I let myself into my room. The interior smelled like the Santa Teresa beach, which is to say, faintly of damp and less faintly of mildew. I placed my shoulder bag on the desktop and my duffel on the chair. I christened the facilities, shrugged into my windbreaker, and met Dolan at his door. Not surprisingly, his goal was to find a restaurant with a cocktail lounge attached. Failing that, he'd opt for a decent bar somewhere, after which we could eat pizza in our rooms. We stopped in the motel office, where the desk clerk recommended the Quorum Inn, two blocks down, on High Street. I'd miscalculated the chill in the desert air at night. I walked with my arms crossed, hunched against the brisk wind whipping down the wide streets. The town seemed exposed, laid open to the elements, low buildings the only hope of shelter from the desert winds.

The Quorum Inn was already packed when we arrived: the late-afternoon martini crowd firing up cigarettes, alternating bites of green olives with the mixed nuts on the bar. The walls were varnished pine and the booths were upholstered in red Naugahyde. The free-standing tables were covered with red-and-white checked cloths. Most of the menu choices were either steak or beef. The side dishes were french fries, fried onion rings, and batter-fried zucchini. You could also order a foil-wrapped baked potato smothered in butter, sour cream, bacon, and/or cheese. We sat at the bar for the first hour while Dolan downed three Manhattans and I sipped at a puckery white wine that I diluted with ice. Once we retired to a table, he asked for a well-done twenty-two-ounce sirloin and I settled for an eight-ounce filet. By 8:00, we were back at the motel, where we parted company for the night. I read for a while and then slept the way you do with a tummy full of red meat and a shit-load of cholesterol coursing through your veins.

At breakfast, I had my usual cereal while Dolan had bacon, eggs, pancakes, four cups of coffee, and five cigarettes. When he pulled out the sixth, I said, "Dolan, you have to quit this."

He hesitated. "What?"

"The booze and cigarettes and fatty foods. You'll trigger another heart attack and I'll be stuck doing CPR. Haven't you read the Surgeon General's report?"

He gestured impatiently. "Nuts to that stuff! My granddaddy lived to ninety-six and he smoked hand-rolled cigarettes from the time he was twelve until the day he died."

"Yeah, well I'll bet he hadn't had two heart attacks by the time he was your age. You keep ragging on Stacey and you're worse than he is."

"That's different."

"It is not. You want him alive and that's exactly what I'm bugging you about."

"If I'm interested in your opinion, I'll be sure to ask. I don't need a lecture from someone half my age."

"I'm not half your age. How old are you?"

"I'm sixty-one."

"Well, I'm thirty-six."