform, yes sir! No sir! Get their asses in those uniforms, they’d stop waggling them for sure.”

His flat blunt fingers played with the brown fabric of his trousers where it tightened over his knees. His bullet head was aimed at her but his eyes rested on Jake. He sucked down half a bottle of beer.

“Were you born out here?” she asked.

“Boston,” he said curtly.

“Why did you come to California?”

He didn’t answer her at all. “Jake, what’s doing with that movie. I bet there’ll be some beautiful gash walking around half naked.” He shot her a sudden glance.

Annie stood up. “I’d better go,” she said to Jake. Brody’s fury was swallowing all the oxygen in the room. She could hardly breathe.

“I thought we’d go out and get some coffee at the Greek’s,” Jake said uneasily.

“No. I’ve got some things to do,” she said. She went to the door, seeing Carson out of the corner of her eye, slumped over the bed, fiddling with the afghan. Jake joined her at the door. “I’ll go down with you,” he said.

On the stairs, she said, “Oh, Jake, he’s—”

“No, wait!” He put a finger on her lips. “He really worries about me. He’s had the saddest life I ever heard about. His father died and left his mother and nine children. She had to put six of them in a foundling home.”