The next day I found out what they had done to Camilla. From a drugstore downtown I called long distance and got the switchboard at County Institute for the Insane at Del Maria. I asked the switchboard girl for the name of the doctor in charge there. ‘Doctor Danielson,’ she said.

‘Give me his office.’

She plugged the board and another woman’s voice came through the wire. ‘Dr Danielson’s office.’

‘This is Dr Jones,’ I said. ‘Let me speak to Dr Danielson. This is urgent.’

‘One moment please.’

Then a man’s voice. ‘Danielson speaking.’

‘Hello, Doctor,’ I said. ‘This is Dr Jones, Edmond Jones, Los Angeles. You have a transfer there from the County Hospital, a Miss Camilla Lopez. How is she?’

‘We can’t say,’ Danielson said. ‘She’s still under observation. Did you say Edmond Jones?’

I hung up. At least I knew where she was. Knowing that was one thing; trying to see her was another. It was out of the question. I talked to people who knew. You had to be a relative of an inmate, and you had to prove it. You had to write for an appointment, and you came after they had investigated. You couldn’t write the inmates a letter, and you couldn’t send gifts. I didn’t go out to Del Maria. I was satisfied that I had done my best. She was insane, and it was none of my business. Besides, she loved Sammy.

The days passed, the winter rains began. Late October, and the proofs of my book arrived. I bought a car, a 1929 Ford. It had no top, but it sped like the wind, and with the coming of dry days I took long rides along the blue coastline, up to Ventura, up to Santa Barbara, down to San Clemente, down to San Diego, following the white line of the pavement, under the staring stars, my feet on the dashboard, my head full of plans for another book, one night and then another, all of them together spelling dream days I had never known, serene days I feared to question. I prowled the city with my Ford: I found mysterious alleys, lonely trees, rotting old houses out of a vanished past. Day and night I lived in my Ford, pausing only long enough to order a hamburger and a cup of coffee at strange roadside cafes. This was the life for a man, to wander and stop and then go on, ever following the white line along the rambling coast, a time to relax at the wheel, light another cigarette, and grope stupidly for the meanings in that perplexing desert sky.

One night I came upon the place at Santa Monica where Camilla and I had gone swimming in those first days. I stopped and watched the foamy breakers and the mysterious mist. I remembered the girl running through the foaming thunder, revelling in the wild freedom of that night. Oh, that Camilla, that girl!

There was that night in the middle of November, when I was walking down Spring Street, poking around in the secondhand bookstores. The Columbia Buffet was only a block away. Just for the devil of it, I said, for old time’s sake, and I walked up to the bar and ordered a beer. I was an old-timer now. I could look around sneeringly and remember when this was really a wonderful place. But not any more. Nobody knew me, neither the new barmaid with her jaw full of gum, nor the two female musicians still grinding out Tales from the Vienna Woods on a violin and a piano.