Umney's Last Case

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It was one of those spring mornings so L. A. -perfect you keep expecting to see that little trademark symbol – (R) – stamped on it somewhere. The exhaust of the vehicles passing on Sunset smelled faintly of oleander, the oleander was lightly perfumed with exhaust, and the sky overhead was as clear as a hardshell Baptist's conscience. Peoria Smith, the blind paperboy, was standing in his accustomed place on the corner of Sunset and Laurel, and if that didn't mean God was in His heaven and all was jake with the world, I didn't know what did.

Yet since I'd swung my feet out of bed that morning at the unaccustomed hour of 7:30 a. m., things had felt a little off-kilter, somehow; a tad woozy around the edges. It was only as I was shaving – or at least showing those pesky bristles the razor in an effort to scare them into submission – that I realized part of the reason why. Although I'd been up reading until at least two, I hadn't heard the Demmicks roll in, squiffed to the earlobes and trading those snappy one-liners that apparently form the basis of their marriage.

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