RANSVESTIA

impatient to get away. "And there's more of them. Yeah," he nodded, giving me a penetrating glance. "I'd say it was a boom."

I didn't keep him any longer. Conlon's articles would be easy to put together. I knew what Jeff would want. Jeff had lived in Berlin in the pre-Nazi days and he tended to see the world in those terms. Even the slightest trend towards "decadence" he foresaw as the prelude to a fascist reaction. So, the point of view of my articles was already set.

I'd finished the first three by the time Gerhard had returned. He grunted as he read over my anguished prose. "The old man wants it like this?" he asked in surprise. I nodded. "But you haven't even been to the Carrousel or Madame Arthur's or ..."

I cut him off. "Now why should I do that?" I asked. "It'd only spoil my objectivity." Yes, there's more than a touch of the journalist's occupational disease in me, too. "We'll need up-to-date photographs," I added, "especially of Romy Pohlman." I'd given "her" prominent place in the first article along with the "heroes" of glitter-rock.

"I'll get on it," said Gerhard.

I'd more or less finished the series the next day, the words just flowing from the old Olivetti, when Gerhard came in with a dark, sallow-faced, thin little fellow.

"Francois Hebert," Gerhard did the introduction. "He does photo- graphs for us on occasion.”

"So?" I snapped. I was into the conclusion, and I always find that tough, trying to think of an adequate positive way to end what is essentially an observation of life and its foibles. But Jeff always in- sisted on an "uplifting" ending.

"This bird has flown," said Gerhard, tapping the dossier on Romy Pohlman which was still on my desk.

"She's gone?" I was quite surprised.

"Mais oui, monsieur," Hebert looked very nervous. "But I have the photographs of her blonde friends..." He glanced at Gerhard. "They did not object," he murmered.

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