A Hard-Boiled Bird

Another nickel, another crazed midnight with Cleotis Hammersley. She insisted, the way only the lace-gloved, silk-trained rich can insist, that she was being spied on; she wanted, the way heroines always want, to leave the mansion and draw the watchers out; and it was raining, a way it never rains in southern California. I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance . . . I needed a night alone reading Raymond Chandler. What I had was a coat of feathers, a black feather hat, a headache like a gun. I put them on and escorted Miss Hammersley to the granite shores.

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