"During your chat—was there anything maybe you didn't share with them?"
"I did think about recommending a bar called Curly's out on Rampart, but the more they went on, the less it seemed somehow like their sort of place."
"This was, like, a Puck-and-Einar hangout?"
"Depending on the music policy week to week, that was the impression I got."
"Let me guess. Country and western."
"Broadway show tunes," Trillium said quietly.
"And how," nodded Quight.
Two steps in the door of which, who did Doc catch sight of but FBI Special Agents Borderline and Flatweed, both in the synchronized act of stuffing dimly perplexed Anglo faces with the house's celebrated Giant Burrito Special.
He was right about the begging, though. She found herself carrying rolls of coins for pay phones because she never knew at what odd moment of the day the longing would seize hold of her—between freeway exits miles away from his place in West Hollywood, in the produce section of the Safeway, during some fugue for woodwinds, all at once this humiliating heat would envelop her, and there was nothing she could think of to do but call him.
... and there was Einar with all these Hawaiian orchids and the sweetest look on his face, and it was at least a month before he admitted he'd worked his way like a pickpocket through the crowd at a debutante ball in the Ambassador and stolen the corsages right off people's gowns...."
Being the continuation of a long story Doc had forgotten, or maybe missed, the beginning of.
"I don't know why I'm telling you all this."
Doc didn't either, though he wished he had a small aggravation fee for each time somebody had spilled more than they meant to and then said they didn't know why.
"You mustn't judge Osgood too harshly," advised a voice to which Time, if it had not exactly been kind, had at least contributed some texture.
—
"Mr. Cobb was my escort," she said. "Such a nice escort, Mr. Cobb. So attentive. You should see him sober. I should see him sober. Somebody should see him sober. I mean, just for the record. So it could become a part of history, that brief flashing moment, soon buried in time, but never forgotten—when Larry Cobb was sober."
"Thanks, lady. You're no English muffin yourself."
"If I had a razor, I'd cut your throat—just to see what ran out of it."
"Caterpillar blood," I said.
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