Just as we got into our convertible, the owner of the pawnshop came out on the sidewalk. He was a tall, white-haired man with a sloping girth and big hands and cigars stuffed in his shirt pocket. "Hey, you two," he said.

"Sir?" I said.

"That girl has enough trouble in her life. Don't you be adding to it," the owner said.

Jimmie's hands were on top of the steering wheel, his head bent forward. "What the hell are you talking about?" he said.

"Sass me again and I'll explain it to you," the owner said.

"Screw that. What do you mean she's got trouble?" Jimmie said.

But the pawnshop owner only turned and went back inside his building.

The next night Jimmie came in drunk and fell down in the tin shower stall. He pushed me away when I tried to help him up; his muscular body beaded with water, a rivulet of blood running from his hairline.

"What happened?" I said.

"Nothing," he replied.

"Is this about Ida Durbin?"

"That's not what they call her," he said.

"What?"

"Shut up about Ida," he said.

The next morning he was gone before I woke up, but our car was still in the carport. I crossed Seawall Boulevard to the beach and saw him sitting on the sand, shirtless and barefoot, surrounded by the collapsed air sacs of jellyfish.

"They call her Connie where she works. They don't have last names there," he said.

The previous afternoon Ida had called him at the motel and told him that he was a nice fellow, that she knew he would do well in college, and maybe years from now they'd see one another again when he was a rich and successful man. But in the meantime this was good-bye and he mustn't get her confused in his mind with the girl who was right for him.

After she rang off, Jimmie went straight to the pawnshop and told the owner he wanted to buy Ida's mandolin.