Door Into Summer

Los Angeles was safe from invasion; the invaders wouldn't find a place to park

if you can't measure it, it's not science.

tried to think while my head ached. I had taken a partner once before-but, damnation, no matter how many times you get your fingers burned, you have to trust people. Otherwise you are a hermit in a cave, sleeping with one eye open. There wasn't any way to be safe; just bei

But liking cats is hard to fake to a cat person.

So I told him emphatically what he could do with his orders.

on the right side of thirty

Then I had a gently fiendish idea, inspired by the warm glow of Scotch. It wasn't necessary to sleep until Belie was dead; it was enough, more than enough, and just the fitting revenge on a female to be young when she was old. Just enough younger to rub her nose in it-say about thirty years.

Why not duck out and sleep my troubles away? Pleasanter than joining the Foreign Legion, less messy than suicide, and it would divorce me completely from the events and the people who had made my life go sour. So why not?

the basic notion in writing up claims on an application for patent is to claim the whole wide world in the broadest possible terms, then let the patent examiners chew you down-this is why patent attorneys are born

Of course there was no law requiring him to die in L.A. County. You can die anyplace. They've never managed to regulate that.