"Erskine Prescott, the producer?" She asked that so cute-like, as if I had been living under a rock. Maybe I had, but I had certainly seen news photos of the reclusive impresario, the last of the great studio moguls, zipping about in his snazzy electric wheelchair, the one that looks like a miniature Ferrari, and sipping cocktails from a no-spill plastic cup encrusted with diamonds. He was one of Tinsel Town's eccentric legends. It seemed everything he touched turned into gold, to include, as I now could see, the platinum perm of his beloved. "Now what makes you think Erskine ran off with someone, Mrs. Prescott?"

"Because she's gone too."  "Run that by me again." "Nellie Dillard, his secretary, that little mouse. "She sauntered back my way, pulled two snapshots from her purse, and placed them right next to the glassine. Setting Erskine aside for the moment, I took in the full length features of the secretary, which weren't what I would call mouse-like, but certainly in the rodent family. "She looks as if she's about to enter a nunnery," I observed. "She was. Until I hired her to be Erskine's flunky. Damn that day."

"But what," I asked, driving down the highway of diamonds about her neck, "what makes you think your husband ran off with Miss Dillard? And run off certainly seems to be the wrong verb."

"Well, you're the peeper, aren't you?" she said, like that wasn't such a good thing to be. "I did everything for that man, catered to his every whim, saw to his every pleasure, morning, noon, and night."