evidence to go to the cops with, but it gave me a little confidence in what I was doing.
I ate my burger and headed home.
Home until a month earlier had been a walkup near downtown and my office and a long trot to the Y on Hope Street. But my former landlady had taken exception to a difficult night in which the apartment was shot up and a guy who was trying to kill me went through the window. I couldnât blame her too much, and it wasnât hard to move. My clothes, food and books fit nicely into two cardboard suitcases I got for almost nothing in a pawnshop on Vermont. The pawnbroker, a guy named Hill, owed me a favor for catching a thief who was robbing him blind during the day. Cameras, radios, binoculars, watches had been missing every day at closing time. I staked myself out under a counter with a couple of sandwiches and watched the store between two boxes. The thief turned out to be the seventy-one-year-old lady who brought Hill his lunch from the deli across the street. Hill always ate standing in the store so he wouldnât lose business. She did all her grabbing on the way out, dropping things into the shopping bag she used to deliver Hillâs food. She hadnât resold or used any of the stuff. She had just stolen it for the excitement. It was piled up in her room down the street. Hill had paid me, but four hours under that counter with my bad back had me laid up in bed for a week. He felt guilty, and I used that guilt to get things from him, like the suitcases and the .38 automatic owned and never used. It was the second .38 I got from Hill. The first one had been taken by the cops after a guy took it from me and killed a couple of people with it.
That was old business. New business was the place I was living in on Long Beach Boulevard near Slauson. It was small and cheap, partly because the place had the smell of fast decline. It was one of a series of two-room, one story wooden structures L.A. management people called bungalows. To people passing by, the place looked like a motor court that had lost its license and sign. Paint was peeling from all the houses in the court like the skin from a sunburned, ageing actress. Like the actress, the bungalows were functional, but not particularly appealing. When it rained, the ground in front of my place became a swamp. The furnished furnishings were faded and the shower didnât work, but it had a great advantage. It was cheap. Jeremy Butler, the poetic wrestler who owned my office building, also owned this place and suggested that I move in and keep an eye on the property for him. In return, I paid practically nothing in rent. A few days earlier I had paid with a sore stomach when I caught a kid trying to break into one of the bungalows at night. The kid had butted me with his head and taken off. His head had hit the point where I had recently taken a bullet, and the wound had just barely scarred when the kid hit it.
When I pulled the Buick in front of my place, it was about four in the afternoon. The Sante Fe moaned, rattling the walls, and I went inside, kicking off my shoes at the door. Through the thin walls I could hear a couple with hillbilly accents arguing, but I couldnât make out the words.
I ran the water in the bath full blast. Full blast meant it would be about three-quarters full in half an hour. The half hour was spent getting coffee and pouring myself a big bowl of Quaker Puffed Wheat with a lot of sugar. I finished the Puffed Wheat while I took a bath and read the comics. It was the day before Sadie Hawkinâs Day, but I was sure Liâl Abner would be all right. I ran through Mary Worthâs Family and Tarzan and got happy for Dick Tracy. He said he was going on vacation.
I put on a pair of shorts, plopped on my bed and listened to the radio for about an hour with my eyes closed. By a few minutes after six I was dressed in my second suit and ready to go. Such was the domestic life of Toby Peters, which suited me just
I ate my burger and headed home.
Home until a month earlier had been a walkup near downtown and my office and a long trot to the Y on Hope Street. But my former landlady had taken exception to a difficult night in which the apartment was shot up and a guy who was trying to kill me went through the window. I couldnât blame her too much, and it wasnât hard to move. My clothes, food and books fit nicely into two cardboard suitcases I got for almost nothing in a pawnshop on Vermont. The pawnbroker, a guy named Hill, owed me a favor for catching a thief who was robbing him blind during the day. Cameras, radios, binoculars, watches had been missing every day at closing time. I staked myself out under a counter with a couple of sandwiches and watched the store between two boxes. The thief turned out to be the seventy-one-year-old lady who brought Hill his lunch from the deli across the street. Hill always ate standing in the store so he wouldnât lose business. She did all her grabbing on the way out, dropping things into the shopping bag she used to deliver Hillâs food. She hadnât resold or used any of the stuff. She had just stolen it for the excitement. It was piled up in her room down the street. Hill had paid me, but four hours under that counter with my bad back had me laid up in bed for a week. He felt guilty, and I used that guilt to get things from him, like the suitcases and the .38 automatic owned and never used. It was the second .38 I got from Hill. The first one had been taken by the cops after a guy took it from me and killed a couple of people with it.
That was old business. New business was the place I was living in on Long Beach Boulevard near Slauson. It was small and cheap, partly because the place had the smell of fast decline. It was one of a series of two-room, one story wooden structures L.A. management people called bungalows. To people passing by, the place looked like a motor court that had lost its license and sign. Paint was peeling from all the houses in the court like the skin from a sunburned, ageing actress. Like the actress, the bungalows were functional, but not particularly appealing. When it rained, the ground in front of my place became a swamp. The furnished furnishings were faded and the shower didnât work, but it had a great advantage. It was cheap. Jeremy Butler, the poetic wrestler who owned my office building, also owned this place and suggested that I move in and keep an eye on the property for him. In return, I paid practically nothing in rent. A few days earlier I had paid with a sore stomach when I caught a kid trying to break into one of the bungalows at night. The kid had butted me with his head and taken off. His head had hit the point where I had recently taken a bullet, and the wound had just barely scarred when the kid hit it.
When I pulled the Buick in front of my place, it was about four in the afternoon. The Sante Fe moaned, rattling the walls, and I went inside, kicking off my shoes at the door. Through the thin walls I could hear a couple with hillbilly accents arguing, but I couldnât make out the words.
I ran the water in the bath full blast. Full blast meant it would be about three-quarters full in half an hour. The half hour was spent getting coffee and pouring myself a big bowl of Quaker Puffed Wheat with a lot of sugar. I finished the Puffed Wheat while I took a bath and read the comics. It was the day before Sadie Hawkinâs Day, but I was sure Liâl Abner would be all right. I ran through Mary Worthâs Family and Tarzan and got happy for Dick Tracy. He said he was going on vacation.
I put on a pair of shorts, plopped on my bed and listened to the radio for about an hour with my eyes closed. By a few minutes after six I was dressed in my second suit and ready to go. Such was the domestic life of Toby Peters, which suited me just
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