Angels in Heaven

the island and that they went sailing one day with Big
Jeff and turtle watching another day and Doris had two stitches put in her
noggin and she told her folks she’d bumped her head when she slipped on some
rocks skin-diving with a bunch of Aussies. Sara, needless to say, wanted to
know when I was going to cough up all I owed her. I said it was already in the
mail and I was glad they were home safely, as was I, after a few adventures en
route, about which I’d tell them all someday if they were lucky.
    Evonne switched channels about then
to the highbrow one, as she wanted to catch Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet again. I said OK, but the last time I’d seen it I’d been disappointed as it was
mostly quotes, and jokes don’t come much older than that. She wound up spending
the night, and not in the spare room, either, gossip lovers. She helped me wash
off the last lingering traces of black from the back of my neck first. Sharing
a bath with a blonde and a rubber duck does make it crowded, but there are
compensations.
    I forget what I did all day Wednesday
after I drove my American Beauty Rose to work, so it was probably even less
than usual.
    Thursday morning, armed with the
doc’s letter, I took the Hollywood Freeway, then the San Bernardino, to Monterey Park and picked up my digits, which were awaiting me at the front desk. I handed
over the note and some money, and they handed me my fingers, neatly wrapped. I,
being the sentimentalist I am, still have the receipt tucked away somewhere
safe: “(1) ml. adlt. rt. hand — $119.00.” I unwrapped the package back at the
office, took a peek, and wished I hadn’t. Looking at two nasty, gray, peeling
fingers with uncut nails bobbing about in a slightly cloudy glass of
formaldehyde is not recommended right after a late breakfast at Mrs. Morales’
Taco-Burger stand.
    I scraped the company label off the
jar, strolled around the corner to Mrs. Martel’s, purchased some colorful
Christmas wrapping depicting Santa’s elves hard at work, and then back at the
office again, rewrapped the jar.
    I phoned John D. He said OK to three
o’clock at the Valley Bowl.
    I phoned Benny. He said OK to three
o’clock. What did he have to do and what should he look like? Just sit there, I
told him, looking rich, powerful, and scary.
    I phoned Evonne at work just to say I
adored her and she could wash the ring off my tub anytime. She said something
about her mother having warned her about men like me.
    I phoned Goose. Goose said OK to
three o’clock at the Valley Bowl. I told him where it was and to ask for the
manager’s office.
    I phoned Mom to see how she was
settling in and getting on; she dictated a short list of what she needed, and I
said I’d get them to her that weekend if that was OK with her. She said sure,
and guess what? She’d just been fingerprinted in the cafeteria and that the
whole place was abuzz with rumors. I said I’d always told her that crime didn’t
pay and they’d get her in the end.
    After a late lunch at Fred’s—cream
cheese on toasted raisin and a glass of buttermilk—and after laying down a
modest wager with Two-to-One Tim, the house bookie, on the Dodgers against the
Giants that night (easy money), I returned home, donned my prescription
sunglasses, strapped on my shoulder holster, tucked one of my Police Positives
in it, practiced my slow draw a couple of times in front of the mirror, put on
a sport coat, added the worst tie in my collection, which is saying something,
then finished off the ensemble with a garish tie clip in the form of a (fake)
gold horseshoe.
    I attacked the traffic again,
arriving at the Valley Bowl around two-thirty, parked around the back and went
in. I exchanged friendly hellos with Sal at the Snack Bowl, accepted her offer
of a speedy cup of java on the house, declined deftly an offer to go to a
wrestling match with her some night, made my way past the line of pinball and
Space Invader machines to John D. ’s office, where I found my friend tapping
busily away on an adding machine with one hand and rubbing the top of his
crewcut with the other. When he’d finished up whatever it was he was
doing—checking out the bar totals, it looked to me—we small-talked until Benny
showed up some fifteen minutes later, at which time John said, “OK, it’s all
yours, boys, but not too much gunplay—it disturbs the bowlers’ concentration,”
and then discreetly withdrew.
    I looked Benny over to see if he
looked scary. He sure