Peter Russell, stocky and graying, stood on the sidewalk and squinted at the text message on his cell phone, barely visible in the afternoon sun on Ventura Boulevard.
He lifted his round glasses above small, amused eyes, and brought the phone closer to see the display more clearly.
Paul is dead. He flashed on his youth, when for a week he had sincerely believed that Paul was dead: Paul McCartney. I am the walrus. But he had misread the phone’s blocky letters. The message was actually Phil is dead.
That shook him. He knew only one Phil. Peter had not talked with Phil Richards in a month, but he refused to believe that the message referred to his best friend of thirty-five years, the kinder, weaker, and almost certainly more talented of the Two Ps. Not the Phil with the thirty-two-foot Grand Taiga motor home, keeper of their eternal plans for the World’s Longest Old Farts Cross-country Hot Dog Escapade and Tour.
Please, not that Phil.
He hesitated before hitting callback. What if it was a joke, a bit of cell phone spam?
Peter drove a vintage Porsche 356C Coupe that had once been signal red and was now roughly the shade of a dry brick. He fumbled his key and almost dropped the phone before unlocking the car door.
