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staring at her with a thin smile, not making a move to help.
    Duane raised his camera and was about to snap the shutter when the viewfinder went black and he heard, “ Nyet! ” Sy Sterling was next to him, his hand over the camera lens.
    Joelen pushed her way through the crowd. “Bunny, are you okay?” She helped her mother right herself. “Are you hurt?” She sat on the bottom step next to her.
    With the pair of them side by side, Duane realized mother and daughter had those same eyes, like Persian turquoise, and their satin gowns were the same silhouette, formfitting, off the shoulders with a plunging sweetheart neckline. Duane’s fingers itched, and it was all he could do to keep from raising his camera and shooting the pair of them. But Sterling was right there making sure he didn’t. Later , he told himself. Sterling couldn’t babysit him all night.
    â€œOh, dear,” Bunny said. “Not very graceful.” She reached down for her foot and grimaced. “It’s my ankle. I’m afraid I’ve twisted it.”
    Tito crouched beside mother and daughter, and an odd look passed between him and Bunny, another moment Duane desperately wished he’d been able to capture on film. Had the fall had been staged? But why? Bunny didn’t need to twist her ankle in order to be center of attention.
    â€œLet me have a look,” said a man Duane didn’t recognize. He unbuttoned his suit jacket and crouched in front of Bunny, who raised the hem of her dress and extended a bare foot. The ankle was clearly injured. Already it was black and blue and twice its normal size. How could it have swelled up so fast, and where was Bunny’s shoe? Had she come down the stairs barefoot? Maybe it had come off in the fall. Duane looked around but didn’t see it.
    â€œI’m okay,” Bunny said to the man.
    â€œReally?” he said, gently flexing her foot and examining her ankle. He looked like he knew what he was doing. “This does not look okay.” To Joelen, he said, “Honey, can you fetch some ice and a dish towel?”
    Joelen raced off, and the man wrapped his hand around Bunny’s ankle, letting his other hand slide partway up her leg. Gently he pressed her foot back.
    â€œOw,” Bunny said. “That hurts. Is it broken?”
    â€œI don’t think so. Badly sprained, I’d say. I’m afraid you won’t be doing much dancing tonight.” The man helped Bunny to her feet, took her arm, and walked her over to the couch. She sat on one end, raised her legs, and leaned back. Joelen returned with a bowl of crushed ice and a dish towel.
    â€œYou need to stay off it. Keep it elevated and iced,” the man said, wrapping some ice in the towel and setting it on her foot.
    Bunny winced and reached out for Joelen’s hand. “Don’t worry, darling. I’ll live. But be a dear and turn off that light, would you?” She indicated the lamp next to the couch.
    Joelen turned off the light, and shadow fell across Bunny’s face, but not before Duane realized that Bunny’s face makeup, which had seemed fine from a distance, was thickly applied. Like war paint. And even at that it didn’t completely hide a bruise and swelling over her famously high cheekbone.
    The fall might have been staged, but Bunny’s injuries were not. Duane remembered the door slamming. Puta. Whore. He wondered if Bunny had been hurt before the party, if the fall had been faked in order to account for her injuries. That so-­called doctor might even have been in on it.
    Duane wondered, too, if Bunny’s daughter was so easily duped. He thought not, as he followed Joelen’s gaze across the room to where Tito was now standing in the shadow of a tall potted palm, eyes hooded, a cigarette hanging from his lower lip, doing a swell Robert Mitchum imitation.
    Tito took two martini glasses from the tray of a passing waiter, and made his way