NINETEEN“A PERSON could ask this Dr. Sporwell, but do you think I should?” My eyes questioned Ava Gage.
Outside the Surf Club apartment windows, the waves mewed wetly and sadly on the sands. The tide was out and ebbing.
Inside the apartment, the little rice-paper-shaded lamps glowed on the Japanese prints and African masks and Swedish glass. There was a feeling of far-off and long-gone hands shaping these things and embroidering Ava’s dark-green and gold lounging robe that came from a Ceylonese temple. She had her red Titian hair loosened and brushed down onto the brocaded shoulders.
We were alone, with Brad asleep and Steve again off someplace. I’d arrived as Ava was switching off a TV globe-trotting series channeled out of Los Angeles between eleven and eleven-thirty.
She’d offered m
