'I know.'
'I've got a college education. I have a good job. You're supposed to go out a lot, but I don't do that. You're supposed to be complete and whole all by yourself, but if I can't have him I feel like I'll die.'
'You're in love. People who say the other stuff are saying it either before they've been in love or after the love is over and it hasn't worked out for them, but no one says it when they're in the midst of love. When you're in love, there's too much at stake.'
She said, 'I've never been with anyone who makes me feel the way that he makes me feel. I've never tried to be. Maybe I should've. Maybe it's all been a horrible mistake.'
'It's not a mistake if it's what you wanted.' I was breathing hard and I couldn't get control of it.
She stared down into her flute glass, and she traced her fingertip around its edge, and then she stared at me. She didn't look sixteen, now. She was lean and pretty, and somehow available. She said, 'I like it that you make me laugh.'
I said, 'Jennifer.'
She put down the flute glass. 'You're very nice.'
I put down my glass and stood. She went very red and suddenly looked away. She said, 'Ohmygod. I'm sorry.'
'It's all right.'
She stood, too. 'Maybe you should go.'
I nodded, and realized that I didn't want to go. The sharp pain came back behind my eyes. 'All right.'
'This wine.' She laughed nervously, 'and still didn't look at me.
'Sure. Me, too.'
I backed away from her and went into the entry hall by the kitchen. I liked the way the tights fit her calves and her thighs and the way the sweatshirt hung low over her hips. She was standing with her arms crossed as if it were cold. 'I'm sorry.'
I said, 'Don't be.' Then I said, 'You're quite lovely.'
She flushed again and looked down at her empty glass and I left.
I stood in the street outside her apartment for a long time, and then I drove home.
Pike was gone and the house was cool and dark. I left it that way. I took a beer from the refrigerator, turned on the radio, and went out onto my deck. Jim Ladd was conning the air waves at KLSX. Playing a little George Thorogood. Playing a little Creedence Clearwater Revival. When you're going to listen to radio, you might as well listen to the best.
I stood in the cool night air and drank the beer and, off to my left, an owl hooted from high in a stand of pine trees. The scent of jasmine now was stronger than it had been earlier in the evening, and I liked it. I wondered if Jennifer Sheridan would like smelling it, too. Would she like the owl?
I listened and I drank for quite a long while, and then I went in to bed.
Sleep, when it finally came, provided no rest.
At ten-forty the next morning I called my friend at B of A. She said, 'I can't believe this. Two calls in the same week. I may propose.'
'You get that stupid, I'll have to use the Sting tickets on someone else.'
'Forget it. I'd rather see Sting.' These dames.
'I want to know who financed the purchase of a place called the Premier Pawn Shop on Hoover Street in South Central L.A.' I gave her the address. 'Can you help me on that?'
'You at the office?'
'Nope. I'm taking advantage of my self-employed status to while away the morning in bed. Naked. And alone.' Mr. Seduction.
My friend laughed. 'Well, if I know you, that's plenty of company.' Everybody's a comedian. 'Call you back in twenty.'
'Thanks.'
She made the call in fifteen. 'The Premier Pawn Company was owned in partnership between Charles Lewis Washington and something called the Lester Corporation. Lester secured the loan and handled the financing through California Federal.'
'Ah ha.'
'Is that 'ah ha' as in this is important, or 'ah ha' as in you're clearing your throat?'
'The former. Maybe. Who signed the papers?'
'Washington and an attorney named Harold Bellis. Bellis signed for Lester and is an officer in that corporation.'
'Bellis have an address?'
'Yeah.
