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something that looked like a silver finger bowl, except that it was heaped to overflowing with a fine pinkish powder. The side of me that wishes I still got loaded all the time pricked up its ears and let its tongue loll in an unappealing fashion. The phone began to ring, but he ignored it.
    "McDonald's makes the best straws," he said conversationally. "They're good sturdy plastic, and they're just the right diameter." He sat down on the couch and unrolled a brightly colored plastic straw from a sheet of tissue. The phone continued to ring. "All you've got to do to make them perfect is slice off the tip at a forty-five-degree angle with a razor blade.*' He scooped some of the powder from the bowl with a little spoon and made two tiny mountains on the table. "Want some?"
    "No," I said without conviction.
    "It's terrific. Pink, see? Very smooth, no jangles, no dental bills from uncontrollable teeth clenching. Excuse me." He leaned over and snorted the mountains. The phone stopped ringing. He ladled out two more little Mount Fujis and looked up at me, his eyes suddenly a lot clearer.
    "What's the hardest part of being a detective?"
    "Failure." The coke glistened malevolently at me.
    "Does that happen?" He shoved a smidgen of coke into line.
    "Once in a while." I sat on the floor on the other side of the table. I'd always wanted to climb Mount Fuji. "When the person you're after is a lot smarter than you are, or else so dumb that there's no way to figure out what he's done or why he's done it. Then you let somebody down and you feel terrible about it."
    "You really do, don't you?" He started down toward the mountains but then stopped and lowered the straw. "I mean, you really care about the people you work for."
    "Sure," I said, feeling uncomfortable. The phone began to ring again. "Oh, hell," I said. "Give me the straw."
    He did, and I destroyed the tiny white landscape in front of me. He continued to regard me as if I were an exotic form of plant life as he scooped out some more cocaine. "And you hit me on the neck," he said admiringly, rubbing it with his free hand, "because you didn't want to mark me." The phone jangled on unheeded.
    "No," I said. "I hit you on the neck so I wouldn't break my hand." He shook his head as though that were just what he'd expect someone as terrific as me to say. "What's the hard part about being an actor?" I said to change the subject.
    "Acting, at least acting on television, is the art of failure." I felt the cocaine begin to buzz in my forebrain while Toby Vane vacuumed the tabletop with his nose. He looked up at me. "You fail as little as you can, that's all. And it has nothing to do with talent. It's electricity." The phone stopped ringing and instantly started in again. "TV is an electric medium. It's got a little tiny screen. Most of the sets are no good. In half the houses of America, I've got a green face. Reception is bad in some areas. You've got to find some electricity, some kind of juice, to cut through all that interference. If you don't, you're just another little pattern of dots in the corner of somebody's living room." He gave me an embarrassed grin. "It sounds immodest, but I suppose it's being able to turn on an electric personality."
    The phone, thank God, had stopped. The only ringing now was the cocaine in my bloodstream. "So why do you hit women?" I said.
    The grin disappeared. "Champ, I told you. That's not really me. I was drunk and down. She was bitching at me. Do you want me to phone her? I'll do it now." His tone was painfully earnest.
    "That's up to you. It's your relationship."
    "Relationship," he said. "My favorite word." His eyes went down to the table for a moment and then flicked back up to me. "I'll do it, but let me wash up first and get some ice. My tongue feels like a beanbag chair." He got up and headed for what I guessed was the kitchen. He stopped and turned back to me. "Want a beer or anything? More coke?"
    "No, thanks. I passed my limit when I did the