As she rides by

I?
    “Good news, King,” I said. “Walkies!” He looked up and thumped his tail. “Not now; later.” Hmm. Wonder who Rick wanted me to meet. Odds were they were either musicians or painters, because that’s all he hung around with; I don’t think I’d ever seen him with a normal person. Rick was a Canadian wetback who lived not far from me on the other side of the Hollywood Hills in Laurel Canyon , and he was both guitarist and painter, although he was doing more painting than strumming these days for one reason or another. Maybe it was because guitarists seldom worked from live models as far as I knew, although they undoubtedly would if they could. He was an attractive devil, too, old Rick, if you like that lanky Gregory Peck look, which I frankly find a mite obvious.
    Anyway, I’d lied to my pal Rick—my dance card wasn’t as bare as I’d suggested, I did have a few things to do—so, accompanied by my faithful hound, I went out and did them—had an incredibily overpriced hair friction at Kingsley’s, then had lunch at Fred’s, then shot the breeze with Fred’s bookie in residence, and then, back at the office, looked in the telephone book for the number of the Pussycat Co. I then proceeded to dial said number. A recording of a low-pitched, husky woman’s voice said, “Hi, pussycat lovers. You sure have reached the right place. Now playing at our Sunset studio, Less Miserable, featuring the incredible Tracey Lord. At the Riverside, Slave School. At our new West LA Lounge, Boy’s Night Out, starring the late, great Long Dong Sliver himself. And at our Westwood Classic, the classic To Be Or Not To Be, starring Jack Benny and Carole Lombard, plus two Three Stooges shorts. Program times at all cinemas are eleven a.m., two p.m., five p.m., eight p.m., and eleven p.m. If you would like to be placed on our mailing list, please leave your name and address after the beep. Bye, now, lover.”
    After the beep, this lover said, “My name is the Reverend Michael Lendon, and I am president of the Keep Studio City Clean Committee and you will certainly be hearing from me again. Also may I inform you our first demonstration against your plan to erect another of your temples of sin not only here in Studio City but a mere three blocks away from our local high school will take place at two p.m. Sunday. The press has been informed. May God have mercy on you and your fellow trespassers.” I hung up with some dignity, then got on to a lawyer pal of mine, Mel (the Swell), who had fairly recently started up on his own in a handsome old building down off MacArthur Park . After the opening badinage, I asked him if there was any way a private citizen (i.e., me) could prevent the erection (sic) of a public eyesore—i.e., a porno cinema and more than likely a pink and gold porno cinema—right next to said private citizen’s place of work.
    “They got planning permission?” Mel said when he was done choking on his after-dinner mint.
    “I’d assume so,” I said. “Who’d start building even a doghouse these days without one?”
    “So don’t assume,” he said. “Check it out. You know how?”
    “I know how,” I said. “And where. And how much.”
    “So let’s assume,” he said, “whoever it is does have planning permission, and who does own the company, by the way?”
    “Don’t know,” I had to confess.
    “Check it out,” he said. “You know how?”
    “Yes, Mel,” I said. “I know how. And where. And how much. Then we can slap those mothers with an injunction?”
    “No,” Mel said. “Do you know what an injunction is, in law?”
    “No,” I said.
    “It is a court writ,” he said, “issued by a magistrate ordering a specific party either to stop doing something, or not to start doing whatever it is in the first place.”
    “Sounds like just the ticket to me,” I said.
    “No,” he said. “Except in obvious cases like infringement of a well-established brand name, like calling your new drink Seven-and-a-Bit-Up, an injunction is generally considered as the last legal ploy one makes when there is no other alternative.”
    “Oh,” I said.
    “What you are talking about,” he said, “is a temporary restraining order.”
    “Oh?” I said.
    “And what it does is to prevent the guys being restrained from doing whatever it is they’re doing—or are about to do—until a civil court can hold a hearing on whether or not an injunction is merited.”
    “Ah,” I said.
    “The good news