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Acceptable enough places. Except for the nearly constant human and other sounds that were especially disturbing to the rattlers, who were all ears, so to speak. The entire length of their bodies was extremely sensitive to vibrations
—
their hearing mechanism
.

Also, there wouldn't be enough to eat, only spiders and crickets and such, and any mice unfortunate enough to come sneaking along. Hunger was not a critical problem, however, for the rattlers were cold-blooded and with their low metabolic rate could get along on almost no food. Forty times better than man to be precise. And no wasted energy
.

They remained absolutely still at night for warmth, coiled and tangled around one another into ball-like piles. In daytime, when the air was not so cold, they moved about, searched for possible warmer places
.

Above them were the understructures of the houses, composed mainly of concrete, raw wood planking and exposed pipes. Around some of the pipes were openings. Space enough for some of the snakes to crawl up through and get between the floorboards. Then, perhaps hoping for food or more comfort or wanting to feel more secure, they explored and found openings that allowed them to slither further up inside
.

In the corner of the master-bedroom closet of one house, where hung clothing concealed a vertical pressure pipe, some fifty rattlers lay in the dark
.

In another house in the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink, among the containers of Tide and Ajax, Drano, ammonia and Windex, were another fifty or so. Waiting
.

4

Elliot Janick tried to disregard the darker brown aging blotches on the back of his well-tanned hand. It helped to think that his watch was the positively accurate kind that had no moving parts — a Pulsar digital in a case of solid platinum from Tiffany's for three thousand. On its dark red face now flashed the blood-red numerals: four, zero, zero. Somehow it wasn't like time.

His Rolls-Royce limousine was on the Coast Highway, at that moment passing through San Clemente, of all places. The limo was a 1967 designated by Rolls-Royce as “The James Young Model,” after its designer. Nineteen sixty-seven was the last year Rolls-Royce limos were imported regularly into the United States. The car had cost sixty-five thousand then. It was worth a hundred thousand now.

Driving it for Elliot was a man he referred to as “my man Ted.” Up front on the seat next to Ted was a white Maltese terrier. The owner of the dog, Marsha Hilbert, was riding in the back with Elliot. The dog kept trying to get to her. It jumped and hit against the separating glass partition. The wet of its nose and mouth caused smears that had dried white and ugly on the glass.

Elliot grumbled, “Make her stop.”

“She only wants some love,” Marsha said.

“Dumb.” Elliot tried to disregard the dog.

Marsha could let the dog have its way, lower the partition by simply pressing one of the electric buttons near her arm rest. She thought of doing that but clicked on the television.

She knew Elliot detested television, so she was not really surprised when he cut the sound of it by inserting an earphone plug into the set, handing the other end of it to her. She gave him a glance that said she wondered why she put up with him, as she placed the tiny button in her left ear. She changed channels several times and finally settled on a quiz program: contestants from such places as Bismarck, North Dakota, and Scranton, Pennsylvania, showing how fast they could be smart.

Marsha was thirty but could look younger whenever she wanted. She appeared beautifully well-bred. Publicity had her from a socially important Dallas family, and by now that was believed even in Dallas. Part of her style was to wear her hair always slightly mussed so it served as a sensually suggestive parenthesis for her face. Her complexion was not easily definable, somewhere between ivory and olive, different. Her eyes of china blue often said more than her voice. She would have been a sensation even in silent films. Extremely photogenic.

Marsha was a star. She had what people in the business called a motor — a special, natural, attention-getting quality, the ability to invade and be used in fantasies on a mass scale. Her fame span had already reached nearly eight years over twelve pictures. Her first six pictures were done under Elliot, as were her last two. During the three-year interim she had broken away to marry a wealthy land developer, who loved her with such gentleness and constancy that she almost went insane. She divorced on the grounds of mental cruelty and returned contritely to Elliot.

Elliot, in his early sixties, admitted to early fifties. His squash and badminton games helped substantiate the lie. So did his tailor.

