As she rides by

“One doesn’t want to overdo things.”
    He grinned, showing a flash of white teeth below his bushy mustache.
    “So I’ll try and remember to bring one in tomorrow and give it to your lady, that suit you?”
    “Marvelously,” I said, getting to my feet. “Thank you. It was a pleasure listening to you and you’ve been an enormous help.”
    “The fewer lies the better, perhaps,” he said, getting to his feet in turn. “By which I mean it is better, if more roundabout, that your lady gives it to you, you bury it, then you dig it up, then you give it to me, dirty, to clean and authenticate, so you can truthfully say you dug it up, gave it to me, and I can truthfully state I cleaned it, identified what it was, whom it belonged to, and roughly, its age. Then I will forward to you a formal statement delineating my qualifications as an expert, fol lowed by authentication, followed by anything else I can think up to throw in.”
    ‘‘Anything I can do for you in return,” I said, “just let me know.”
    “You might keep me informed,” he said, holding out his hand. “I would appreciate that.”
    “You got it, boyo,” I said. “Cheap, I call it.” We shook on it, and I left, mentally rubbing my mitts together with satisfaction.
    Although I wasn’t supposed to, strictly, during school hours, I sneaked into Evonne’s office briefly on my way out, but she wasn’t in. I deduced she was next door in the office belonging to her boss, which wasn’t hard, as I could hear both their voices through his door, so I went down to the car and, of course, found King still there, as I’d spent less time getting a history lesson than I’d anticipated. So I collected him and the trowel and we wandered over to the sports field to spend twenty pleasant minutes watching other people running themselves ragged in the hot sun and being shouted at a lot by older men with whistles.
    Evonne came tripping down the front steps a few minutes after the deluge of students bolting for freedom had slackened off to the occasional dribble. I sidled up to her, leered, and said, “Carry your books, baby?”
    “I don’t have any,” she said. “Now go away or I’ll call a cop.” She stooped to pet King, then stood up on tiptoes to pet me. I petted her right back, eliciting a couple of wolf whistles from a passing wit. Then we sat in her car for a bit, watching the last of the kids screech off around us. When I gave her the green trowel, I said, “There is one thing. I had to sign this statement when I bought it swearing it would never be used on beets or spinach.”
    “How about hittin’ big jerks on the head with?” she said, giving me a respectable rap on the cranium as she did so. I told her not to even think about hitting my poor old head with the object that J. Chandler was going to bring to school for her tomorrow, as she might damage it. She remarked that you couldn’t damage my head if you dropped a two-ton safe on it from a great height. I said one of her carrot cakes could probably do it and anyway, I was referring to the object being damaged. What object, she, of course, wanted to know. So I told her and then the talk drifted to other matters and then the night guard ambled over to Say sorry but he was locking up now but if we wanted to go canoodling We should try the park by the reservoir; that’s where a lot of the kids Went. If I were the type to mark such things, I would award Evonne an “A” for canoodling. Easy. There were one or two suave and sophisticated touches I hadn’t taught her yet, but I was saving those for the time I really needed them.
    So I followed her and King out of the lot; we toot-tooted good-bye, and off they went, without a backward look from King, may I say, and off I went in the opposite direction toward my apartment on Windsor Castle Terrace for a quick cleanup and change of costume.
    There was nothing remotely either English or regal about Windsor Castle Terrace, nor was there a castle in the neighborhood that I’d ever seen, and I’m not even sure the street is a terrace. What is a terrace, anyway? Remind me to look it up sometime. I parked in the driveway behind my landlady’s heap; she was watching television as usual, I could see through her open front window. She spotted me too, waved, came to the window, and called out, “Victor dear, got a minute?”
    “Can it keep, sweetheart?” I said. “I’m in a hurry, I’ve got to be back at the office in three-quarters of an