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second or third day after that he came back and had me pump five dollars worth of gas into his car. He was living in North Hollywood at the time and, in due course, he and I would get to know one another pretty well.
    O N FEBRUARY 1, 1947 , Betty gave birth to our darling baby daughter. We named her Donna, in honor of my brother Donald. Now that I had another mouth to feed I needed to earn extra money, so I took odd day jobs trimming a tree here, patching up a fence there, fixing a leaking roof, doing a bit of carpentry, painting gutters, cleaning pools, gardening, or doing whatever (or whoever!) came along. My family was never short of anything, and our little daughter thrived. But my life with Betty was pretty dull. Yes, we lived together at the same address, we still had great affection for one another, we still enjoyed sex now and then, but, in actual fact, we began to drift into living separate lives. For one thing my work kept me very busy and, to be quite frank, I was seeing other people, both women and men, frequently.
    Betty was no fool. Even though she never brought it up in conversation she knew what I was up to. And she learned to live with it. She even took phone messages for me at home and not once did she ever ask what my relationship with the caller was. She was such a sweet, considerate woman that she never questioned my whereabouts on those many nights when I didn’t come home. That’s the unique kind of woman that Betty was.
    One evening at the gas station something happened that would herald a whole new enterprise for me. While a group of my friends and other young folks, both male and female, were hanging around, a big car pulled in. I ran out, flashed my big Richfield Oil smile at the driver, and asked him what I could do for him.
    “Fill her up, please,” he said.
    “Sure thing, sir,” I replied.
    While I was wiping down his windshield I noticed him staring at my friends huddled together in a group at the end of the driveway. When I finished I went around to the driver’s side window to collect payment for the gas. The guy must have been in his fifties. He was fiddling with a pile of bills that he had pulled from his wallet. I told him what he owed me for the gas. He didn’t respond and continued fidgeting with the wallet while staring at the group of young folk. He couldn’t take his eyes off them.
    “Will there be anything else, sir?” I asked.
    He nodded in the direction of the group. Speaking very softly and in a carefully honed American yet very British-sounding accent he asked, “That boy over there, he a friend of yours?”
    “Which one?” I responded.
    “The tall one, the blonde,” he replied.
    I looked over at my pals.
    “How old is he?” he asked.
    I began to suspect where all this was going. I told him that the guy was twenty and asked him whether he would like to meet him. He nodded as he handed me the money for the gas, not taking his eyes off my friend. Then I went over to the group and pulled my buddy aside, walking him over to an area where no one could see or hear us.
    “Want to earn some cash tonight, pal?” I asked.
    “Sure thing,” he said. “How?”
    I wandered back over to the car. The driver was clearly anxious to hear what I had to say and seemed a little nervous.
    “He’ll go with you,” I said. “But it’s going to cost you twenty bucks.”
    The man said nothing. He immediately pulled out his wallet again and started counting out some bills.
    “Oh, no, sir,” I said. “Not for me . For him. You can pay him later.”
    He looked at me and nodded. I went back to my blonde friend. I told him to get into the car with the guy, go with him, and do whatever he wanted. Although at first he was unsure of what I was asking of him, he immediately brightened when I told him that it would earn him twenty bucks. Because he was a Marine I knew that he was quite capable of defending himself if the guy turned out to be a weirdo, though it was obvious that he was a