Write me a Letter

Jordon, and Magic Johnson and what they meant to their teams, which were, respectively, the Boston somethings, the Chicago nothings, and the World Champion Los Angeles Lakers. I laughed despite the pain.
    Two days later I was discharged, and betook myself, corset and all, palely loitering, out into the real world again. It didn’t look like it had changed all that much while I was away. It was late in the afternoon and I didn’t feel like flying home that night so I hailed a cab and asked the driver to take me to some not-too-expensive motel preferably on the way out to Sacramento ’s airport, which he proceeded to do instantly and without a lot of chatter, either. I knew the name of the birdbrain’s motel, as she had mentioned it to her ”hubby”; you can believe I made sure the cabby did not by some fluke drop me ofF at the same one. This was not solely from a desire to avoid the twerp’s company, there was an outside chance Lt. Potato Eater had someone keeping an eye on me although I hadn’t spotted anyone along the way. All we needed was for some busybody to overhear me call Mrs. Clam Sara or nerd or whatever, then, bingo, she’s not Mrs. Martha C. Clam all of a sudden, is she? Which leads one directly without pause to the thought that if she is not Mrs. Henry C. Clam, maybe Mr. Henry C. Clam isn’t Henry C. Clam, either.
    Anyway. The Take-Off Motel had a room for me. After checking in I made a reservation for a flight back to L.A. at two the following afternoon, then went on the prowl for a friendly estaminet, i.e., a bar that would let me in. The motel didn’t have one but they directed me to something called the Bunkhouse, a mere fifty yards or so up the road heading west toward the airport.
    Toward the Bunkhouse I strolled, along the verge. On the verge, too, of slaking a three-day thirst. On the way I wondered in passing if my putting off my return trip was in any way connected with a reluctance to face up to the immediate future. F-u-t-u-r-e—spelled Miss Ruth Snake-in-the-grass Braukis, for one. And the death of Solomon, for another. And Cookie’s history, for another. And my own ineptness, if you want yet another.
    The only thing remotely special about the Bunkhouse was that it contained two dart boards, and both were in use when I entered. The jukebox was playing, ”Only two thangs money can’t buy, that’s true love ’n’ home-grown tomatoes.” I slid onto a vacant stool at the long wooden bar, leaving a one-stool gap between me and an angry-looking middle-aged lady in an orange jumpsuit whose blond hair was done up in an elaborate beehive, shades of yesteryear. A motherly looking lady who introduced herself as Sal took my order for a brandy and ginger. When she’d served it up I took a long, satisfying swallow, and said, ”Ahhhh.”
    ”Sounds like you needed that,” said Sal.
    ”Needed is right,” I said. ”I’ve just spent three days in a hospital drinking stale water, ice-cold tomato soup, and once, Hawaiian punch.”
    ”That’d drive anyone to drink,” observed Mrs. Beehive. ”Speaking of which, Sal.” Mrs. Beehive had chubby cheeks, which made her look something like an amiable chipmunk.
    Sal obliged with another vodka on the rocks for the lady. A Mrs. Goode. Well, we got to talking, as often happens in bars, and by the time I was making a dent in my third libation, I was Vic to her and she was Katy to me and my back wasn’t hurting at all and nor was my front. She asked me what I did. I told her. She said, ”Really?”
    I said, ”Cross my heart.” I asked her what she did. She said she ran the mobile home park right down there, see? She pointed out the side window. I looked where she pointed and sure enough, a mobile home park, all prettily lit up, is what I saw. It turned out, what she was angry about was she’d had another robbery over at her place, which made it umpteen million in three months would you possibly believe it, which was why she was so interested in anyone in my line of work.
    ”Am I to assume the police have not made a lot of progress up until now?” I ventured around a mouthful of microwaved pepperoni pizza Sal had just deposited in front of me.
    ”They show up right away, in carloads,” Katy said. ”They’re polite, they look around diligently, they say all the right things, they make notes, they spray that powder stuff around, they put it all in some computer, but.” She shrugged. ””You know.”
    ”How well I do know,” I said.