As she rides by

about what they were planning to do with King’s vacant lot? It’s got to do with that, I’ll tell you all about it when I see you, I’ll try and come by and meet you after school tomorrow.”
    “Good,” she said. “You can carry my books home for me. Who you want is John Chandler. He’s a Welsh historian and archaeologist and a bit weird, but the kids love him. Maybe that’s why they love him. He usually eats at the canteen, I’ll put it to him.”
    “I’m more or less available from one to six this afternoon,” I said. “It’d be a help if I could drop by and pick his brains for an hour sometime today.”
    “I’ll get right on it, boss, and get back to you. Over and out, sweetheart.” She blew me a kiss and severed the connection.
    Then I tidied up my desk and went off to have my lunch. I took the dog, although of course he wasn’t allowed in to Fred’s, or any other restaurant in town, which I always thought was pretty stupid. If the reasons are those of hygiene, take a peek at the average restaurant kitchen some time. The French are reputed to know just the merest trifle about food and the serving thereof, but I read somewhere, I think in one of those in-flight magazines you read on airplanes when you’ve read everything else including the ditching instructions and what it says on the bottom of the sick bag, I read that in France they not only let canines into restaurants but give them their own chair. And probably let them order vino, too.
    I left my dog tied up in the shade outside Fred’s back door, as I had done many times before, King putting up no protest whatsoever. From the innocent looks on his and the cook’s faces when I picked him up after lunching, I deeply suspected he was getting the occasional leftover slice of boiled brisket slipped to him, but I never could catch either of them at it. Did I try that hard? Need you ask?
    I didn’t have the pastrami after all, I had a plate of corned beef with a couple of potato pancakes on the side, then a generous slice of raisin pie, with a glass of milk to wash it all down. On the way out I stopped for a quick word with Two-to-One Tim, the house bookie, who was adding up some figures on a small pocket calculator in the booth by the door that he had permanent squatters’ rights on.
    “I read this book,” I said, sliding onto the seat across from him. “And in this book was a bookie in a bar and he used a little portable computer, the advantage being that not only could he do higher mathematics on it, like figuring out what five-to-four on meant, but he had programmed in it every nag in the country and their past performances and on what track and like that.”
    “Well, well,” Tim said without looking up. “If it ain’t Bet-a-Million Brady again. What’re you betting two bucks on today?”
    “Ten bucks, if you please,” I said with dignity. “On the Dodgers, who you may know are receiving the Mets ce soir.”
    “I think someone did mention it to me,” he said, making a note in a small pad he took out of his breast pocket. “That to win, or do you want it both ways?”
    I grinned, then departed. I wasn’t back in the office for more than a minute or two when Evonne phoned saying John Chandler was free from two o’clock on and that he was expecting me any time thereafter, that his office was on the second floor of “B” wing, that the security type at the front desk had already been advised of my visit, and that I should try for once to stay out of the girls’ locker room. I said, I’d try to be strong.
    Then I asked her if she’d consider taking care of the dog for one night only; she could pick him up from my car in the school parking lot. No problem, babe, she said.
    Having a good hour and a half to kill before my appointment, I went shopping. At the hardware store over on Orange I purchased a sturdy pair of long-handled metal cutters, also a new green trowel for Evonne, as her old one was rusted up, also a fake bone made out of dried cowhide for guess who. Then it was around the block to the post office for stamps and to mail what had to be mailed, then I popped in next door to say hello to Mrs. Martel in the stationery shop where I bought all my office supplies and whose weedy son did all my printing from the back room without asking any questions at all except how many pieces of writing paper bearing the heading “A-One Bill Collection Services (Estab. 1978), P. Campbell, Exec. Off.” did I want, and by when