A few days after he died my father sent me a message. It arrived through a family friend named Ulrich who for years would drop by my father’s house to have a drink and play backgammon.  This was 25 years ago. Ulrich always wore a school-boy blazer and an ascot; he’d once been a Broadway actor and appeared in several musicals. Later, he became a horticulturist. He married my father’s long time literary agent, Lea, and eventually they left Hollywood for a secluded life up the coast, in the foothills above a place called Zuma Beach. They had a fabulous garden, and occasionally we’d drive up for the afternoon to see it, and also to have a ‘Martini Bugler’, which Ulrich named after the Scarlet Bugler you find in the chaparral of the coastal mountains. He would give you a chilled glass, plunk in a huge red Moroccan olive, and then like a priest at the rail mumble, “This is my body of the New Testament given for you and for many, for the pleasure of our sins….” A couple of those Buglers and you were done. Afterwards, we’d go across the highway, down to the beach to swim...