We found a pleasant-looking cafe farther up the street, ate huge, cold salads, decent swordfish, and excellent Chilean sea bass with french fries and coleslaw, and drank a bit of wine, then strong black coffee.

Walking it off, we went far enough past the commercial zone to get an ocean glimpse of our own. The water was a thousand miles of black beyond a white thread of sand. The waves rolled drunkenly, sending up ice chips of spray and an occasional roar that sounded like applause. We held hands so tightly our fingers ached, grabbed at each other, and kissed until our tongues throbbed.

Barely enough light to see Robin's dark eyes, narrowing.

She bit my lower lip and I knew some of it was passion, the rest, anger. I kissed her behind her ear and we embraced for a long time, then we returned to the truck and drove north, out of town.

“Don't get on the freeway,” she said. “Drive awhile.”

I got onto Laguna Canyon Road, went for several miles, and made a random turn onto an unmarked strip that corkscrewed up into the mountains.

No talk or music. Her hands on me as she cried out her tension. We passed a pottery studio, its wooden sign barely lit by a dusty bulb. A glimpse of chicken-wire fencing. A couple of horse ranches, an unmarked shack. Then nothing for a long time and the road dead-ended at brush.

Crickets and shadows, the ocean nowhere in sight.

I put the truck in reverse. Robin stopped me and turned off the engine.

We locked eyes and kissed, fumbling with each other's clothing.

Stripped completely naked, we held each other, shivering, knitting our limbs. Breathing into one another, fighting for oblivion.

The ride back was slow and silent, and I managed to keep reality at bay till we got off the freeway. Robin slept, as she had since we'd crossed the L.A. county line, low in the seat, half smiling.

It was one forty-two in the morning and Sunset was nearly bare of cars. The familiar eastward cruise was solitary and peaceful. As I approached the Beverly Glen intersection, I prepared to shoot through the green light. Then wailing sirens sounded from somewhere I couldn't pinpoint, surrounding me, growing louder.

I slowed and stopped. Robin was startled, sitting up just as flashing red lights popped out from around the bend and the sirens became unbearable. A hook-and-ladder came at us from the east, bearing down; for an instant I felt trapped. Then the fire engine made a sharp right turn, northward, onto the Glen, followed closely by another fire truck, then another smaller unit. A cherry-topped sedan brought up the rear as the sirens tapered off to a distant whistle.

Robin was clutching the armrest. Her eyes were gigantic, as if the lids had been stapled back.

We looked at each other.

I turned left and followed the shrieking caravan.