Angels in Heaven

said my beloved. “Is the
penny starting to drop?”
    I hung my battered, empty head.
    “And it is not too difficult, is it,
to trace some kind of connection between daydreams and writing poetry?”
    “All right,” I said. “All right.”
    “Another thing, big boy,” Evonne
said. “Why do you think she’s a punk?”
    “Well, that one’s easy,” I said,
desperately trying to think of some answer that wouldn’t get me killed. What I
thought was, she was a punk mainly if not entirely to irritate the shit out of
me and the other adults in her ken, but what I said was some rubbish about peer
pressure and adolescent role playing and the necessity of overthrowing the
previous generation’s values and standards.
    “Oh, that,” my darling said with a
dismissive wave. “That might be why she became one in the first place, but the
reason she still is one now is she doesn’t know how to stop without looking
like she’s chickening out.”
    “Oh,” I said.
    “So all you have to do is come up
with a good reason for her to stop,” Evonne said, giving my hair a tousle.
“You’re a bright lad, occasionally. That shouldn’t be too hard.”
    “No, no,” I said. “But it won’t be
too easy, either, knowing what a stubborn nerd she can be.” Evonne gave me a
look, so I added hastily, “But I’ll try, I’ll seriously try, if you seriously
try to put even the idea of San Diego out of your mind forever.” I looked at
Evonne’s guileless countenance, then a chilling thought came to me. “If I
thought,” I said, “if I even suspected you cooked up this whole San Diego fantasy just to soften me up about Sara
    “Why, sweetikins,” Evonne said.
“Perish the thought and get us another drink, and then maybe I’ll be strong
enough to see what you look like in your brand-new glasses that I know you got
on Saturday and I can see right there in your shirt pocket and you’ve been too
scared to put on before now.”
    “As long as you don’t call me ‘Prof,’
” I said. “One in the family is enough.”
     
     
     

CHAPTER THREE
     
    What with one thing and another and
then the first thing again, I didn’t get back to my place till seven-thirty or
so that evening, and when I did, I couldn’t help noticing the LAPD squad car,
complete with Mickey Mouse ears on top, parked in my driveway (right where I
usually parked) waiting for someone. I hoped it was Godot, but I wasn’t about
to bet on it.
    I parked out in the street so I
wouldn’t have to move the car later to let the cops out, while I frantically
tried to figure out what the dickens they wanted with me this time. I cannot
deny there were one or two trifling matters they might conceivably want to run
over with me, and one matter not so trifling they might want to run over with
me downtown while a very strong light shone on my face. Who of us has not some
minor peccadillo to hide, especially in my kind of work? Although I seldom did
repos anymore, I had recently, with the aid of a pal to do the steering,
repossessed a Chris-Craft down Huntington Harbor way to oblige another
pal—without sticking too closely to the letter of the law of the land or the
sea. And there had been that slight fracas a while back when I had to get
mildly violent with a senior citizen who was about four foot six in all
directions and had more chins than the Shanghai phone book and the Hong Kong
yellow pages put together, and who wouldn’t cough up the $999.95 she owed me for
a new set of locks plus a burglar alarm system I’d installed in her apartment
in West Hollywood.
    And all right, if you must know, I’d
had the mildest of altercations the week before with a drunken yokel who
threatened he’d bring charges against me for grievous bodily harm, emotional
distress, inciting to riot, and unlawful assembly when all I’d done was give
him a few playful taps in the men’s room over at the Two-Two-Two. It wasn’t my
fault he lost his balance and the condom dispenser fell on his head. It was his
fault for being loud and obnoxious to a couple of Jim’s patrons, two
well-dressed, quiet young chaps who were sitting on the sofa in the corner
minding their own business, sharing a brandy Alexander and holding hands.
    The only other thing I thought it
might be, in May I’d been involved in a particularly sloppy divorce case—one
that made the Seburns’, with all its twists and turns, seem like a stroll in
the park on a midsummer’s eve. Things had finally gotten so messy