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said, ‘Come on, Daffy,
it’s okay. He’s not bothering me.’
    ‘May I walk along?’ asked Paul.
    They continued northwards along
Camino Del Mar, between the rustling yuccas, waving occasionally to kids they
knew who were hanging out beside the bars and hotels and stores along the
strip. One group was gathered around a VW Beetle which had just been resprayed
in ruby metallic flake and decorated with airbrushed pictures of surfers and
Western heroes. There was a strong smell of marijuana in the air, mingled with piña-colada
suntan lotion.
    Paul seemed incredibly straight, and
yet Susan felt that there was something strange about him, something almost
unreal. When he spoke, she felt that she could anticipate everything that he
was going to say, and in a peculiar way she felt that she had met him before,
although she wasn’t sure when. It didn’t seem to be necessary to get to know
him. They talked from the very beginning as if they were long-time
acquaintances.
    ‘I’ve been assigned by the Tribune to write a series of feature
articles on young people’ said Paul. ‘Each of the articles is supposed to cover
a different aspect of the way that young people think and react. I guess you
might call it a kind of psychoanalysis of youth. Well, it sounds pretty corny
stuff, but I think that if it’s written and researched properly, it doesn’t
have to be. In fact, I think it could be really enlightening.’
    ‘You want to write about me!’ asked Susan, more curious than
flattered.
    ‘Well – to come straight to the
point – one of the articles has to do with death, and how young people cope
with it.’
    ‘How do you mean?’ Susan asked him.
    ‘I mean, how young people come to
terms with losing somebody they love. Their parents, maybe, like you did...’
    ‘How did you know that?’
    ‘I’m sorry. I thought I recognised
your name when the police passed me the list of witnesses to what happened down
there on the beach. I looked you up in the morgue. Your parents were killed in
a car-crash, weren’t they, over at Lake Hodges?’
    Susan nodded. ‘I didn’t realise I
was quite so famous,’ she said, not without a touch of bitterness, although she
knew that Paul hadn’t meant to upset her.
    ‘The thing is,’ Paul continued, ‘you
not only lost your parents, you saw a complete stranger lying dead on the
beach. It would be interesting for me to compare your reaction to each of these
events: the death of someone you loved, and the death of someone you didn’t
even know. I’d like to know how you really felt, and how you feel now.’
    ‘Isn’t that pretty ghoulish?’ Daffy
demanded.
    ‘Well, maybe it is,’ Paul admitted,
‘and if Susan doesn’t want to have anything to do with it – that’s as far as it
goes. But death is a part of life, and there isn’t any point in trying to hide
away from it. I think that other young people – if they read about Susan and
how she’s handled those tragedies – well, they may find it easier to cope with
their own experiences of death.’
    Daffy pulled a face. ‘Sounds like
bull time, if you’ll pardon my French.’
    But Susan said, ‘I don’t know. Maybe
we could talk about it some more.’
    ‘Maybe this evening?’ Paul asked
her. ‘Supposing I buy you dinner, on the Trib.’
    ‘Okay, then. Where?’
    ‘You know Bully’s North? I’ll meet
you there at seven.’
    Susan thought about it, and then
nodded yes. ‘Okay. The only thing is, I have to be home at nine-thirty. That’s
the house rule.’
    ‘I know,’ said Paul.
    Daffy was frowning ferociously – her
‘for-Christ’s-sake-be-careful’ face. But Susan, without knowing why, felt safe
with Paul, and reassured. She didn’t even think to ask him how he could
possibly have known that she had to be home by half-past nine.
    ‘I left my car at the Oceanside
Hotel,’ said Paul. ‘I’ll catch you later, okay?’
    He crossed the street, and made his
way back along Camino Del Mar towards the