Skin Deep by Timothy Hallinan

there watching the trailer. There didn't seem to be anything to say.
    Janie was right about Toby. When, ten minutes later, he emerged from the trailer with a flushed and shaken-looking Betsi behind him, he was a different man. He didn't meet anyone's eyes, and he never glanced in my direction. After he finished giving Betsi her pictures, he went over to the crowd to sign autographs. He honored the middle-aged woman who had approached him earlier. He posed for a picture, kissing a little girl of three or four in her mother's arms. For the rest of the day, until the light faded and the shoot ended, he was a model of docility.
    As they packed up the equipment, Toby went back into his trailer. I checked the set for Dixie but couldn't find him. His Mercedes was gone. I was walking back, looking for Janie, when Toby came out of the trailer.
    "Champ," he said. He sounded tentative, like a kid trying to make friends.
    "I quit, Toby."
    He stood silent for a moment. "Please don't," he finally said.
    "Betsi said please," I said. "Remember?"
    He drew a hand across his eyes and then ran it through his hair. He looked forty. "Help me," he said.
    "You don't need a detective, Toby. You need a doctor."
    "I've had doctors. I've had doctors up the wazoo. Stay with me, Simeon, just for the next week or two. I promise, I'll be good. You can help me to be good. I'll even see another shrink if you want."
    I thought about Betsi. I thought about Nana. I thought about Norman Stillman's check in my pocket. I thought about the rent, for about the sixth time that week, and I gave up.
    "Oh, Christ, Toby," I said. "If I stick around, what are you going to do?"
    "You mean tonight?"
    "That'll do for a start."
    He threw his arm around my shoulders, as though everything were settled at last. "Let's go to the Spice Rack," he said. "Let's go be nice to Nana."

4 - The Spice Rack
    My knees were up somewhere around my chin, and my heart was competing with a hamburger for space in my throat. Toby drove even worse than Dixie said he did.
    The roof of the Maserati was about four feet above road level. The console looked like a transplant from the space shuttle. Toby used both hands and both feet constantly just to keep us on the road, which, unfortunately for my peace of mind, was Laurel Canyon.
    "Got your belt on?" he asked, taking a sharp downhill curve on two wheels. The burger, to which Toby had graciously treated me at a McDonald's, was refusing to obey the laws of gravity.
    "Are you kidding? I'd have yours on, too, if I could get to it."
    "Good. Because I can feel that load coming on."
    This piece of news, added to the burger and my heart, was too much to swallow. "Toby," I said, "tell me that's a joke."
    "In the trailer," he said. "Jesus, champ, I've been straight as a string all day."
    "I wouldn't go that far," I said, looking for something to hold on to.
    He popped the clutch and downshifted, keeping his eyes on the road. "That wasn't dope," he said finally, sounding uncomfortable. "That was just old Toby."
    "You want to tell me why you did it?"
    "I don't know. She just got me so damn mad. Whatever you think about my face, it's my only valid ticket. The wrong picture, even on the cover of Baby-Kiss or whatever it is—that's serious."
    "Horsefeathers. You set it up."
    The road straightened again, and he pressed down on the accelerator. "If I were you, champ," he said, "I'd let me concentrate on driving."
    "You didn't answer my question."
    "I don't know how to answer it. Listen, I like women, I really do. I always want them to be different, and they never are. They always say something stupid or fuck up in one way or another, and then it happens."
    "What happens?"
    "Yaaa, yaaa, yaaa," he said. "Something. Like pressure in my head, like, I don't know, like a headache, and my jaws get all stiff and tight, and then I want to break things. Why am I telling you this?"
    "Because you like to talk about yourself."
    "Boy, are you wrong there. I'd rather get a rabies