As she rides by

lame jeans who chanced to be passing eyed Phineas with considerable interest. Well, he was a handsome devil, with a beautifully muscled body, the rat, and intelligent much? I’d enjoyed our time together; he told me he’d originally planned to be an architect but he’d taken up arranging posies, after much thought, because he figured it was the one occupation that would irritate his father the most. Who wouldn’t like a guy like that?
    When I got back to the office, it was just on ten o’clock, the time the sign on my door said I opened for business Mon. to Fri., so I did, after poking my head around the corner to see if Amos ‘n’ Andy had made any progress while I was gone. They had; the whole lot was now completely encircled with an eight-foot-high chain-link fence. I made a mental note to myself—purchase sturdy metal snips pronto.
    As I couldn’t give the dog a run next door, I let him out in the back alley instead while I checked the sports pages in the LA Times I’d picked up on the way back. The Dodgers were six and a half out, tied with the ever-hopeful Giants, behind the Reds, of all the unlikely teams. Pittsburgh was ahead in the East; I hoped Phil and Ted were baseball fans, they would soon be in dire need of cheerful news if V. D. had any say in it.
    August 27 was the date. Scorching the temperature already, noxious the atmosphere, and the United States of America was preparing for war. Good for it. So was V. Daniel, let it be said. War against Ted and Phil, for starters, then against the puny Pussycat Adult Cinema Co. I hadn’t called out my reserves yet, though, as the U.S. had just done, but they were there awaiting one call on the hot line, my doughty helpers, my loyal team. And what a team, amigos. There was all five-foot-six of Benny the Boy, cunning charlatan and man of a million faces, all pretty much like his own. There was Sara the total nerd, a walking, talking misery, skinny as a salted twiglet and the worst poet since Barry Gold-water.
    Which reminded me—there lying unopened on my desk was an envelope containing, undoubtedly, another of her “reports,” as the envelope had a hand-drawn stamp on it, one of her many childish trademarks, and said, “SECRET!!!” in large red letters in the upper left corner. Not without an inward sigh, I opened it.

    Report No. 43
    August 24, 1990.
    For: V. D. (ha ha). From: Agent S. S.

    When the west wind howls,
    Moist as a freshman’s greedy kiss,
    Then the agent prowls
    To the edge of the abyss

    And beyond! To Inglewood , yet!!
    Where, not even for a hefty bet
    Would this chil’ normally make her way —
    What is the world comin’ to today?

    A motel, in Inglewood , in silty rain —
    Sky the color of pork chow mein —
    A gloomy place for a lovers’ tryst,
    ‘Ceptin’ the sadomasochist

    If you ask me. But nobody does,
    OK. I attest, I also affirm,
    The 12:20 arrival of the hus,
    That slithy creep, that slimy worm,

    The 12:30 arrival of Suspect B
    In hopeful Frederick ’s finery —
    The furtive look, the timid knocks —
    And the spy amid the hollyhocks.

    OK! I affirm and also attest
    To the license plates and all the rest —
    The time they left, the name he used —
    Frankly, dear, I was not amused.

    (Under separate cover, expenses and bill )—
    I am too low, too drear, too ill
    Too mean of wit to count the cost
    Of lunchtime love and deserts lost.

    “Deserts” lost—she probably misspelled desserts, knowing her, at least they have something to do with lunch. But no amateurishly padded “expenses” and inflated “bill” included—there’s a first for you, pards. Sometimes I wonder why I put up with her. Well, I don’t really wonder I know—she’s got twice the brains and three times the guts I had at her age. Out of kindness, however, I wouldn’t dream of ever telling her so. She derived so much pleasure from her cantankerous attitude, who was I to try and soften her up. Anyway. Where was I? Ah yes—my A-team. There was Willy, the mad inventor, who once invented and prototyped and then had marketed a game that took 58 million years to do. If you made a mistake, of course, it took even longer. Then there was his living-dead brother, the only photographer I ever met who could develop color prints sound asleep. And there was Willing Boy, the Evel Knievel of the messenger services, a heartthrob on a Honda, but due to his disgraceful behavior in Montreal that time when he not only shattered Sara’s heart but left