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war?”
    He picked up the paper and started reading aloud. The businessman turned his head toward him.
    “Dead Americans, 29,650. Wounded, 41,050. Missing, 32,072. Prisoners of war, 28,732. That comes to 131,504. And when we invade Japan, those numbers are gonna look like peanuts. I say we gas the Jap army.”
    “And they gas us back?”
    “We’ve got more gas.” Manny was confident.
    I had already taken my second bite of taco when Manny brought my Pepsi in a bottle.
    The businessman finished his taco and reached for his wallet. He put down a dollar and some change and said to Manny and me, “Do either of you know a dentist in the office building a few doors down? A Dr. Sheldon Minck?”
    Manny looked at me and I looked back. The businessman went on, “I was just at his office. There was no one there. Couldn’t find the building manager’s office.”
    “I know him,” Manny said, picking up his paper.
    “Have any idea who I could talk to about getting in touch with Dr. Minck? It’s important.”
    “I think I could find him,” I said calmly, finishing off the first taco.
    The man moved to the stool next to me and held out his right hand. I wiped my hand on a napkin and we shook.
    “My name is Verte, Desmond Verte,” he said. “I’m a lawyer.”
    “He has a lawyer,” I said.
    “No,” said Verte. “I don’t want to represent him. I have something to deliver to him, and I need a signature.”
    “He’s indisposed,” I said. “I could get it to him. I share office space with Dr. Minck.”
    “Sorry.” The man put his hand flat on the briefcase in case I tried to pick it up and run out the door.
    “Well, in case I talk to him, what do you want me to tell him?”
    The man fished out a business card and handed it to me.
    “My name and phone number,” he said. “Have him call. Tell him the Greenbaum and Gorman Company in Des Moines is very interested in discussing and entering into negotiations with him about the patent he holds for an anti-snoring appliance.”
    Shelly had patented about forty of what he called “major advances in dental technology” over the past decade. Almost all of them were either too painful or too wacky to draw any interest, though Shelly was always certain the next invention would lead to fame and wealth.
    “I’ll have him get in touch with you,” I said.
    Verte shook my hand, picked up his briefcase, said, “Thanks” and added that he would only be in Los Angeles for another four or five days and could be reached at the Roosevelt Hotel.
    When he left, Manny lowered the newspaper and said, “Charles H. Warner died yesterday over in San Marino. He was seventy-one.”
    “Charles H. Warner?”
    “Co-inventor of the automobile speedometer,” said Manny. “Made him rich. Maybe Minck has something this time.”
    “Maybe,” I said, finishing my second taco and downing what was left of my Pepsi. “He may become the richest prisoner in the state.”
    “Ironic,” said Manny flatly.
    “Ironic,” I agreed.
    “That’s life. What the hell,” Manny said, turning the page on his newspaper while “I’m Getting Sentimental over You” came on with the radio announced by Tommy Dorsey’s trombone. “Heard on the radio that they played that song at the Paramount Theater on Broadway in New York yesterday. Gene Krupa’s first appearance since his parole from San Quentin on those drug charges. Got a standing ovation. Krupa cried. Now they’re playing it all day. My niece says Krupa is the grooviest hipcat.”
    “Hepcat,” I corrected.
    “You figure it out.” He shook his head. “Guy takes drugs and everybody loves him.”
    I thought of suggesting that we gas San Quentin, but I didn’t think Manny would be amused. And since I ate there a couple of times a week, it probably wasn’t a good idea to test the cook’s sense of humor.
    I left a buck on the counter, fingered Verte’s card in my pocket, and went out into the afternoon, heading for the office.
    I made it,