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I have lunch here every Wednesday with Moose Malloy and Lillian Saddlebury. Moose was first created in Raymond Chandler's novel Farewell, My Lovely. Mike Mazurki recreated Moose on film. Twenty-five years later he has opened this restaurant on the cover of the paperback edition--a long moonlit view across MacArthur Park where the Elks Building looms ominously in the eerie blur that falls between art and archæology.

The first time Lillian Saddlebury came to the Cauliflower Alley Club she was Ilene Segalove, but Mazurki introduced her as Lillian Saddlebury, my assistant girlfriend. Wrestlers take as many liberties with names and titles as correspondence artists. Like many things in LA that Ilene Segalove is not, the Elks Building is a tall blond tower with knockout faces carved in its facade.

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