Angels in Heaven

less Studio City.
    The chore was: to prove that one of
my shyster pal Mel “The Swell” Evans’ clients, a seventeen-year-old Latino
whose given name was Ronaldo Isidro but whose gang name was—appropriately,
according to Mel—Blades, could not possibly have gotten from point A, his abode
on Roscoe, to point B, the scene of the crime (a stabbing), Tony’s beer bar
down on Lankershim Boulevard, in fifteen minutes. There were witnesses galore
who swore Blades was in his casa (“house,” to you illiterates) till
seven forty-five the night in question, and another set of witnesses galore who
swore the stabbing (in the lower tummy) happened at eight o’clock precisely, as
some TV show they were all waiting for had just started. The assailant had not
been identified by any one of the roomful of witnesses, unsurprisingly, but the
cops had arrested Blades because (1) he was a member of a rival gang of the
dead youth’s, (2) these gangs hated each other, (3) Blades had been heard to
say often, loudly, and publically that he (the slain youth) was already dead
but just didn’t know it yet, and (4) Blades wasn’t called Blades because he
shaved a lot.
    For those, like yours truly, who did
the occasional job for those like Mel who weren’t big enough to have a handy
chap like me on their payroll full-time, alibi checking was a common and
routine assignment most of the time. One had to be careful, though, to leave no
conceivable loophole in one’s statement, not even a hint of one, not even a
mistake in syntax. So I got out my trusty memo pad, courtesy of M. Martel,
Stationer, and neatly listed all the possible ways for a young, virile
(overlooking such afflictions as undernourishment, lack of vitamins, drug
addiction, and the like) male to get from point A to point B.
    Car. Bike. Motorcycle. Roller
skates/skateboard. Foot.; Plane. Boat. Helicopter. Train. Subway. Bus. Goodyear
blimp. Flying carpet. Levitation. That seemed to about cover it.
    Rule out the fantastic. Rule out
plane and helicopter. Likewise trains, as there weren’t any. Likewise subway,
as there wasn’t one. Likewise boat, as the one river in the neighborhood had
only a foot of water in it most of the time, and anyway, it ran the wrong way.
That left car, foot, bus, bike, motorcycle, roller skates/skateboard. Method,
attention to detail, logic—such are the attributes of the superior man.
    Car—well, that I could cover. I did
have a car after all, a beauty too, I may add—a pink and blue Nash Metropolitan
in perfect condition except for the shocks and plugs. Foot— that unfortunately
meant running, which left me out. But was my landlord Elroy not a jogger and
did he not owe me one? Bus—that was me again. Bike ... now who did I know who
was crazy enough to ride a bike in L.A. My brother Tony’s two kids had bikes,
but I never saw them use them and I sure wasn’t going to ride around on one of
those wobbly things.
    Someone once said, When in doubt, ask
a woman. I think it was a woman. So I called up one, my woman, if I may put it
so grossly. She was working but, I felt, not displeased to be disturbed for a
few minutes by her wandering boy.
    “Evonne, sweetheart, don’t get me
wrong,” I said, “but do you know anyone who rides a bike and who is young,
male, and fit?”
    “Only a million,” she said, naturally
enough, as she worked as personal assistant to the vice-principal of a large
high school that was only a few blocks away from my office.
    “Could you possibly have two of them
present themselves at my office complete with bikes this lunchtime for a short
but well-paid assignment?”
    “Sure, sweet pea,” Evonne said.
“What’s it all about?” So I told her what it was all about, and then the
conversation drifted into other, more intimate areas that frankly are too
sensational to detail here. After blowing her a deeply felt kiss, I rang up
Elroy, my office landlord, who not only owned the small cluster of one-story
buildings that included my place of work but also a good deal of other real
estate in and around Studio City.
    “My man, my main man!” he exclaimed
after I’d explained my humble needs to him. “Consider it done. I’ll see you
anon. Sooner than anon.”
    Then I took a deep breath and called
up Sara Silvetti, a young female of my acquaintance who occasionally, when I
had no other option, served me as a sort of girl Friday, only in her case it
was more like Monday.
    “Sara? It’s me, your main man,” I
said