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custody, and an intense search is now being conducted in a ten-square-block area . . .”
    “Get your head back in the car before someone knocks it off, fool,” Nella said to GT.
    In response, GT pulled his head in, took off his T-shirt, and then shoved most of his upper torso back out the window.
    “The wind!” he shouted.
    While Nella shouted at GT, the radio announcer was saying something else about the man and dog running from the police. I was looking for my sister’s street, which was off Olympic and east of La Brea.
    “Pull over,” an amplified voice commanded.
    At first I thought it might have been the radio, some kind of joke that the announcer was making about the runaway felon. But then I looked in the rearview mirror. Blue and red lights were flashing. The police car pulled up on the driver’s side.
    “GT!” I shouted. “Get the fuck back in the car.”
    He jumped to obey while I pulled to the curb.
    “Oh shit,” Nella said.
    “What’s wrong, Airy?” GT asked sheepishly.
    “Just be quiet,” I told him. “Stay still and don’t talk crazy.”
    “Okay.”
    In the mirror, I could see the policemen coming up on either side of the car. One white and the other black, they both had their hands on their guns.
    “Please step out of the car,” the black officer, the one on my side, said.
    GT and Nella got out of the passenger’s side. We all moved toward the curb, while passing cars and pedestrians slowed to gawk at us.
    “Let’s see some I.D.,” the black officer said.
    He wasn’t really black. He had dull gold-colored skin with dozens of dark freckles in groups around his face.
    The white cop stood three or four paces away with his palm on the butt of his revolver.
    Nella and I took out our licenses.
    All GT had was the T-shirt wadded up in his fist.
    “What about you?” the black cop asked GT.
    “That’s my cousin, Officer,” I said. “He’s had some emotional problems since the death of his father.”
    “What’s your name?” the cop asked, still addressing GT.
    “Arthur Bontemps Porter, Officer.”
    “Why were you hanging out of the window like that?”
    While the black cop interrogated GT, the other one moved to look in the windows of my car.
    “I was homeless for a while, sir,” GT said. “Airy took me in. I guess I was a little, um, uh, overjoyed.”
    The change in the young man was nearly complete. None of the mindless exuberance showed in his demeanor. His eyes still lacked concentration, but the light of insanity was almost completely extinguished.
    “Walk over to that fire hydrant and back,” the cop said.
    GT did so. The only problem he had was that he was wearing a pair of my old tennis shoes, which were a size or so too big. His walk was a bit sloppy, but he moved in a straight line, as far as I could tell.
    “Touch your nose with the point finger of your left hand,” the policeman commanded.
    GT complied.
    “Now your right.”
    The mad youth was as obedient as Beefeater.
    “He’s your cousin?” the cop asked me.
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And who are you?”
    “Nella Bombury,” Nella said. “I’m Errol’s girlfriend.”
    “What’s wrong with you?” the cop asked, looking directly into GT’s eyes.
    “I just got out, Officer. I was in a—a crazy place, but then they put me back together and let me out, and—and after a while, I called Airy and he took me in. Him and his girl.”
    “Where’s your identification?”
    “I hold on to it,” I said then. “GT loses everything. I’m sorry, but I didn’t think to bring it along today. You see, we’re just going to my sister’s house, and so I didn’t think we’d be needing it.”
    “Where does your sister live?”
    “Two blocks up,” I said. “On Croft.”
    “It’s very dangerous to allow a passenger to lean out of the window when the vehicle is in motion, Mr. Porter,” the policeman said.
    “I’m sorry, Officer. I won’t let it happen again. I promise.”
    “And get him some clothes that