“Thank God for old lovers,” he said, flinging the box into the back seat. As they drove away, she asked him if he had noticed the cowboy. “Oh, he’s been there for months,” he said. “He thinks he’ll break them down someday. But movie people are funny. He’s trying too hard and they’re used to freaks. They only get interested if you ignore them. Then they feel insulted and have to give you something to do just to save face.”

“But how does he live?”

“Oh, Annie, how do I live? Maybe he’s a hustler. Maybe he saved up a little money before he pitched that tent. Maybe he eats babies. What’s that address on Sycamore? Listen, could you buy a little gas for this poor old biddy? Now that you’re so rich!”

She opened a little cloth change purse and gave him a five-dollar bill. “My God! You’re keeping me!” he said.

“If you drop me off now, I’ll be too early.”

“Well, dear, you’ll just have to be too early.”

He’s up to something, she thought. He glanced at her quickly as though aware of her suspicion. He pursed up his lips. She braced herself for one of his fits of obscene reminiscence. But he merely smiled.

“I’m hungry. Let’s go eat something at the Greek’s.”

He said, “I won’t be able to keep my mind on food with all those young caddies bending over the ski-ball game.”

He parked near the Greyhound station on Cahuenga and they went into a small restaurant owned by a hugely fat, bald Greek. The place was deserted at this time of the afternoon and no one was bending over the ski-ball game near the bar. The Greek brought them minute steaks, and they ate with passionate absorption. Annie thought if she could just have three meals a day, she’d be willing to sleep on the sidewalk.

Just as they were leaving, a prosperous-looking, middle-aged man with a shaggy mop of red hair walked in. The Greek laughed and clapped his hands over his ears. The man gave him a sly wink and went to the jukebox and made his selection. Annie peered curiously over his shoulder and saw he had pressed the button for a record called Finlandia. As it began to play, the red-headed man hid his face in his hands and swayed back and forth as though grief-stricken. The Greek shouted, “Why you play that goddamn thing alla time. I’m going to throw that record out. Whyn’t you go back to Finland, for crissake?” He winked at Annie and shrugged his shoulders.

Johnnie dropped her off in front of a ramshackle shingled house bulging with oriel windows. Several cats lay on the steps leading to the wide porch like merchandise on shelves, asleep in the late-afternoon sunlight.

“Listen, darling,” Johnnie said. “Don’t give in to impulse. Don’t just take the room because it’s available. I know you and men! I think you’d lay down on a third rail even if it was me asking you to. Don’t be so available yourself!”