“Well, that’s all I can do. Seems like there was this convention—what was it?—dentists, or maybe Owls. I don’t know whether she said she was going or I just figured it myself. I got it stuck in my mind. Give Santa Cruz a whirl. Know anybody?”

“I got a few acquaintances,” said Joe.

“Look up H. V. Mahler, Hal Mahler. He runs Hal’s poolroom. Got a game in back.”

“Thanks,” said Joe.

“No—look, Joe. I don’t want your money.”

“It ain’t my money—buy a cigar,” said Joe.

The bus dropped him two doors from Hal’s place. It was suppertime but the stud game was still going. It was an hour before Hal got up to go to the can and Joe could follow and make a connection. Hal peered at Joe with large pale eyes made huge by thick glasses. He buttoned his fly slowly and adjusted his black alpaca sleeve guards and squared his green eyeshade. “Stick around till the game breaks,” he said. “Care to sit in?”

“How many playing for you, Hal?”

“Only one.”

“I’ll play for you.”

“Five bucks an hour,” said Hal.

“An’ ten per cent if I win?”

“Well, okay. Sandy-haired fella Williams is the house.”

At one o’clock in the morning Hal and Joe went to Barlow’s Grill. “Two rib steaks and french fries. You want soup?” Hal asked Joe.

“No. And no french fries. They bind me up.”

“Me too,” said Hal. “But I eat them just the same. I don’t get enough exercise.”

Hal was a silent man until he was eating. He rarely spoke unless his mouth was full. “What’s your pitch?” he asked around steak.

“Just a job. I make a hundred bucks and you get twenty-five—okay?”

“Got to have like proof—like papers?”

“No. Be good but I’ll get by without them.”

“Well, she come in and wants me to steer for her. She wasn’t no good. I didn’t take twenty a week off her. I probably wouldn’t of knew what become of her only Bill Primus seen her in my place and when they found her he come in an’ ast me about her. Nice fella, Bill. We got a nice force here.”

Ethel was not a bad woman—lazy, sloppy, but good-hearted. She wanted dignity and importance. She was just not very bright and not very pretty and, because of these two lacks, not very lucky. It would have bothered Ethel if she had known that when they pulled her out of the sand where waves had left her half buried, her skirts were pulled around her ass. She would have liked more dignity.

Hal said, “We got some crazy bohunk bastards in the sardine fleet. Get loaded with ink an’ they go nuts. Way I figure, one of them sardine crews took her out an’ then jus’ pushed her overboard. I don’t see how else she’d get in the water.”

“Maybe she jumped off the pier?”

“Her?” said Hal through potatoes. “Hell, no! She was too blamed lazy to kill herself. You want to check?”