"Every bit as good as you hope," said Bag Man.

Relief washed over Byron and brought tears to his eyes. "But you've never read anything of mine."

"How could I?" said Bag Man. "Can't read."

"I may lie, but I never joke."

"Were you lying just now? What you said about my poetry?"

"No, sir."

"What about right then, when you said you weren't lying?"

"That was a lie, of course," said Bag Man. "But don't let logic spoil things for you."

Byron was aware of a strange feeling in his stomach. Nausea? No, not really. Oh, yes. It was anger. A kind of distant, faraway anger. But he couldn't think why he might be angry. Everything was wonderful. This was a great day. Not a speck of traffic. Not a light against them.

Coming down La Cienega he noticed See's Candies. Still open. But he mustn't stop. Dinner hot in the back seat.

He got out of the car and went inside and got a one-pound box of milk patties, those little disks of chocolate-covered caramel. It took forever for the woman to fill each little crinkled-paper cup.

And when he got back to the car, he was really pleased to see how delighted Bag Man was to receive it.

"For me?" he said. "Oh, you just too nice, my man." Bag Man tore open the paper and put two patties in his mouth at once. "I never get this down in Santa Monica."

"They have a Godiva's in the mall at the bottom of the Promenade," said Byron.

"Godiva's? They too rich for my pockets."

There was something wrong with the logic of that, but Byron couldn't think what it was.

Byron drove through the flat part of Baldwin Hills. Modest homes, some of them a little tatty, some very nicely kept—an ordinary neighborhood. But as they started up Cloverdale, the money started showing up. Byron wasn't rich and neither was Nadine. But together they did well enough to afford this neighborhood. They could have afforded Hancock Park, but that would be like surrendering, to move into a white neighborhood. For a black man in LA, it was Baldwin Hills that said you had made it without selling out.