She walked me around the house, using a small silver flashlight to point out several areas where bushes had grown against the house, holding moisture and rotting some of the siding. I leaned on the wall at the third place she showed me, feeling it flex inward.

“Part of the frame is bad, too,” I said.

“Is that a big job?”

“Depends on how much of the structure needs to be replaced. No way of telling for sure until the siding is removed.”

In the back, we walked up onto a wooden deck that ran the width of the house and overlooked the Linnie Canal. It was surrounded by the remains of a balustrade like the one that enclosed the front veranda. Some of the balusters had rotted at the top and bottom and fallen out. Others were leaning. The whole structure was uneven and wobbly.

“This is probably the biggest job,” she said. “What do you think it would cost to tear all this out and build a new deck and dock?”

“I’ll have to see it in the daytime.”

“I’m embarrassed to have anyone over the way it is now,” she said. “But I think it will be a beautiful place to entertain when it’s fixed up. I just love these old canals.”

Strands of twinkle lights, stretched across neighboring docks and patios, reflected brightly in the black water. Canoes and paddleboats bobbed gently, and a mother duck with half a dozen yellow ducklings paddled past en route to some reeds where they would spend the night. A couple of houses down, a white wooden footbridge arched over the canal, adding to the storybook atmosphere.

“It is a beautiful spot,” I said. “Is there anything else that needs to be done? Anything inside?” I was itching to root through a drawer or two while she got me a glass of water or used the bathroom.

“There are a few small jobs inside,” she said. “But the main stuff is all outside. After the repairs, the house will need to be painted and it may need a new roof, too-one of your specialties. It’s silly to try and look at that in the dark, though. I should have asked you come earlier, while it was still daylight.”

“I don’t mind coming back,” I said again.

“I know,” she said, softening her voice and standing close to me so that her breasts just touched my chest. “I just hate to waste your time. Could I possibly make it up to you by taking you out to dinner? If you’re not busy, I mean. I’m sick of ashram food. I would really love a good piece of fish.”

I wondered if this was what she had in mind all along. Not that I cared. Taking her out to dinner, having a chance to talk, was perfect for me.

“I’d love to go to dinner,” I said. “But you’ll have to drive. I walked over from where I’m staying at the beach, so I don’t have my car.”

“That’s no problem,” she said, putting her hand on my upper arm and giving it a squeeze. “We can take mine.”

The back door was locked, so we walked around to the front. She went in to get her keys and a wrap, while I stepped back and looked at the house from the curb. Sometimes I wished I still was in the remodeling business. I missed the pleasures of carpentry and concrete work, of analyzing and repairing structures so that they were better-looking and stronger than they had been to begin with.

Evermore’s white Lincoln was parked on the street, two houses down.

“Do you mind driving?” she said as we walked to the car.

“Not at all.” Taking the keys from her manicured hand, I unlocked the passenger door and held it open while she got in, then walked around and slid in beneath the oversize wheel, taking the spot Jimmy Z had occupied two days before on the journey to Indian Wells. The bench seat was light-blue leather, soft and smooth and well conditioned. When I turned the key, the electronic dash display lit up like a video game and the Bose stereo popped on, playing saxophone jazz full of tender emotion. The intimate air was scented with Evelyn’s lilac perfume.

Lincolns don’t drive worth a shit, but they are nice inside.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

She wanted to go to the Chart House in Malibu. I swung over to Pacific Avenue and followed it a mile north to where it changed names, becoming Nelson Way and then Ocean Boulevard. A block south of Colorado Avenue, we swooped down onto the Coast Highway, passing beneath the antique structure of the Santa Monica Pier with a light stream of Beemers, Mercedeses, and middle-aged rich guys on Harleys returning to their straitjacketed lives after a weekend of desperate play in the Southern California sun.

Past the little ghetto of multimillion-dollar shacks that sits on the sand below Palisades Park, the world opened up to our left. Beyond its white fringe, the black ocean stretched in a long shallow arc to lace the beaches of Oahu and Japan. To our right, ragged bluffs rose up against the starry sky, hugging the road as it unspooled along the curve of the coast.

At the seaside restaurant an aging valet crept away in the Lincoln while I escorted Evelyn inside with my right hand in the silky small of her back. The maître d’ addressed her by name with a warm smile and a half bow. We were promptly escorted to a window table with a white cloth and candle. Just beyond the plate glass, ten feet below us, the nighttime surf, always exciting, crashed against a boulder breakwater. Farther out, but still within range of the restaurant’s spotlights, smaller rocks were bobbing and diving like seals in the heaving water.

“Where are you staying at the beach?” Evelyn asked after the waiter brought her a beaded glass of chardonnay.

“With friends,” I said, briefly. I was drinking O’Doul’s. “How long have you lived in Venice?”

“I bought the house in November,” she said, and took a pretty good slug of the wine.

“What made you want to move there?”

She looked at me with her eyes liquid, deep, slightly blurred by alcohol. I wondered how much wine she’d had before I arrived at her house. “It’s a long story,” she said.

“We have all night.”

She kept her shining eyes on mine for a few more seconds, then shook her head. “You don’t want to hear about my problems.”

“I’d be happy to listen,” I said. “But I don’t want to pry.” She was either going to open up or she wasn’t.

“I appreciate that.” She placed her hand on mine. I wasn’t sure if she meant my willingness to listen, my discretion, or both.

The food was ambrosial. We started with crisp Caesar salads and crusty bread. She had sautéed Dover sole. I had grilled swordfish. We split a delectable side dish of creamed spinach with baked crumbs on top. She had two more glasses of chardonnay, amber and sparkling in the candlelight.

“I know it’s just a chain restaurant,” she said as we were finishing, “but I love this spot.” She was looking out the window, through our shared reflection, at the waves breaking on the beach beyond the boulders. Two sea lions had swum in and flopped on the sand. “The ocean is so wild and beautiful here.”

“It’s a great restaurant,” I said conversationally. “That was the best meal I’ve had in weeks.”

She didn’t look at me when I spoke, continuing to gaze out the window.

“My daughter was conceived on that beach down there where the sea lions are,” she said quietly, more as if reminding herself than informing me. When I didn’t say anything, she looked over at me. “It was the most beautiful day of my life. There was nothing out here then, just the sea and sky. We spread our blanket where the rocks sheltered us from the road and made love naked in the sun. His family was one of the biggest landowners in the Central Valley, and my grandfather Phelan was mayor of San Francisco at the turn of the century and a United States senator after that, and there we were, screwing like two peasants on the seashore.” She laughed, a bit drunkenly. “I hope I’m not embarrassing you.”

“Not at all,” I said. “When was that? When was your daughter conceived?”