Angels in Heaven

hostess.”
    “Yecch,” Sara said loudly.
    “I know, dear,” I said
sympathetically, patting the cleaner of her two hands, although there wasn’t a
lot in it. “So the sacrifice I am asking you to make for me, for Billy, is to
pretend you’re normal for a while.”
    She gave me a look, so I hastily went
on.
    “Now come on, Sara, you know what I
mean. What the world thinks of as normal. Hair that’s all one color and that
doesn’t stick up a foot. A dress. Heels. Nylons that aren’t riddled with holes.
A purse instead of a horse’s feed bag. Ah, hell, it’s too much to ask, maybe
we’d better forget it. To hell with Billy, let him rot. I haven’t seen him for
twenty years anyway.”
    “Yeah, to hell with Billy,” she said
absently, noisily slurping the last of the melted ice from the bottom of her
Coke glass. “How long did you say it would be for?”
    “A couple of days, a week, I don’t
know exactly.”
    I counted out some money for the
bill, leaving a generous sixty-cent tip. “But forget it, babe, it’s too much to
ask. I can probably get someone else. Benny’s got a sister someplace.”
    “Why do you call Willing Boy Willing
Boy?” she then asked out of the blue. “He does have a real name.”
    “I know,” I said. “He told me once.
Gorgeous George, that’s he got to do with the price of apples?”
    “Oh, nothing,” she said, reddening
slightly.
    But nothing was what I was not a
detective for, and it did not take me long to deduce that (a) young Sara was
smitten with Willing Boy and (b) he must have made some passing reference to
her bizarre appearance—as in, Why? I almost f elt sorry for the airhead, since
it seemed that she was getting pressure put on her from both the men in her
life, but then I remembered Evonne’s theory and realized that Sara was only
getting what she secretly wanted, so what was there to be sorry about?
    When we were out on the sidewalk in
front of Sam’s, I made one more pitch, an unhittable spitball that dropped at
least a foot.
    “Sara,” I said somberly, “I know you.
I know you would never change or even bend your principles for anything, let
alone a man, whoever that man may be. I figured, though, that there was an
outside chance that if some bigger principle was involved—call it what you
will, justice, friendship, loyalty—well, I guess I was wrong. Don’t feel bad.
I’ll send you a card and let you know how it all turns out.” I gave her
ungloved hand a sincere shake and turned to go.
    “Know what?” she said. “You’re so
obvious it’s pathetic. You’re so full of it it’s seeping out through your
enlarged pores.”
    “Sara!” I said. “Language!”
    “You didn’t have to go through that
whole hammy number. What do you think I would have done if you had just said
simply, ‘I need your help, pal. Go away and come back in two hours looking like
Doris Day in Pillow Talk’?’'
    “You would have come back in two
hours looking like Doris Day,” I said. “But it wouldn’t have been nearly so
much fun.”
     
     
     

CHAPTER
SIX
     
    After lunch I kept my appointment at
the East Valley Station and made a formal statement about the morning’s
attempted robbery. I must say things have really speeded up in places like
police stations since the introduction of computer technology; making the
deposition, having it typed up, and signing all three copies only took me the
whole afternoon. Then I fought my way through the rush hour traffic to Tony’s,
picked up Mom, reentered the demolition derby, and drove us back to my place.
She was in a good mood; Feeb came up to say hello and have a gossip and invite
us both downstairs for supper. I pleaded a (nonexistent) former engagement.
Feeb mentioned she was cooking her famous clam rissole, never one of my
favorites.
    As Evonne was busy doing something
with one of her girl friends that evening—she’d told me but I’d forgotten what;
I think it had something to do with clay—that left me on my own. After watching
the boob tube for a while, I donned a clean Hawaiian shirt, made a
man-from-Mars face at myself in the mirror, brushed my hair gingerly so as not
to dislodge, let alone uproot, any more of my thinning tresses, and betook
myself out for a stroll and a bite and mayhap a brandy and ginger or two and
certainly a rumination or two. God knows
    I had plenty to ruminate about.
    After a plate of corned beef ’n’
cabbage and a wedge of cheesecake at an indifferent local deli, I