There were three Hands brothers that I know of, all sons of the Reverend ( and I use that word with irony) Hands of the Hands of the Lord Mission on Main Street. The oldest(was his name Craig?)was something of an intellectual, a secular humanist, who had moved away from Venice. John Hands (Randy got his name slightly wrong elsewhere on this site) was the middle son, the 'bad boy'. But the first we got to know was Tim, the youngest. Tim was obviously an 'operator' and I'll never know exactly why he came up to Littlejohn and me on the street and made our acquaintance, a scandelous thing to do at the time. In fact, I was so taken aback that I think I warned him that being seen with us could do irrepairable harm to his reputation, but he knew exactly who we were and didn't care. He was only about fourteen, but I wouldn't have been surprised if he had presented his business card and and the pulled a rollodex out of his back pocket and scribbled our phone number on a blank . I don't think I ever saw Tim on the beach but I've got lots of pictures of him on the oceanfront, usually alone. He was a wild card. Considering who his father was, Tim certainly knew all about con games, but if he ever seiously conned me he got away with it. In our society, con men make excellent CEOs.
Come to think of it, maybe Tim was just trying to line up a free phone booth on Cabrillo...