Toby leaned on the horn, and I backed away, but the lot was too narrow: he couldn't get around me. If he was going to leave, he was going to leave over me. Dolly wailed something, but I couldn't make it out. All I heard was the car.
It revved once to a howling, red-lining rpm and then dropped, then revved again. Then Toby popped the clutch, and the thing pawed the ground and hurtled at me.
I backed up fast, and then it was my turn to trip. I went down hard on the seat of my pants, hearing the scream of the engine and the squeal of the tires. The next thing I knew, the Maserati was on top of me.
I threw myself flat on my back, cracking my head on the pavement. The front end of the car passed over my legs and suddenly stopped. I was most of the way under it, and the front bumper was at my chest.
Hands looped under my arms and pulled me free. I tried to get up, but my legs wouldn't hold me. Dolly tried to steady me, but she was shaking herself, and we both sat down directly in front of the Maserati.
"You fucking idiot," Dolly said. "How you going to pay me? Come on." The two of us managed an undignified, crablike scramble away from the car.
The next thing I knew, I was standing up and Dolly was brushing things off my back like a worried wife. "Never mind," I snapped. "The wheels didn't get me." I went over and pulled at the handle on the driver's door. It swung open, and I saw Toby with his head resting on the steering wheel. His hands were in his lap. "I can explain," he said again.
I hung on to the door for what seemed like a week. Toby didn't move. I took a deep breath. "So explain," I said.
"I got it today," he said. "It came in the mail." He still hadn't looked at me. "I had a late call for work, and I picked up the mail as I left. Dolly will tell you."
"He did get the mail," Dolly volunteered. "The mailbox is at the top of the hill, and he stopped there on the way out."
"So you got your mail today," I said. "So did I. So did most people. How do I know the picture was in it?"
Toby didn't say anything. Finally he looked up at me. "You don't," he said. "But it's true."
"Let's say it is. Just for the hell of it, let's say you're telling the truth. When did you open it?"
"At the studio."
"Where?"
"In my dressing room." He moved his hand.
I panted. "What time?"
"I don't know. I'd finished with makeup, but I hadn't worked yet."
"Say one, one-thirty," Dolly volunteered.
"Were you alone?"
"No." Toby glanced at Dolly. "She was with me."
"You said you hadn't seen it."
Dolly gave me a look of startled innocence. "I didn't. He opened a bunch of stuff. I didn't look at any of it. You didn't tell me to read his mail."
"No reaction?" I asked. "No raised eyebrows, no nothing?"
"Not that I noticed." She sounded ashamed of herself.
"I'm an actor," Toby said.
"Why didn't you show it to her?"
His face twisted. "Don't be dumb. I would have shown it to you when I got a chance." Dolly tried not to look hurt.
"Toby," I said, "the death penalty is alive and well in California. If it weren't for Saffron, you'd be talking to lawyers right now."
"I was going to show it to you," he said insistently. "It just didn't seem like something to do in a parking lot."
"So you tried to run over him," Dolly said. She was well past the stage of hero worship.
"He didn't," I said. "If he had, I'd be dead."
"Champ," Toby said earnestly, "the last thing I want is for anything to happen to you."
"No," I said. "The last thing you want is for anything to happen to Saffron."
"Well, sure," he said listlessly. "That goes without saying."
"What kind of an envelope did it come in?"
"An envelope, you know? Kind of brown, I think."
"What postmark?"
"Hollywood. I checked that."
"What does that tell us?" Dolly said. "Zilch."
"Right. But I want to see the envelope. Do you have it?"
Toby shook his head. "I threw it away."
"Well," I said, "that's really brilliant. Here's a piece of nice, tidy physical evidence that any half-wit cop would jug you for, and you throw away the envelope it came in. Amateurs," I said in disgust. "Just wait here. Dolly, you make sure he waits."
I hiked back up the driveway and went into the club. Rock music blared, and the heavyset Tiny clone stopped me as I lifted the curtain. "Seven dollars," he said.
"Don't be an idiot. I just left."
"No reentry without paying."
"I was here for Amber's funeral."
He shrugged. "I don't care if you were here for Washington's birthday. Seven bucks."
His jaw hung slack. I picked up a corner of the red curtain and jammed it in his mouth. "Eat this while I'm gone," I said. "I'll be back for dessert." He pushed it away with both hands and came up off his stool at me. A white arm billowed past me and shoved him back down, and I turned to look at Tiny.
"I don't need trouble," he said. "Not tonight."
"I want a minute with Nana."
"That'll be seven dollars for a minute, then."
I paid him. It didn't feel like a good idea to feed the curtain to Tiny.
Nana was at the bar, with her back to me. As I came up behind her, she said, "Go away."
"I am going away. Can I come back later?"
"If you can afford it."
"I'm sorry I hit you."
She shrugged. I was provoking a lot of shrugs. "I been hit before."
"He didn't take the picture. He got it in the mail."
"Yeah, and they find babies under cabbage leaves."
"Have it your way. I'll be back in a couple of hours."
"How will I stand the wait?" she said.
Tiny's hand landed on my shoulder. It was like standing under a falling redwood. "Minute's up," he said. The bartender glowered at me. Nana wouldn't give me a glance.
"Fine," I said. "Gee, everybody, have a good night."
It was getting dark when I reached Toby's car. The driver's door was still open, and Dolly was leaning against the front fender, looking like a hundred kilos of scorned woman. Toby hadn't moved.
"What time do they empty the wastebaskets in the dressing room?" I said.
"How do I know?"
I went around and got in on the passenger side. "Well," I said, "you're about to find out."
Twenty-five minutes later I was looking at a square, buff-colored envelope with a Hollywood postmark. The stamp had Susan B. Anthony on it. "Nice sense of irony," I said.
Toby was doing a line of cocaine. "Fingerprints," he said without much hope. "What about fingerprints?"
"It's rough paper. If I were the cops and I had a couple of billion dollars' worth of image-intensifying laser equipment, I might be able to lift a partial off the gummed strip. And you know what? It'd be yours."
"But the picture's smooth," Dolly said.
"Photographs are a great surface for prints, one of the best. But I'd bet my fee that Toby's are the only prints on it. And mine, of course, and yours. Nobody's a big enough schmuck to handle a photograph bare-handed after he's committed a murder."
"Swell," Toby said. "I'm so glad we've got a specialist."
"Toby," I said, "why would anyone send you that picture?"
For a second I thought I was going to get my third shrug of the evening. But then he shook his head. "To freak me out, maybe. To threaten me." He glanced up at Dolly and then back at me. "Maybe to tell me I'm next."
"No," Dolly and I said simultaneously.
"This probably won't come as a complete surprise to you, Toby," I said, "but somebody hates your guts. I want a list. Everybody you've hurt, everybody who's related to somebody you've hurt." I glanced up at Dolly. "You might as well sit down," I said. "This could take a while."