"You said that the senator and Mrs. Spangler were
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on their way to this Shangri-la place. Apparently, Posie Ponselle made the same trip, and you're going there, too. Are any of the other names on this list members of your club?"
"But of course, gorgeous. Most of them."
"Where is this place?"
"Ah, ah. I told you, I can't reveal any more. Unless you're thinking of joining."
"Then Set's say ! am."
Bobby Jay chuckled, "it's not so easy. The application fee is three thousand dollars, and you have to make at least a half-million a year."
"A half-million? How'd you get in?"
"My roommate's a tax lawyer," Bobby said.
"Pretty fancy club. What goes on at the meetings?"
"That I can't tell you. We've all been sworn to secrecy."
"I wish you would," Remo said, twisting Bobby Jay's ear until the singer's face contorted in pain.
"Oh. Oh," he moaned. "More. Oh, it hurts so good."
Remo stopped. It was no use. He was probably on the wrong track, anyway. Admiral Ives hadn't even been a member of the queen's in group of BPs. He was back to square one.
"Forget it," he said.
"Never," Bobby Jay sighed. "You were wonderful. I've never been pinched like that before. How are you at biting?"
"Let's get back to the admiral," Remo said disgustedly.
"Why are you so interested in him?" Bobby pouted. "He's a nobody."
"He's dead."
"See? He's so much of a nobody that I never even
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heard he died. Did Rona Barrett cover it? Did he make 'Entertainment Tonight'?"
"Do you know anyone who was friends with him?"
"Certainly not. I don't associate with nobodies."
"Who'd he talk to at the party?"
"Who cares? Other nobodies. Oh, yes." He smiled up at Remo. "I know who you can talk to. Seymour Burdich."
"Who's Seymour Burdich?"
"A nobody. He runs an information service on celebrities. Finds out our favorite colors, the names of our pets, things like that. Then he publishes this drive! in some rag and sells it to fans. It keeps the riffraff out of our hair. Seymour gets to come to all the in parties. We stars like him. He's like our littie mascot."
"Won't he be at Shangri-la, too?"
Bobby Jay laughed. "Oh, Seymour would never get into Shangri-la. He doesn't have a nickel."
"I thought you all liked him."
"Friendship only goes so far. One does have one's reputation to consider."
Remo looked back at the list. Burdich's name was near the bottom. His address was listed as Houston Street in the Tribeca section of New York. "Is this where Burdich lives, or where he works?" Remo asked.
"Both. You won't have any trouble finding him. One can always spot poor people in a crowd. Uh, speaking of which, you aren't really poor, are you?" he asked, moving away from Remo. "I mean, I have been talking with you for some time. I'd hate for anything to rub off."
The doorbell rang. "Consider it just another social disease," Remo said, opening the door to let himself out.
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A beefy young blond boy hulked in. Bobby sighed and broke into song. "Lovely to look at, delightful to see. . ."
"I'm the etheort," the boy said.
Chapter Five
A gray-haired man sat at a battered roll-top desk in a storefront in a section of town that looked as if it had been founded by derelicts. There was no trace of former grandeur about the bleak, trash-filled street that howled in abandonment in the dry winter wind. A sheet of newspaper blew onto the wide window of the storefront, on which the words "Stardust, Inc." were hand-lettered with white paint. The newspaper stuck in a crack in the pane, rustling shrilly.
Remo went inside. The place was clanking and churning with the din of a printing press. The solitary figure in the room bent over the desk, his long hair shaggy along the collar of his black turtleneck sweater.
"You Burdich?" Remo shouted.
"Yeah. Who do you want?" He gestured hurriedly toward several stacks of papers on the desk. They were labeled with the names of celebrities and divided by category into film, music, sports, politics, and others. "A doliar apiece. Or you can have the Celebrity Scoop, that's the newspaper, for a buck-fifty." He inclined his head toward the clanking printing press. "Be ready in a few seconds."
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The press was spewing out pages of newsprint with headlines like "WHAT THE STARS HAVE FOR BREAKFAST" and "HOW TO MEET A ROLLING STONE." As Burdich spoke, the rumble of the press subsided and ground to a halt. Quiet filled the storefront.
"I want to talk to you about the party at the Spangiers' in Virginia last night," Remo said.
Burdich smiled expansively. His breath formed clouds in the unheated room. "Ah, yes. My other life," he said with some dignity. He twirled the ankh around his neck. "You're from a magazine, I presume."