Inside the newsroom and out, the new generation didn’t mix with the old. Especially not with me. I was history and she had no time or inclination to associate with the ranks of the fallen. Going to the Short Stop tonight would be like visiting a leper colony.

“Well, maybe some other time,” I said quickly. “I’ll see you Monday morning, okay?”

“Monday morning. And I’ll buy the coffee.”

She smiled and I realized that she was indeed the one who should take Kramer’s advice and try TV.

She turned to go.

“Oh, and Angela?”

“What?”

“Don’t call him Mr. Kramer. This is a newsroom, not a law firm. And most of those guys in charge? They don’t deserve to be called mister. Remember that and you’ll do okay here.”

She smiled again and left me alone. I pulled my chair in close to my computer and opened a new document. I had to crank out a murder story before I could get out of the newsroom and go drown my sorrows in red wine.

Only three other reporters showed up for my wake. Larry Bernard and two guys from the sports desk who might have gone to the Short Stop regardless of my being there. If Angela Cook had shown up it would have been embarrassing.

The Short Stop was on Sunset in Echo Park. That made it close to Dodger Stadium, so presumably it drew its name from the baseball position. It was also close to the Los Angeles Police Academy and that made it a cop bar in its early years. It was the kind of place you’d read about in Joseph Wambaugh novels, where cops came to be with their own kind and the groupies who didn’t judge them. But those days were long past. Echo Park was changing. It was getting Hollywood hip and the cops were crowded out of the Short Stop by the young professionals moving into the neighborhood. The prices went up and the cops found other watering holes. Police paraphernalia still hung on the walls but any cop who stopped in nowadays was simply misinformed.

Still, I liked the place because it was close to downtown and on the way to my house in Hollywood.

It was early, so we had our pick of the stools at the bar. We took the four directly in front of the TV; me, then Larry, and then Shelton and Romano, the two sports guys. I didn’t know them that well, so it was just as well that Larry was between us. They spent most of the time talking about a rumor that all of the sports beats at the paper were going to be shuffled. They were hoping to get a piece of the Dodgers or the Lakers, the premier beats at the paper, with USC football and UCLA basketball close behind. They were good writers like most sports reporters have to be. The art of sports writing always amazed me. Nine out of ten times the reader already knows the outcome of your story before reading it.