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black marker someone had printed Pagan Jones on it.
    Pagan stooped to pick it up, pulling up the flap.
    About a hundred pages of three-hole paper slid out, bound together with metal fasteners in the top and bottom holes.
    The print on the front page said Two to Tango. A Universal Pictures Production.
    Pagan laughed. “It’s the script for the Buenos Aires movie.”
    â€œIt better be good,” said Mercedes, and locked the door.

CHAPTER THREE
    Hollywood, California December 16, 1961
    SEGUIDILLAS
    Tiny, quick steps, usually seen in orillero style tango.
    The script had been written by monkeys pulling random phrases out of a hat full of Hollywood clichés. After reading a few pages, Pagan had trouble forcing her eyes over the hammy dialogue and overwrought scene direction.
    The plot was something she’d seen a thousand times—a girl on the cusp of womanhood from the US goes to exotic Buenos Aires on vacation, where she can’t decide between the two men vying for her affections. One was a tall handsome blond American—kind, but a little boring. The other was a darkly handsome Argentinean gaucho, their version of a cowboy, whose seductive tangos and moonlit serenades on his Spanish guitar were too much for the naive girl to resist.
    Ten pages in, Pagan knew her character ended up with the American boy. It was too obvious that the “exotic” man was up to no good, and that his dangerous foreign ways and wandering hands would send the silly American girl scurrying back to the safety and security of the American boy.
    Mercedes threw it down after five pages. “You’re going to have to tango and sing and say these terrible lines. You’re going to have to—” she grabbed the script and read from it out loud “‘—fall under the gaucho’s tropical spell.’”
    â€œIs Buenos Aires tropical?” Pagan frowned.
    Mercedes snorted. “Don’t you know? All dark-skinned people live in jungles.”
    â€œI wouldn’t count on his skin being all that dark. They’ve cast a Broadway actor named Tony Perry as Juan, the seductive Latin man who—” Pagan grabbed the script from Mercedes “‘—tangos with the dangerous stealth of an enormous black panther.’”
    Mercedes let out a scornful laugh. “And plays the guitar while riding a horse.”
    â€œExcuse me, but don’t you mean—” Pagan read from the script again “‘—caresses the neck of his smooth wooden instrument with the consummate skill of a virtuoso’?”
    Mercedes shook her head. “His instrument ’ s wood? Don’t let him get anywhere near you with that .”
    Pagan gasped with mock horror. “Dirty jokes before breakfast! I better make us some eggs.”
    After breakfast, Mercedes went back to studying for her exams, nose in her astronomy textbook, while Pagan called her agent, Jerry Allenberg. “Tell them I’ll do this Two to Tango movie,” she told him.
    â€œI’m sorry, what?” Jerry said, speaking as if to an idiot or small child. “Have you lost your mind?”
    â€œMaybe, but I’m doing it, Jerry. I’ll need to brush up on my tango before it starts shooting in January.”
    â€œAnd dance your way right out of a career? No way, Pagan. I’m not letting you do it.”
    Pagan took a deep breath. Jerry’s concern over her career went straight past paternal to pathological now that she was on the wagon and doing better. “You don’t get to decide what I do, Jerry,” she said.
    â€œBut you’re in the middle of a comeback!” Something in the background thumped, as if he’d dropped his feet off the desk to stand up and yell at her. “I never thought I’d say this after your disasters last year, but Bennie Wexler thinks you’re gold and Tony Richardson loved working with you so much on Daughter of Silence he’s