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little theater, he’d admitted that, yes, he moonlighted. It was part of his standard spiel, illustrating the axiom that most actors shouldn’t give up their day jobs. Ever.
    All during the spiel, intrigued, he’d watched Paula, who was avidly watching him. When the meeting broke up, he’d maneuvered adroitly enough to leave the two of them alone in the darkened theater, after the others had gone. He’d asked her out for beer and pastrami sandwiches. Immediately she’d pointed to the pager clipped to his belt. “Do you moonlight as a brain surgeon?” she’d asked. When he’d told her what he did, told her that he was a duly licensed private investigator, her whole face had come alive. A few weeks later, pillow-talking, she’d announced that she wanted to be a private investigator. She was sure she’d be good at the job—and she was right. A month into the job, she’d faced down a murderer and saved a young woman’s life. Afterwards—hours later—in his arms, her whole body shook with the inevitable delayed reaction. But the next day she was back on the job, no problem.
    A month ago, when he’d ordered stationery, her name was on the letterhead.
    “So?” she prompted.
    “You know most of it. A high roller from Los Angeles hired Herbert Dancer to find Betty Giles. I got the job. All I was told was that she was involved in industrial espionage. I was told to find her, then call Dancer, who’d contact the client. I got lucky, and found her at a cheap motel in Santa Rosa. She was with a guy named Nick Ames. I called Dancer, who ordered me to keep them under surveillance until he got back to me, probably in twenty-four hours. The following evening, Giles and Ames had a fight. Nick slammed out of the motel room, got in their car—Betty’s car—and drove to a bar. He had a few drinks, then left the bar. He was starting the car when a well-dressed black man walked up and shot him through the glass. The weapon was a twenty-two-caliber automatic pistol firing high-speed hollow points. Which, as it happens, is a favorite weapon of the professional hit man.”
    “Why?”
    “There’re three types of twenty-two automatics that can be very effectively silenced. That’s because the barrel isn’t surrounded by a slide. The Colt Woodsman with a six-inch barrel is a special favorite. The combination of a long barrel and the small powder charge makes a silencer very effective, and the high-speed hollow-point bullet at close range is devastating. Plus, the bullet breaks up when it strikes something, so there’s no ballistics. From the hit man’s viewpoint, it’s the ideal weapon, especially since the gun’ll hold ten cartridges. In the Nick Ames homicide, the victim was shot five times, all in the head. That’s a typical professional hit.”
    “Did you see the actual murder?”
    “No. My orders were to tail Betty, so I was at the motel when Ames died. I didn’t know about the murder until the next morning. By that time, Betty was with the police, answering questions and identifying the body. I decided to get the hell out of there, drive back to San Francisco. About an hour down the road, I figured out that I’d been set up.” He sipped his wine, watching her over his raised glass. It was inevitable, he realized, that this moment would come—inevitable that he put his glass down, look into her eyes—
    —and tell her the rest of it.
    “Ostensibly,” he began, “Betty Giles worked for an outfit called Powers Associates in Los Angeles. Actually, it’s a front for Raymond DuBois.”
    “The zillionaire financier.”
    “Right.”
    “Based in Los Angeles.”
    “Right. Powers Associates is an investment firm—real estate, stocks, venture capital, whatever makes money. Justin Powers is the head man. Which makes him DuBois’s number-one gofer. A couple of years ago, Justin Powers recruited Betty Giles to go down to Los Angeles and work for his company. Betty majored in art history at Berkeley, and she was