Bennie and Ardis

This is the third vignette for the book, Where Fools Dare to Tread. Bennie and Artis own the Moonlight Arms, the courtyard bungalow community where Monk lives. It’s a throwback to an older LA, before it became the megalopolis it is now.

“Well I’ll be damned.” Benjamin Madison
was checking me out. “You ever heard of a man named Rory Calhoun?”

“Cowboy star of the Fifties and Sixties
wasn’t he?” I wasn’t absolutely certain of that.

“That he was, worked with him at Universal; I was a set director. Sharp dresser, that man. What can I do for ya?”

“I heard you had a place for rent.”

“True.” Bennie, as I would come to know him, rubbed his chin. I found he did this as he was thinking. Bennie stood about six foot, which, given his age; I assumed well into his eighties, meant at one time he was quite tall. “Of course…