Flat Spin

Sava

“Every word.”

I rolled my eyes.

He and Echevarria had eaten di

“You will meet a man named Wright. He is often wrong.”

Marvis chuckled. “Wright and wrong. Can you believe that?” Then he began to blubber about how he was probably the last man to have seen Echevarria alive. Soon Sava

I went outside and called Mrs. Schmulowitz to see how she and Kiddiot were doing. A “nice young man” from the insurance company had already been by, she said. He’d informed her that a big check would be mailed to her within two weeks so she could begin rebuilding the garage, Mrs. Schmulowitz said. She’d decided to bake a German chocolate cake in celebration. This brought us to Kiddiot who, she said, was doing more than fine in my absence.

“He got up on the counter and helped himself to a big slice of cake. What kind of crazy meshuggener cat likes German chocolate cake?”

“At least he’s eating.”

I told her I’d be back in Rancho Bonita that afternoon to take him off her hands. No rush, Mrs. Schmulowitz said. She and Kiddiot were getting along fine. She repeated her offer to let me use her sofa, but I’d already inconvenienced her enough, I told her. Mrs. Schmulowitz, however, refused to take no for an answer. She launched into a long dissertation about how her first husband had met a bum on the subway in Brooklyn and insisted that they take him in for a few days until the bum could get on his feet, and how he turned out to be a thief who stole Mrs. Schmulowitz’s silver. There was a beep on my phone. Another call coming in. Mrs. Schmulowitz kept droning on obliviously about how the bum refused to leave after taking one bite of her famous blintzes and my phone kept beeping and Mrs. Schmulowitz kept talking until finally I interjected and told her that I would be happy to finish listening to her story when I saw her in person—“OK, I gotta go, Mrs. Schmulowitz”—and signed off.

Detective Ostrow at Rancho Bonita PD was on the other line, coughing and apologizing for sounding like he was about to hack up a lung. He’d been out surfing that morning before work, he said, when a big roller broke the wrong way and he gulped a bellyful of seawater — a “Neptune cocktail” as he put it.

“Gnarly,” I said.

He asked me if I knew anyone who drove a white Honda or possibly a Toyota of the same color, with tinted windows and a spoiler on the back. A couple of neighbors, he said, had seen a vehicle matching that description cruising the alley behind Mrs. Schmulowitz’s garage an hour or so before the firebombing.

I told him about my various close encounters with the mysterious Honda. And, no, I said, anticipating his next question, I didn’t catch the license plate number.

“Well, whoever he is, we’ll find him eventually,” Ostrow said. “That’s the cool thing about being a cop in a community like Rancho Bonita where the crime rate isn’t through the roof. We actually get to investigate stuff, unlike LAPD. Speaking of which, I called Detective Czarnek. He hasn’t called me back.”

“I’ll yank his chain next time I talk to him, which may or may not be in this mille

“You’d never know it to look at him,” Sava

“I can catch a cab to the bus station if you want to stand here all day and reminisce.”

Sava

An acrid something surged up from my gut and burned the back of my throat. The taste of shame. Instead of affording my ex-wife a modicum of empathy, as any compassionate human being would’ve done under similar circumstances, I’d reverted to the jilted and jealous ex-husband. I needed to work on my Chi or I was coming back as a snail in the next life for sure.

“I’m sorry for being a jerk, Sava

“I’ve come to expect nothing less. Get in. I’ll drive you to the bus station.”

“Look, I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast. How about I spring for di

Sava

“I don’t understand you,” she said. “I never have.”

TWENTY-THREE

Sava

Joh

“Why keep regular business hours,” I said as we got out of Sava

Sava

Seating inside Joh

“Anywhere you like.”

I followed Sava

An aging waitress with a heavily creased face who looked like she could be somebody named Mrs. Joh

“You very pretty,” Mrs. Wang said.

“Why, thank you,” I said.

“I mean her.”

“You’re very kind,” Sava

“You like something drink maybe? Beer? Wine?”

“I’m fine with water,” Sava

“Water’s good for me, too — as long as it’s not from the aquarium.”

Mrs. Wang handed us menus. A young Asian man of about twenty with spiked hair and a Van Halen T-shirt emerged from the kitchen and asked her a question in Mandarin. She responded curtly. They began yelling at each other in their native tongue, arguing as if we were not present. Pretty soon Joh

“Knock it off!”

They stopped, startled by my outburst.

“The Buddha doesn’t like arguing,” I said. “It’s not conducive to bliss.”

“My grandson, Benjamin, he no like the hard work!” Mrs. Wang complained.

“I go to school full-time!”

“Ooohhh, Mr. Cal Tech. You think you so fancy! School no hard work. School easy! Restaurant, that hard work!” She started yelling at him in Mandarin again.