I nodded and gave Suzie another pat on her head. She sniffed at me.
“I’ve got a wild idea,” Vera said. “Why don’t you give Buttermilk Suzie a good home?”
That’s when I realized why she gave me the tour in the first place. “I can’t. I’m allergic. Plus I travel way too much to have a pet,” I lied.
She closed the cage. “If a golden retriever comes in, I’ll let you know.”
I thanked her, then got the hell out of there.
My next stop was to hit the Western Union in Costa Mesa. It wasn’t a full-fledged Western Union office like I’d expected but rather a payday-loan store adjacent to a tanning salon nestled in a strip mall. The establishment offered the usual assortment of items for customers with questionable credit: pay-as-you-go cell phones, calling cards, and high-interest short-term loans
