Page 144

“The best. I love birthdays. Do you love birthdays?”

“I love your birthday,” he says. “Did anyone slip you a little cash at your party? Maybe an envelope or a little something from Grandma?”

He keeps pushing me. I look down and see that he has a knife against my side.

It’s so fucking funny. I can’t help laughing.

He laughs along with me.

“I mean it,” he says. “Give me your cash. All of it.”

He doesn’t sound fun and friendly anymore. I think it makes me sad, but I can’t be sure because I’m still laughing.

He pushes the knife a little harder, so I push him back. Pretty hard, I guess, because he goes flying into a parked car and drops his knife. I stumble over with the Colt in my hand and stick it in his face.

I say, “L.A. sure is pretty at night.”

He’s frozen there on his knees.

“Don’t you think?”

“It sure is,” he says.

“What’s your favorite part?”

He shifts his shoulders nervously.

“The people?”

“The lights,” I say.

“The lights. Yeah. You’re right.”

I pull the last of Howard’s money from my pocket and hold it out to him.

“Take it.”

He hesitates.

“I said take it. You have to. It’s my birthday.”

I keep the gun on him while he reaches for the bills.

When he has them I say, “Get up.”

He does, very slowly. Everything is slow now. It’s like one of those science shows where it takes a droplet a minute to splash into a pool of water.

When he’s on his feet, I put the Colt away and he runs off.

“Go west, young man.”

I’m not sure he heard me or if I even said it out loud. But I’m sure he got the message.

Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me.

Wait. It’s not my birthday. That was a joke.

It occurs to me that I might not get to Max Overdrive.