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little terriers. The kind that only bites you when your back is turned.
    She cut him off. “Shut up, Murray.” And then to R.J., “How much do you want?”
    There she was again, pushing him off balance, jumping around so he would stay confused. He had grown up watching that technique used by people like her, and he didn’t like it, but it still worked. “How much what ?” he said, pushing back a little.
    She blinked. “Who’s your agent?”
    R.J. grinned. A stock comeback like that meant he’d won one. He had her confused.
    “I don’t have an agent. I don’t believe in agents,” he said. “I like to do everything myself.” And he cracked his knuckles.
    “That’s enough, asshole,” said Murray, and he stood up. R.J. took a step toward him and he sat down again.
    Janine Wright frowned. The girl giggled. Janine looked at her briefly, coldly, then looked back at R.J. She shook her head, just twice, and turned to the girl who had let him in. “You let him in. Get this shithead out of here.”
    “I’m not your fucking slave,” the girl said.
    “Don’t use that language with me,” Janine Wright said.
    “Oh, for God’s sake, what language am I supposed to use? All I’ve ever heard from you is fuck this, shit on that, piss on you—”
    Janine Wright was up and across the floor in two steps. She slapped the girl once and the sound of it was loud enough to make R.J. jump. “I’m still your mother, you little bitch,” Janine Wright said.
    The girl took a step back, rubbing her cheek. “That’s my problem,” she said.
    Janine Wright hissed out a breath and raised her hand again. The girl didn’t flinch, just stared at her mother. Janine put her hand down.
    “Sometimes you’re so much like your father I could puke,” she said.
    The girl just looked at her. “Considering some of the things you’ve done,” she told her mother, “I doubt you could puke at all anymore, no matter what.” Then she looked once at R.J., and there was something funny going on in her eyes, a kind of idea or recognition that R.J. was being included in, but didn’t get. Then the girl turned and walked out of the room.
    Janine Wright watched her daughter go. “Murray,” she said.
    The terrier got up and scuttled away. “I’ll talk to her,” he said.
    “Do you have kids?” Janine Wright asked R.J., without looking at him. “If you don’t, stay lucky. Never have kids. They’re fucking awful. The whole thing is a—”
    Suddenly she turned and looked at him, as if seeing him for the first time. “Who the fuck are you, anyway?”
    R.J. stepped forward and handed her his business card. “My name is R.J. Brooks,” he said.
    Janine Wright did a double take, looked at the card, and stared at him again. “Oh,” she said. “You’re that guy. That’s why you look like him.”
    “That’s right.”
    “I thought you were an actor.”
    R.J. grinned at her. “Nope.”
    “I thought you were auditioning.”
    “No, I’m complaining.”
    She looked at him for a full thirty seconds. Once again, R.J. felt like he was a wrinkled drapery, or a chair with a stain on the slipcover. Finally she nodded and said, “Sit down.”
    She turned and moved back to the settee. R.J. perched on a chair that would probably make a down payment on a place in the Hamptons. He opened his mouth to start his pitch, but she cut him off.
    “How much do you make?” she asked him.
    R.J. blinked. “None of your goddamned business.”
    “You grew up in Hollywood, right? Why’d you leave?”
    “There’s no air and I hate the people,” he said, wondering where this was going.
    “Ever think about going back?”
    “Think about it? No, I have nightmares sometimes. Look, Ms. Wright, I’m not applying for a job—”
    “Then why the fuck should I care if you look just like him?”
    “I can’t imagine why the fuck. You brought it up, not me.”
    A door slammed and Murray came scuttling back rubbing his face. He slid into his place beside Janine