Elliot had produced forty-seven films since the first in 1938. Counting only those he actually personally worked on. Producers often took full screen and social credit although connected to a production by little more than a few phone calls. Counting that way, Elliot could have claimed at least another forty. Also not included were any of Elliot's
streamliners
, a term left over from the early days, meaning features shot as slickly and quickly as possible, usually in twelve to twenty days, with no retakes even if an actor's fly was found open.

The films Elliot had something to do with putting together had won seventy-four Oscars in all categories from Best Sound to The Best. That was probably a record. His write-up in the
Motion Picture Annual
occupied an entire page and overflowed onto another for three inches of a column. He'd been respectfully ridiculed by The Friars and sycophantically praised at an industry dinner for him at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Elliot would never admit it, but the turning point in his life was the year of
Easy Rider
. That was when everyone in the filmmaking business lost the marble under the sofa and were down on their knees searching. All at once everyone was clutching and quoting an official audience study that showed that 75 percent of those who went out to the movies were under the age of twenty-five. Suddenly, long-haired youngsters with distant eyes and wearing clothes that looked worse than some old costume company's throwaways were brought in like saviors and given the dollar sign to go ahead. There had never been such organized confusion.

Elliot sidestepped it.

Elliot declined.

Since then, as close as he'd come to having another big one was within twenty thousand of making a deal on the property that eventually turned out to be
Love Story
. Just remembering that was enough to give him stabbing pains above and to the left of his navel. Psychosomatic hara-kiri. Last year he made only one picture. A medium budget PG starring Marsha. Her being in it was the reason it grossed double break even. It also won an Oscar for Best Wardrobe.

In almost any other profession a man of Elliot's years and accomplishments would retire. But he wasn't about to step down and out. He still had some winners in him, he said.

Actually, why he stuck in there was he was still paid respect, the respect of fear.

Janick would never be a lightweight, no matter what. Items in
Variety
and
The Hollywood Reporter
saying what Janick was into or maybe getting into made rival producers distrust their intuitions and their agents.

To be feared.

It was more precious than money. Elliot needed it. He didn't need money. Over the better years he had taken plenty of all kinds of money over the Alps. It made him feel secure but it also bothered the hell out of him. He might die without revealing to anyone his account number in Zurich. He could just picture those Swiss bankers gleefully absorbing his financial remains. A cringing thought — almost enough to make him tell the number to … well, there was only Marsha.

Now, being driven up the Coast Highway, Elliot took another script from the stack below the seat. He skimmed it, read a line or two of dialogue from every tenth page or so, got only a vague idea of it and, with an intolerant sigh, tossed it to the floor amidst the pile he had already similarly rejected. He took off his genuine tortoise-shell reading glasses and inserted them into the outside breast pocket of his blazer. How easily, how nicely the glasses slid in between the fine flannel material and the pure silk Sulka square. Dapper was a good word, Elliot thought, and repeated it to himself several times. Dapper. Still in use but fading, damn it. Marvelous word.

On a fold-down tray was a wedge of Brie, just ripe and runny enough, a crock of Fauchon mustard and some tiny cold water biscuits from Scotland. Another compartment held a bottle of Aalborg akvavit and a silver ice bucket, sweating.

Elliot reached forward to knife some cheese onto a biscuit, and then a smear of the mustard. It was on its way to his mouth when Marsha made a whiny sound, begging for it.

Elliot disregarded her, ate it.

“That cheese stinks,” said Marsha. From her purse she took a vial of Guerlain's Vol de Nuit 1933, dabbed some on her wrists and throat. Her current look — hair, makeup, clothes — was a rendition of the thirties. Today she was wearing dove gray, a silk jersey dress by Halston. Gray was now her one and only favorite shade. It never fought her, she claimed, borrowing from the most famous New York fashion photographer who had said it while shooting two pages of her for last month's
Vogue
.

Elliot made another Brie and cracker for himself.

