Free The Kind One by Tom Epperson Page B

thirty?”
    “I don’t know. I never thought about it.” I thought about it. “I guess so.”
    “I think I’ll be real lucky if I live to be thirty. I don’t think the odds are in my favor at all.”
    “That’s just plain dumb. Why would you say that?”
    Darla shrugged. La Brea crossed Franklin then ran up a little hill and ended right in front of Bud’s house. I stopped the car. Usually someone was around to open the gate, but I didn’t see anybody.
    I tooted the horn, and someone came running.
     
     
     

Chapter   9
     
     
       “SO YOU DON’T remember a thing,” said Dulwich.
    “Not before about ten months ago,” I said. “They told me a bunch of guys jumped me in Ocean Park, and one of them hit me in the head with a lead pipe. But all I remember is waking up in a hospital and seeing a nurse putting some flowers in a vase. And I said: ‘Those are beautiful flowers,’ and she gave me this big smile and said: ‘Weeellll…welcome back, honey!’”
    “Do you know why you were beaten?”
    “No. Nobody knows who the guys were. My wallet was missing. Maybe they just wanted to rob me. Or maybe they knew me. Maybe they wanted to get even with me for something.”
    “Who took care of you afterwards? Do you have family members here?”
    “The guys I work with. They took care of me.”
    “The guys at the…what was the name…the Los Angeles Projects Corporation.”
    I nodded. I sipped my tea. It was in a delicate cup that had a red and blue oriental dragon twisting around it.
    We were in Dulwich’s living room. Aubrey Joyce smiled musingly at us from his perch atop the cabinet radio. There were some tasty little sugary cookies on a saucer on the coffee table. Next to the saucer was a book, lying open and facedown:
Is China Mad?
by Baron Auxion de Ruffe.
    “You ever hear of Bud Seitz?” I said.
    “The hoodlum?”
    “I guess so. That’s who I work for.”
    “Really.”
    “Yeah.”
    Dulwich looked at me with interest as he nibbled on a cookie.
    “I sunk a ship once.”
    Dulwich looked surprised. “An entire ship?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Just you?”
    “No, me and some of the boys. It was a gambling ship. The
Monfalcone.
”
    “Oh, I remember that. It was about four years ago, wasn’t it? It went down near Long Beach.”
    “Right.”
    “But I remember it being an accident. An inebriated cook, a fire in the galley, something of that sort.”
    “It was no accident. It was a heist job and a sink job. ’Cause Bud had a beef with the owner.”
    “Is it tea time, old chap?”
    We looked toward the door. Sophie Gubler was standing there, peering in through the screen, her hands cupped around her eyes to block out the sunshine.
    “It is indeed,” said Dulwich. “Would you like to join us?”
    Sophie came in and eyed the coffee table. “I’ll join you in cookies,” she said, and took one.
    “Why aren’t you in school?” said Dulwich.
    “It’s summer, dummy. School’s over.” She took another cookie while still chewing on the first one. “Well, is it?”
    “Is what what?”
    “Is China mad?”
    “The whole world’s mad.”
    “You shouldn’t put a book down like that. It’s terrible for it. It’ll break its back.”
    “You’re quite right.” Dulwich picked the book up, turned down the corner of a page, and closed it.
    “You shouldn’t bend a page like that—”
    “Oh, that’s enough. Be quiet.”
    Sophie looked at me for the first time.
    “Hi, Danny.”
    “Hi, Sophie. How are you today?”
    “Fine.” She plucked at her dress. She suddenly seemed a little shy. She turned back to Dulwich. “Where’s Tinker Bell?”
    “The last confirmed Tinker Bell sighting was on the foot of my bed, where she was observed to be taking one of her not infrequent catnaps.”
    “Can I go see her?”
    “Of course.”
    Dulwich waited till Sophie disappeared into his bedroom, then said softly: “Poor girl. She loves animals, but that beastly mother of hers won’t let her have a