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said.
    â€œJust a doll,” I said. “You recognize it?”
    She stayed behind me but moved her head around for a closer look, her cheek pressed against my upper arm. She looked for a moment.
    â€œJesus God,” she said.
    â€œYeah?” I said.
    â€œIt’s me,” she said. “It’s me.”
    She slid around over my arm and pressed herself against me, both arms around me, her head against my chest.
    â€œIt’s a doll of me,” she said, “as Tiffany Scott.”
    Even I had heard of Tiffany Scott, the spunky, lovable girl reporter, caught up in a series of hair-raising adventures, week after week, for six years on ABC. It was the series that had made her the preeminent television star in the country. Her body was tighter against me than my gunbelt and she seemed to insinuate herself at very precarious spots.
    â€œGot any theories?” I said.
    â€œHe did it,” she said. Her voice was hoarse, throaty with fear. “It’s . . .” She squeezed tighter against me. I would not have thought that possible, but she did it. “It’s a warning.” Her breath was short, and audible.
    â€œWho’s he?” I said. Spenser, master detective, asker of the penetrating questions.
    â€œI don’t know,” she said.
    â€œThen how do you know it’s him?” I said. “Or is it he?”
    â€œHe’s done things like this before.”
    â€œHe has,” I said. “But we don’t know who he is.”
    I was losing control of my pronouns. “Or whom?” I said.
    She turned her face in against me.
    â€œIt’s not funny,” she said.
    I reached up with my free hand, the one she wasn’t clinging to, and took the doll down.
    â€œHis name isn’t Ken, is it?”
    â€œI told you,” she said. “I don’t know who he is. I just know he’s after me.”
    I got my arm free of her clutch and turned her around and steered her back to the front of the mobile home.
    â€œI’ll need to talk to your driver,” I said.
    â€œPaulie,” she said.
    â€œPaulie what?”
    â€œI don’t know. I just call him Paulie. You got a cigarette?”
    â€œI don’t smoke,” I said.
    â€œWell, hand me some from the table there,” she said.
    I gave her the cigarettes and she took one out and put it into her mouth and looked at me expectantly. There were matches on the dashboard in front of the driver’s seat. I stood, stepped past her, took a book of matches and lit her cigarette, then I tucked the matches inside the cellophane wrapper on the cigarette pack and put them in her lap.
    â€œWho would know Paulie’s full name?” I said.
    â€œI don’t know, for God’s sake, ask Sandy. I don’t keep track of every sweat hog that works on this picture.”
    â€œThe bigger they are, the nicer they are.”
    She seemed recovered from her panic.
    â€œYou do coke?” she said.
    I shook my head.
    â€œWell, I do,” she said. “You got a problem with that?”
    I shook my head again. She went to the breakfast nook, got the stuff out of a cabinet and did two lines off the tabletop.
    â€œI got to work this afternoon,” she said. “You try getting up every time the light goes on. You try sparkling eight hours a day, sometimes ten or fifteen.”
    â€œFor me, it’s easy,” I said, and gave her a sparkling smile.
    She paid me no attention. She was bobbing her head slightly and tapping her fingers on the tabletop.
    â€œYou going to do something about this?” she said.
    I looked at her, jeeped from the coke, waiting to go out and pretend to be wonderful; evasive and self-deluded and kind of stupid, and startlingly beautiful. For all I knew she’d hung the doll herself. For all I knew “he” didn’t exist.
    â€œAre you?” she said. She was impatient now, tapping her foot, her eyes very bright.