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classically beautiful of the three--with blue eyes and long blond hair, streaked now with ash gray, still wound around up on the back of her head in a style reminiscent of the seventies--who had run away from her looks all her life and so had insisted on the production side of the industry. Even now that she was closing in fast on fifty, while she might not stop people dead in their tracks the way she used to, Cassy still turned heads wherever she went.
    People around West End had nicknamed the women "Charlie's Angels."
    (Jessica was always quick to insist that no matter what anybody thought, she was the smart one. ) "Come here, sweetie, and sit down," Cassy said to Jessica, pointing to the couch.
    "We need to talk about this stalker business."
    "How many network presidents call the help 'sweetie," I wonder," Jessica remarked to Alexandra, sitting down.
    "May it be duly recorded in the notes that 'sweetie' is now seated."
    "Okay, first, we need a list of who you think your stalker might be."
    "How would I know?" Jessica said.
    "I don't know anyone named Leopold."
    "I told Cassy to put the Doc on the list," Alexandra said.
    Jessica hesitated.
    Matthew, aka the Doc, had been Jessica's one almost- significant relationship since she had stopped drinking. He had been a doctor, divorced, with two kids living nearby in Manhattan, and while Jessica thought her prayers had been answered, her friend Alexandra had been (a pain in the neck and) less enthusiastic about him. As it turned out, about ten months later, Jessica finally had to admit that she could not ignore that her boyfriend was self-medicating with highly addictive drugs and that his mood changes were unbearable. And no matter how many times the Doc told her differently Jessica knew dam well that a shot of Demerol was not like a shot of penicillin and Valium was not in the least like Prozac.
    It had been the Doc's lack of interest in his children that had gotten to her most, though. It had now been two years since Jessica had broken up with the Doc, but she still saw his children occasionally.
    Even his ex-wife had come to like her and vice versa. It was through the ex-wife, in fact, that Jessica had recently learned the Doc had crashed into a rehab upstate, an institution especially set up for doctors so they wouldn't lose their license to practice. The Doc had not gone for the usual twenty-eight days, but for three months, and Jessica knew there was a good chance he might be truly clean for the first time in years.
    And it had, admittedly, crossed her mind at one point that the Doc might have something to do with these letters. That he might still hold a grudge and wanted to scare her.
    "Okay, put the Doc down," Jessica finally said.
    "I'll give you his ex-wife's number. She can tell you where he is these days."
    "Good," Cassy said.
    "Who else?"
    "I gave her the name of that guy in the Nerd Brigade," Alexandra said.
    The Nerd Brigade was the generic term for the electronic research and development staff under Dr. Irwin Kessler in another part of the complex.
    "Oh, come on, Alexandra, no way he's a stalker. Leave him alone. Just putting his name on that list is going to hurt his career."
    "No, no." Cassy was shaking her head.
    "Absolutely not. This is completely confidential."
    "Yeah, right," Jessica said skeptically.
    "If it's in a file somewhere..."
    "Jessica, get it through your head," Cassy said sharply.
    "Whoever this is, is playing a very serious game. And if it's one of our people, then he is a person we do not want here."
    Alexandra withdrew a folded sheet of paper from her blazer pocket.
    "Cassy." She handed her the paper.
    "This is a list of the people around here who I know are smitten with Jessica."
    "Let me see that," Jessica said, snatching the paper out of Cassy's hands.
    "What is this? You've got Will on this list!" She looked at Alexandra.
    "What are you, nuts? You write down your own friend and producer as a possible stalker!"
    "This is not a" -Alexandra