As she rides by

will,” I said. “What’s in it?”
    “Vegetables,” she said.
    “I didn’t know Venezuela had any,” I said, manfully taking a bite. As soon as she turned her back to get the tea, I slipped the rest of the slice to King, under the table. Thankfully, he gulped it down before realizing what it tasted like.
    Then it was adios all around, and then the dismally dangerous drive downtown via the decrepit Golden State and Harbor freeways to what I had referred to as the mortuary to Frank the night before but was really the more prosaic old Records Building . My brief visit there proved satisfactory—to me, at least. Then onward, ever onward; the Hollywood freeway, then west on Beverly Boulevard, which leads one to—you guessed it—the fabulous Beverly Hills itself, and have you ever seen the police station there? It looks more like Tara than a clink.
    Flora by Phineas was in; out back, as usual, working away furiously, as usual. He gave me an affectionate buss on each cheek to wolf whistles from the girls, then gave King a pat, then snatched up an elaborate bouquet of fleurs, which he presented to me with a deep curtsey.
    “In honor,” he said.
    “Of what?” I said.
    “Don’t bother me with details!” he said. “And so where’s my little pressie?”
    I gave him his little pressie, with full instructions delivered sotto voce. His eyebrows almost disappeared up into his hairline.
    “Show starts promptly at two, so don’t be late,” I said. “The theater’s on Santa Monica somewhere between Havenhurst and Sweetzer, from the address. Enjoy, enjoy. Rendezvous back at my office from five-thirty on for comparison of notes and mayhap a spot of gloating. Itty-bitty canapés on triangles of limp toast will be served. Ta ta, must run. King! Heel!”
    I headed for the door in a comical lope; the girls’ giggles followed me out. Once outside, I leashed the dawg and looked at the fleurs. What did I want with fleurs? Who did I have to give fleurs to, anyway? I knew who was on the top of the list of people who weren’t going to get them, forget it, and as for the twerp, if I ever gave her posies she’d have a nervous breakdown. So I gave them to the first pretty girl I saw on the way back to where I’d parked who wasn’t a blonde.
    “In honor,” I said, with a slight but effective bow, and then I got out of there before she called the cops and had me arrested for the exposure of that which is both rare and deeply shocking in Beverly Hills—an honest emotion.
    The twerp showed up at the office twenty minutes after the time she was supposed to, which was one p.m.; by doing so, no doubt she was endeavoring to show her independence of spirit and poetic license when faced with such trifles as promptness, courtesy, and responsibility. Not being a tiresome dope myself, I’d of course deliberately set our time of meeting a half hour earlier than it had to be to start with. I wonder why people have the need to play such futile games; what distortion of ego could be responsible? Maybe the Shadow knows, but I sure don’t.
    “So who’s in this shitty movie, anyway?” was her opening line, not counting her hello to King.
    “The classic we are about to see stars the late, great Jack Benny,” I informed her.
    “No wonder you dig it,” she said, perching herself uninvited on a corner of my desk, “seeing as he’s one of your role models and all.”
    “Also the gorgeous Carole Lombard, and Robert Stack as a boy.”
    “Yecch,” she said.
    “If I was you, God forbid,” I said, “I’d save my ‘yecchs’ because you’re going to need them. Wait till you see who’s going to the flicks with us o’er in Westwood, my cherry blossom. Oh, remind me on the way out to return this waffle iron, will you?”
    “What ‘cha been doing with that thing?”
    “Crimping my hair,” I said. “Works pretty good, too, if you get all the butter off first. Now come on, we don’t want to miss the Three Stooges, we get them, too.”
    “Probably your other role models,” the twerp said.

    I t was five minutes to six that Wednesday afternoon, that Wednesday afternoon in the San Fernando Valley, and the Dodgers were still six and a half games out. Present and accounted for in the modest premises of V. (for Victor) Daniel were S. Silvetti, Flora by Phineas, Wade ‘n’ Willy, noted brother act, and the light-headed (and even lighter-fingered) Benny the Boy. In the chair was Yores Truly. All were in a festive mood, or