Marsha's eyes followed it all the way to his mouth. She watched him chew. She imagined the cheese was poison, pictured Elliot doubled over in anguish, making a horrible dying face. When she saw him swallow she told him: “I read about a woman who grows cultures and eats the slimy stuff.”

“What?”

“Cultures, all kinds of germs. She believes it builds up immunity, so she eats it.”

To erase his distaste Elliot glanced at the rain splattered window. The inside of the window was coated with steam from their breaths. His hand was mid-air when he decided it would be futile and probably unpleasant to wipe the window. He reached for another script, didn't put on his glasses as he paged apathetically through it. The typed words were blurred beyond comprehension and yet he seemed to be reading; at least he seemed thoughtful.

After a short while he tossed the script to the floor, leaned forward and got a chunk of ice from the bucket. He made a fist around the ice, held it that way long enough for his fingers to be dripping.

Marsha saw it coming.

The word in her mouth was “
please,
” but she didn't let it out. She didn't flinch or anything when Elliot placed the piece of ice on her bare skin above her left knee.

He held it there.

She managed to pretend her attention was entirely on the television.

Elliot ran the ice up and down, up and down a short way.

She shivered, not altogether a cold shiver.

He ran the ice up under her skirt, up her thigh, sliding it slowly up all the way, between. The ice was soaking her. And her dress beneath her.

Her eyes closed. Her mouth opened. Now she couldn't help but say it.

“Please.”

Mercy wasn't what she wanted.

Elliot knew that. But he stopped using the ice. The piece was considerably reduced. He withdrew it and held it above and she had to stretch up like a feeding baby bird to take it into her mouth.

At that moment Elliot's stomach felt a burning. The cheese and especially the mustard came back on him. He searched for some Maalox tablets. He nearly always carried some Maalox with him, however none today. All right, maybe his stomach would settle for a bottle of Perrier. But there didn't seem to be any Perrier either.

Over the intercom Elliot told his man, Ted: “Goddamn, there's no Perrier.”

Ted apologized.

Marsha was sitting the same as before, exactly the same, as though someone had instructed her not to move.

“Stop and get some,” Elliot told Ted.

The Rolls limousine turned in at the Seaside Supermarket. As though privileged, it violated the yellow painted lane markings and went diagonally across the parking area to the entrance.

Ted would go in.

But while Ted was double-checking with Elliot whether Elliot wanted anything besides Perrier, Marsha opened the door on her side. She jumped out.

Elliot shouted “no” at her, ordered her back.

But she was already well away, laughing, hurrying in to avoid the rain.

“Stupid cunt,” Elliot said aloud, with sibilance on the first word and a hard coughlike start on the second. She probably wants to sign autographs, he thought. He'd better go in and get her.

5

Gloria Rand was seated on a large, inflated plastic cushion outside the front door to her apartment. A white telephone on a long cord from inside was within easy reach. She always brought the phone out whenever she swam or sat by the pool. It was the only way when a phone rang for her to know for sure whether or not it was hers.

Along the covered walkway the doors to most of the other apartments were also open. It was that sort of place. Down the way a couple of hibachis were smouldering, and, as usual, at least a half-dozen stereos were competing to underscore the moment. One seemed to dominate with a piece of Lou Rawls' soul.

In a few minutes it would be four o'clock. Gloria was watching Stuart and a married fellow named Murph as they flipped a Day-Glo red regulation-size Frisbee back and forth. Swift, skimming throws, frequent remarkable catches against the backdrop of rain beyond the covered area.

Stuart had on a pair of shorts, jeans, actually, cut off into shorts. They were frayed and nicely faded and they hung precariously low on the studs of his hipbones. He was twenty-two, six feet exactly, with a taut, sinewy sort of swimmer's physique. Stuart didn't live there at the apartment complex. That is, he was not actually a tenant, although since meeting Gloria four months ago he had stayed over and been around about as much as those who did pay rent. Prior to Stuart another good-looking young man had enjoyed the same setup for several months. And before him, another.