I’LL HAND her a surprise, I told myself. Was that my motive in not informing Constance I’d arrived? I wonder. I’d made a reservation at the Garden of Allah, a cluster of gloomy cabins around a swimming pool no one used. I’d heard that many famous writers had lived and drunk there. The name suggests romance, but my mattress was soggy and the wall behind the bed vibrated to the rhythm of the traffic on Sunset Boulevard. I was blue and did what people in the entertainment industry do when they’re melancholy: I called my agent. He sent over one of his lieutenants with a bag of optimism. “Bud Lighton’s wild about you,” he said as he drove me to Fox.