As she rides by

once-somewhere-back-in-prehistory-white chinos, and army boots with no laces. I circled around to the far side of him, as when you talked to Injun Joe you stood well upwind of him, gave him a wave, and said, “Morning, Joe.”
    He looked up at me vacantly with his washed-out blue eyes, thought it over, then decided to recognize me. He should have; not only had our trails been crossing at least three or four times per day for the last six months or so, but also he did the occasional small chore for me, and besides all that, it was good old reliable V.D. who’d sprung him from the North Hollywood clink the previous month.
    Another local character, a bag lady called Dirty Gertie or Gravel Gertie, take your pick, had been discovered with her head bashed in by the alley out back of my office. The item that did the bashing lay nearby—a blood-stained, empty quart bottle that had once contained Catawba Mad Dog sherry. Three sets of fingerprints were subsequently taken from the bottle—one set belonging to Injun Joe, who had been seen by two independent witnesses enjoying an evening aperitif with Gertie shortly before she was killed.
    Joe showed up in the lot next to me the following morning at about his usual time, not something I would have done if I’d killed someone twenty yards away, even if I hadn’t noticed the two squad cars parked at the scene. Naturally, as soon as Joe was fingerprinted and the results checked, the wily detectives immediately arrested him and held him for arraignment. His problems were not helped by his refusing to say anything whatsoever to the forces of law and order. I never did find out what episode in his past was responsible for this decision, but I can’t say I blamed him all that much.
    When I went a-calling, the desk sarge on duty was a beet-faced old-timer I’d seen around occasionally; he was kind enough to dig up the arresting officer’s report, plus a list of Joe’s possessions at the time:

    In small leather pouch tied w. thong to suspect’s neck:
    1 set dog tags
    1 set honorable discharge papers from U.S. Navy
    1 blue bead
    1 (broken) seashell
    21 $1.00 bills wrapped w. rubber band
    1 letter of ref. dated Aug. ‘62, stating Suspect had worked at Pete’s Eats, 2 miles s. Fresno , 9 months as dishwasher

    I handed the paperwork back to Lou (the sarge), and remarked, “Grouch bag. That is what a small leather pouch worn around the neck is called.”
    “So sue me,” Lou said. The phone on his desk rang. He picked it up, identified himself, listened a minute, then said, “Pal, what you need is a good shrink, not a cop,” then he hung up again.
    “Pearl diver,” I said. “Much more colorful term than dishwasher.”
    “So take me to a higher court,” Lou said. “Was there anything else? The Department does like me to do a bit of work occasionally.”
    There was something else. After a spot of cajoling, he arranged to let me in to see Joe, which was nice of him as I was neither Joe’s attorney of record, nor assistant to, nor a relative. I did not believe Joe had killed Dirty Gertie. Joe might not have been all there, but wherever the poor devil was, it wasn’t a killing field. I think I did see him swat at a fly once that was after a share of his day-old baloney sandwich.
    I met Joe in a surprisingly clean and spruced-up visitors’ room. He’d been bathed, forcibly or not I did not know, also deloused, disinfected, and shampooed. And this was Joe’s tale:
    At six-thirty that evening he’d knocked on my office door. That bit I knew. He handed me a list of license plate numbers. That bit I knew. He handed me a list of license plate numbers. That bit I knew. I gave him thirty-five dollars in one-dollar bills, as that was the way he liked to be paid. That part of the tale I knew too, of course. What Joe had been doing for me was checking on all cars leaving the premises of a firm called Scanlon & Scanlon, Sea Foods, as the director of said firm was convalescing at home after a triple bypass and he was convinced that in his absence company vehicles were being used for noncompany business. And was he ever right, as it turned out.
    Anyway. With his riches, Joe told me, he’d purchased a bottle of Gertie’s favorite tipple to share with her, which he had done, also a bottle of Myer’s Navy rum, also a carton of Kools. He had then proceeded northward on foot roughly to the corners of Magnolia and Canyon, where he knew a way down to a viaduct wherein ran the trickle