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see no connection between himself and the world of headlines, success, money, and popular music that Goddard’s name evoked.
    “That’s right,” said Andrea. “I want to meet Goddard. In person. That’s all I ask.”
    Domostroy had to smile. Was she joking? Behind her slick facade, the girl was peculiar. “Is that all?” he asked sarcastically.
    “Yes” she said, “that’s all. Find out who he is. Better yet: find him. I want to meet him.”
    For a moment he felt disillusioned. Her girlish confidence annoyed him. So that’s what she needed him for. An older man helping a young woman to fulfill her adolescent fantasy.
    “What on earth makes you think I can find Goddard?” he snapped.
    “Why can’t you?” she asked, looking at him. “Aren’t you a name too?”
    He became impatient with her. “Look, for five—or is it six?—years,” he said, “Goddard has been the biggest recording star in the country. Yet he’s still nothing but a voice and a name—a complete mystery. Nobody has everseen him or managed to find out the least bit of information about him. Nobody! And since the day his first big record was played on the air, every magazine, newspaper, TV and radio station, every professional, and every dilettante in the celebrity business has tried. But nobody knows any more about Goddard today than they did when he started. And you want me to find out who he is?” He laughed. “Are you sure you know who I am?”
    “Of course, I do!” she said, also annoyed. “And also that you could find him. You could—but only if you wanted to badly enough. If you felt it was worth it to you, you could track Goddard down,” she said emphatically. “All you have to do is want to find him. I’ve researched you,” she said, “and I found out a great deal about you. I know you won the National Music Award for
Octaves,
and that both the Music Writers Guild of America and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts voted your music for
Chance,
the best film score of the year.”
    “What else?” asked Domostroy, a part of him pleased by her childlike belief in his power.
    “Also, that for some twenty years or so, you were known all over the world and that in those days, you knew every big shot in the music field and the arts. I saw photographs of you with pop singers, business types, movie stars, TV anchormen, dress designers. I read the resolution the composers, lyricists, and performers of MUSE International drew up to honor you when you finished your second term as president of that association. They said you had shown an imaginative and protective sense of responsibility toward musicians all over the world; and that the fruits of what you had achieved would extend for into the future. Well, if you did all that for them then, don’t you think they would do you a favor now? All you’d have to do would be to call, ask a few questions, and follow a few clues, to Goddard. Don’t you see?”
    He was impressed by her breezy rundown of his past success and her thoughtful disregard of his stalled career.
    “It’s not so easy to call people I used to know years ago and say I’d like to use them!’ he said softly, trying not to discourage her. “Don’t you think that all the reporters,disc jockeys, columnists, commentators, and musicians in the country would give just as much as you would to find out who Goddard is? What makes you think that all I have to do is phone a few old acquaintances and say, This is Patrick Domostroy. Tell me, who is Goddard?’”
    “I’m not that naive,” she said, ready to appease him, “but surely, somewhere out there are people who really do know who Goddard is, and where he is and what he looks like—and what he eats and whom he fucks and what he takes or smokes or shoots to get high. There must be a fair number of them—his family, relatives, friends, lovers, record company bigwigs, tax accountants, IRS agents, attorneys, clerks, secretaries, doctors, nurses, music