“UPM?”
“Unit production manager, for God’s sake. Why didn’t they get somebody who at least knows something about the business.”
“What’s the name of the unit production manager?”
“Bob,” Jill said. She was well into the second double martini.
“Bob what?” I said.
Jill flapped her hands again and shook her head. “You think I memorize lists of names? I have to memorize sixty pages of dialogue every week. I don’t have time to get chummy with every member of the office staff.”
“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” I said.
“Where’s that from?” Jill said.
“Some play,” I said. “What did this caller say when he called?”
“Different stuff. Sex stuff, mostly.”
“Like what?” I said.
“That a turn-on for you?” Jill said. “Having me talk about it?”
“Sure is,” I said. “This whole conversation is more exciting than dinner with Jesse Helms.”
Jill frowned beautifully, a lovely vertical frown line appearing briefly between her eyebrows and smoothing out at once.
“Whoever he is,” she said. “Mostly this guy told me what he’d like to do to me when he got me alone.”
“Abusive?” I said.
She was sipping her martini now; apparently the edge of need had softened.
“Actually,” she said, “no. It wasn’t, it was more, you know, ah, romantic.”
“Romantic?”
“Yeah, lovey-dovey. Except he used all the dirty words. But he used them, like, romantically.”
I nodded.
“And you don’t, I suppose, have even a guess as to who he might be?” I said.
“If I did, you think I wouldn’t have already told you? What kind of dumb jerk question is that?”
“The kind if you don’t ask, you feel like a fool when it comes out that you should have asked.”
“No, I don’t know the guy. I don’t recognize his voice. I don’t have any idea who he is.”
“Any letters?”
She shook her head. The martini was gone. She gestured at the waitress.
“No.”
“Get any recordings of his calls?”
“No.”
“Not on any answering machines, or anything?”
“I don’t have answering machines,” Jill said. The waitress brought her a third martini. I didn’t have too much longer before talking with her would be useless.
Jill giggled. “I don’t know how they work.”
“You get any fan letters that seem odd?” I said.
“They’re all odd,” Jill said. “I mean, for crissake, fan letters.”
“Any unusually odd?”
“I don’t know. I don’t read them. Ask Sandy.”
“Sandy reads them?”
“Sandy, or some girl in the office. I don’t have time for it. Somebody reads them and writes up a little cover, saying how they sound. You know? If there’s a trend.”
“Do you read that?” I said.
“No, they send it to my agent.”
“Whose name is?”
“My agent?”
“Un huh.”
“Why do you want my agent’s name?”
“So I can talk with him,” I said. “See, I’m a detective. That means I make an attempt to detect what’s going on, by asking questions. By looking for, ah, clues. Stuff like that.”
