"Yes."
  	"Uh-oh. Too late."
  	Two valets were coming at the car bearing what must have been burdensome smiles. 
As the doors were opened, Todd caught tight hold of Tammy's hand. "Don't leave my side," 
he said. "Promise me you won't."
  	"I promise," she said, and raising her head she put on her best impersonation of 
someone who was rich, famous and belonged at Todd Pickett's side. Todd relinquished the 
keys to the valet.
  	"May I assume this is your first A-list Hollywood party in the flesh?" Todd said 
to Tammy.
  	"You may."
  	"Well then this could be a lot of fun. In a grotesque, 'there's a shark in the 
swimming pool' sort of way."
  
  
  SEVEN
  	There came a point, as Jerry's car was carrying Katya out of for the first time 
in the better part of three quarters of a century, when her fears seemed to get the 
better of her. Jerry heard a voice, as dry as a husk, out of the darkness behind him: 
"I'm sorry...I don't know that I can do this."
  	"Do you want me to turn around?" he asked her. "I will if you want me to."
  	There was no reply. Just the soft sound of frightened weeping. "I wish Zeffer was 
still here. Why was I so cruel to him?" None of this seemed to be for open discussion. It 
was more like a private confessional. "Why am I such a bitch? Jesus. Jesus. Everything 
I've ever loved..." She stopped herself, and looked up at Jerry, catching his reflection 
in the mirror. "Don't mind me. It's just a crazy old woman talking to herself."
  	"Maybe we should go back and find Mr. Zeffer? He could come with you. I realize 
there was some bad blood between you-"
  	"Zeffer's dead, Jerry. I lost my temper with him, and-"
  	"You killed him?"
  	"No. I left him in the Devil's Country. Wounded by one of the hunters."
  	"Lord."
  	Jerry brought the car to a halt. He stared out of the window, horrified. "What 
would you like me to do?" he said after a while. "If you can't go on without him, I mean."
  	"Take no notice of me," Katya said, after a short period of reflection: "I'm just 
feeling sorry for myself. Of course I can go on. What other choice do I have?" She took 
another moment to study the passing world. "It's just that it's been a long time since I 
was out in the real world."
  	"This isn't the real world, it's LA."
  	She saw the joke in that. They laughed together over the remark, and when their 
laughter had settled into smiles, he got the car going again, down the hill. At some 
unidentified point between the place where her faith had almost failed her, and Sunset 
Boulevard, they crossed the boundary of Coldheart Canyon.
  	Their destination was already decided, of course, so there wasn't much reason to 
talk as they went. Jerry left Katya to her musings. He knew his Hollywood history well 
enough to be sure that she would be astonished by what she was seeing. In her time Sunset 
Boulevard had been little more than a dirt track once it got east of what was now Doheny. 
There'd been no Century City back then, of course, no four lane highways clogged with 
sleek vehicles. Just shacks and orange groves and dirt.
  	"I've been thinking," Katya said, somewhere around Sepulveda.
  	"About what?"
  	"Me and my wickedness."
  	"Your what? Your wickedness?"
  	"Yes, my wickedness. I don't know why it came into my mind, but it did. If I 
think about the women I've played in all my really important pictures, they were all 
wicked women. Poisonous. Adulterers. One who kills her own child. Really unforgivable 
women."
  	"But don't most actors prefer to play bad characters? Isn't it more fun?"
  	"Oh it is. And I had a lot to inspire me."
  	"Inspire you?"
  	"As a child, I saw wickedness with my own eyes. I had it's hands on me. Worse, it 
possessed me." Her voice grew cold and dark. "My mother ran a whorehouse, did I ever tell 
you that? And when I was ten or so, she just decided one night it was time to make me 
available to the customers."
  	"Jesus."
  	"That's what I said to myself. Every night, I said: Jesus, please help me. Jesus, 
please come and take me away from this wicked woman. Take me to heaven. But he never 
came. I had to run away. Three times I ran away and my brothers found me and dragged me 
back. Once she let them have me, as a reward for finding me."
  	"Your own brothers?"
  	"Five of them."
  	"Christ."
  	"Anyway, I succeeded in escaping her eventually, and when you're a 
thirteen-year-old, and you're out in the world on your own, you see a lot 
thirteen-year-olds shouldn't have to see."
  	"I'm sure you did."
  	"So I put all that I saw into those women. That's why people believed in them. I 
was playing them for real." She fumbled at the inside of the door. "Is there some way to 
open this window?"
  	"Oh yes. It's right there. A little black button. Push it down."
  	She pushed and opened the window a crack. "That's better," she said.
  	"You can have it all the way down."
  	"No, this is fine. I'll take it in stages I think."
  	"Yes, of course."
  	"Going back to the pictures, I wonder if you'd do me a favor, when we get back to 
the house?"
  	"Of course. What?"
  	"In my bedroom in the guest-house there are six or seven posters from those early 
films of mine. I've had them up there for so long, all around the bed. I think it's time 
I got rid of them. Will you burn them for me?"
  	"Are you sure you want them burned? They're worth a fortune."
  	"Then take them for yourself. Put them up for auction. And the bed. You want the 
bed too?"
  	"There isn't room for it in my apartment, but if you want me to get rid of it for 
you-"
  	"Yes, please."
  	"No problem."
  	"If you make some money from it, then spend it. Enjoy it."
  	"Thank you."
  	"No, it's me who should be thanking you. You've been a great comfort tome."