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and peering inside. Pale light spilled into my dark kitchen. “You got any soda water? I need something fizzy.”
    “Only Sprite.”
    “That’ll work,” she said, finding the half-empty bottle and guzzling back the remains. She swung her hips into the living room and went up to my fish tank. “How are my two boys today?” she said, pressing her nose to the glass. “Been up to mischief again?”
    Mitch and Murray, a pair of thumb-sized goldfish, had lived with me for the past four years. I credited their healthy lifespan to the three foot long, forty gallon tank I kept them in. Aquarium geeks would probably say I spoiled them, but Mitch and Murray used every square inch of their luxury pad: playing hide-and-seek around the sunken shipwreck, scooting along the gravel base, and sometimes disappearing for hours on end in the reeds and rushes. They were happy fish, I liked to think.
    “Frisky this morning, aren’t you?” CC laughed. Mitch and Murray were performing cartwheels in front of her nose, giving every impression they were delighted to see her. When they eventually darted off, CC turned and squinted at me. “What’s up with you?”
    “It’s a long story. You got a minute?”
“Sure,” she said, moving to her regular armchair opposite the sofa. She flicked off her heels and folded her long legs into the seat cushion. “This headache won’t let me sleep, anyway.”
    I first met CC at a North Beach club I liked to frequent, as much for the dim lighting as the girls. After being mesmerized by CC’s kinky stewardess routine, I dropped a small fortune on twenty-buck cocktails and private lap dances. She was gorgeous, no question, but there was also a sly intelligence behind her long blonde hair and dusky blue eyes. One night she admitted to turning tricks on the side, but only with men she was genuinely attracted to, and strictly on the hush-hush. I was happy to accept the lie, and after a handful of enjoyable “dates”, we came to a mutually beneficial arrangement. CC lived in West Oakland, and every so often, after an exhausting night’s work, she couldn’t bear the early morning commute. Since I was usually awake, and my Potrero Hill apartment was only a ten buck Uber away, I gave her carte blanche to call round any time she wanted. And it wasn’t always about sex. Sometimes we’d talk, sometimes we’d watch TV, and sometimes she’d go straight to bed while I hung out in the living room. The unique relationship suited me down to the ground. No strings, no emotional demands, and an easy rapport that had built up over the past eighteen months. CC now kept clothes in my wardrobe, and toiletries in my bathroom. Outside of Bruno, she was the closest thing I had to a friend.
    Easing back into my sofa with a large scotch in hand, I gave CC a detailed rundown of the strange goings on at my office . For a twenty-four year old, she could be remarkably astute.
    “I don’t get it,” she said when I’d finished. “You thought Ralph T Emerson made the phone call, but you’re not sure if he was behind the script?”
    “It just seems too obvious,” I explained, thinking aloud. “He’s the only other person with a key to the office – he must know I’d suspect him. And you should see his photos – he’s a buttoned-up, Brooks Brothers kind of guy. I can’t believe he’d write the violent stuff that was in the screenplay. He wouldn’t have the stomach for it.”
    CC sat up to stretch her tanned legs out in front of her. She wriggled her painted toes – something she often did when deep in thought. “You should trust your instincts,” she said. “If you thought it was Ralph’s voice on the phone, it probably was. And if he made the call, he had to have changed the screenplay. I mean, what’s the alternative? Two stalkers? You’re not that interesting.”
    “Yeah, maybe you’re right. But who the fuck is Ralph T Emerson? I’ve never heard the name, don’t recognize the face…”
    “–You