Anne walked out into the police station’s reception area and was heading for the door when she spied Becky Nelson bedecked in a Chanel suit, looking as out of place as a John Singer Sargent painting hung on a graffitied wall, shoving a smartphone at one underling and her purse at another. The harried-looking studio boss spotted Anne and raised a finger in a commanding “halt, please” gesture. Anne sputtered to a stop. Becky waved her over impatiently. “Did you see Detective Vasquez?” she asked, pushing back the cuff of her jacket with a perfectly manicured hand to look at her wristwatch. “Because, I have, like, three minutes I can give him.” Anne heard this but her mind flashed to tales of the eighties told to her by her uncle and read about in a rash of “been there, snorted that” memoirs by some notable Hollywood has-beens—tales of years whited out by avalanches of cocaine. Uncle Manny said that Becky’s crew had been coked to the gills. She wondered if Becky had, herself, snorted (or delicately smeared blow on her gums) or if she had merely supplied the stuff to others—not that she had any reason to believe that. But still.
