IT WAS a regular chubasco, this storm . . . one of those tropical, torrential cloudbursts that blow up out of Baja California. In La Jolla, the streets were running rivers, and the only electricity burning was the emergency juice in the hospital. Finally I spotted a wan blur under a filling station canopy.
chubascoThe attendant torched his flashlight at me and apologized, “Electric pumps, no gas.”
Seemed the phone system had stayed intact, though, and from inside the station I got Jean Orlando at her home.
“A Miss Lyselle was calling,” she said, “and a Colonel Sabbage kept ringing about every ten minutes; and, oh, Mr. Walter Comfrey was in to see me.”
“You mean Comfrey the cop?”
“He isn’t so bad,” she said. “He’s really pretty nice when you get to know him.”
Well, I should have known
