“I don’t know,” I said, “I wasn’t there.”
“I think it was 1920, in Long Beach. They had races, wing-walking, aerobatics. I was enthralled! Then, three days later, at Rogers Field, off Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles…only in those days, it was more like the suburbs of Los Angeles…anyway, I went up for a ride with Frank Hawks, who was nationally known for setting speed records…. He took me up two, three hundred feet over the Hollywood hills, and I was a goner. I
“Love at first flight.”
She showed me the gap-toothed grin. “That’s about right. My goodness, Nathan…you mind if I call you ‘Nathan’? It’s so much more elegant than ‘Nate.’”
“I prefer to think of it as ‘suave,’ but sure. Nathan’s fine.”
She leaned forward, her hands gathered around the cup, cupping the cup, as if holding something precious; those blue-gray eyes were alive—it was like looking into a fire. “Nothing could’ve prepared me for the physical and emotional wallop of that flight. To me, it’s the perfect state, the ultimate happiness…. It combines the physical and the intellectual…. You soar above any earthly concerns, responsible to no one but yourself.”
“I feel the same way about draw poker.”
She laughed, once. “That’s what I like about you. You don’t take anything too seriously, yourself included…yet I feel, deep down, you’re a very serious person.”
“I am deep. So’s a drainage ditch.”
Now her expression was almost blank as she studied me. “Does it bother you?”
“What?”
“Seeing someone so…obsessive about something? So committed? Isn’t there something
I sipped the coffee, shrugged. “I like my work, for the most part.”
“But do you
“I love working for myself. Not answering to anybody but the bill collector.”
Amusement tickled her mouth. “Well, then…you fly solo, too, don’t you?”
“I guess so. And…”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She sat forward again, urgency in her voice. “Are you embarrassed? Were you going to share something with me? Hey, I’ve opened up to you, mister. And that’s not my style. Don’t clam up on me…Nathan.”
“Okay, Amy. I’ll level with you.”
“Amy?”
“Yeah. Amelia’s a goddamn maiden librarian. And ‘A. E.’ is a stock broker or maybe a lawyer. Amy’s a girl. A pretty girl.”
Her eyes and lips softened. “Amy…. Nobody’s ever called me that.”
“It’s all I’m ever going to call you, from here on out.”
“I guess nobody ever called me that because it’s my mother’s name…. But that’s okay. I like my mother, except for having to support her and the rest of my family.”
“One of the prices of fame.”
“You started to say…”
“Hmmm?”
“You were going to level with me.”
I sighed. “…Yeah, I guess there is something I love about my work. Back in Pa’s bookshop, I used to read Sherlock Holmes stories and dime novels, about Nick Carter the detective….”
“And that’s what you wanted to be. A detective.”
“Yeah.”
“And it’s what you turned out to be, too.”
“Sort of. Mostly what I do isn’t like the stories. It’s routine work, sometimes boring, sometimes shoddy, sometimes shady. Security work. Retail credit checks….”
She nodded. “Divorce cases, I suppose.”
“Yeah. But now and then something comes along, and I get to be a real detective…”
Another gap-toothed grin. “Like the magazines:
“Right. I help somebody. I solve something. A puzzle. A riddle. A crime.”
She was nodding again, eyes narrowed. “And in those instances, you feel like a detective. And you love that.”
“I guess I do. But it’s like what you do, Amy—it’s dangerous work. Sometimes you soar, and sometimes you
