As she rides by

overalls who was sitting in the corner behind a pitcher of beer. “Hey, Curly,” she called out. “Front and center!”
    Curly poured himself out another glass of beer, looked at it, took a sip, looked at it again, then got up and ambled slowly over.
    “Got a problem,” I said.
    “Who hasn’t?” he said morosely.
    “In fact, I got two of them.” I told him what they were.
    “Call them problems?” he said, with a forlorn look at the pretty barlady.
    “Now, Curly,” she said, “don’t start in on that again.” She took herself off to the jukebox with a handful of quarters. Curly watched her go, then sighed heavily, then turned back to me, scratching his abundant locks.
    “What I could do,” he said, “is phone Mel, he’s the boss, like, and he could radio the tow truck if it’s out on a call and get started on that end and then what I could do is run you into town if it’s OK with him.”
    “Great,” I said. “Thanks, Curly.”
    “Name’s Rex,” he said. “She’s the only one calls me that.” There ensured a long pause.
    Finally, I broke it by saying, “I forgot just what we were waiting for, Rex.”
    “Dunno what you’re waiting for,” he said, “but I’m waiting for a credit card number, which Mel’ll prob’ly want, I’m waiting to find out just what kinda shape your automobile is in, cause Mel’ll prob’ly want to know that, and I’m also waiting for us to agree on how much for the ride and does that include gas or not?”
    “Oh,” I said. Further conversation took place. Details were exchanged. A price was mutually agreed on. Rex shuffled off to call Mel. I finished my drink. The jukebox began playing that Loretta Lynn song about honky-tonk women. Another few weeks passed. Then, back came Rex.
    “OK. Let’s hit ‘er,” he said. “See ya, Debs.”
    “Sure, Curly,” Debs said brightly. “You too, Cousteau,” she said to pie. I followed Rex to the back door, out into the parking lot, then climbed up beside him into his beat-up old Dodge half-ton, then off we went.
    Forty minutes later, without another word being spoken, except for him asking me where I wanted to get out and me telling him Flora by Phineas, just off Rodeo Drive, I climbed back down, payed him his fifty ($50) bucks, added a fiver, thanked him, wished him well, and watched him head back the way we’d come.
    On the drive along the Santa Monica Freeway, then the 405—the San Diego —I’d once or twice come close to giving the poor lovelorn jerk a few helpful and brotherly words of advice and comfort.
    I couldn’t think of any. Unfortunately, all I know about the subject is what some know-it-all once penned—to ask advice about the rules of love is no better than to ask advice on the rules of total insanity. Which I would not dispute, goofy-footers.

Chapter Nine

    So all I gotta do now is hang on and keep the faith,
    ‘Cause I know my drinkin’ buddy, my old amigo Samuel D...

    I found PHINEAS in the workroom, talking on the telephone and munching on a bagel topped with cream cheese. He blew a kiss my way and gestured that he’d be with me in a minute. I said hello to the girls, who were knee-deep in a forest of what looked like ferns to me, and subsided into a director’s chair that had Phineas’s name on it. As soon as he’d hung up, we both said, at the same time, “How’d it go?”
    “Tell you in a minute,” I said, “if I can use your phone first.”
    “Be my guest,” he said. “Nine for a line.” I punched button number nine, got a line, called the County Sheriff s office, and asked for the same deputy I’d phoned that long-ago and far-away morning from Phineas’s kitchen. Marvin Morrison, generally known as Marvelous Marv, was his name; being huge and black and ambitious his game. I needed someone from the County Sheriff s because the LAPD’s jurisdiction did not extend to places like Topanga Canyon and Las Tunas, which fell into the roughly three thousand square miles of territory the Sheriffs Department was responsible for.
    Marvelous Marv was in, for once. He was writing up a report, he told me.
    “A satisfactory report?” I asked him.
    “Highly, bro,” he said. “You were right, I probably have made history. I’ll give you the details sometime over a drink, I gotta get on with this. And may I add my heartfelt thanks?”
    “Any time,” I said. I blew him a kiss and rang off. Phineas arched his eyebrows at me meaningfully. The girls giggled. Then he took off the