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Fourth of July. There’s only one reason Piss Alley is allowed to exist and why morons like me come here.

It grants wishes.

The way I look at it is this: I can’t shadow-­walk anymore, but I need to go places, get past doors, guards, and alarms. Even Mustang Sally, the highway sylph who knows every road, turn, and shortcut on the continent, can’t help me with that. I need something more direct and desperate. I need Piss Alley.

Asking for a wish is easy. Getting it granted isn’t. The Alley has to be in the right mood and you have to ask the right way. But the basic process is easy.

The walls of Piss Alley are covered with scrawls in paint, chalk, pencil, even blood. You just write your wish on the wall and hope for the best. Of course, just like the rest of the world, a bribe helps. There’s a ’32 black Duesenberg halfway down the alley. The front end is crushed like it was in a head-­on collision, but the passenger compartment and rear are still somewhat intact. The trunk lock is long gone. It’s held closed by a loop of rusting wire. I twist it and get the trunk open.

If anything, the trunk smells worse than the alley. A swarm of flies rushes by my head, taking a break from feasting on old food offerings and the animals that dined on them and died in the trunk. I set a bottle of Aqua Regia in a clear spot by a tire well and wire the trunk closed again. Then I start on the wall.

There isn’t a clear inch on the bricks to ask for a new favor. No problem. I get out the black blade and carve my message over the old ones.

I want to Shadow-­Walk.

There’s a present on the altar.

I saved the world. You fucking owe me.

Not exactly Walt Whitman, but I think Piss Alley will get the gist. There’s nothing to do now but wait and see if it wants what I’m selling.

I go back to the car at the arboretum and drive back home with the windows open, letting my bruised sinuses fill with healing L.A. smog. I stop by Donut Universe to pick up a bag of greasy death. Every time I come here, I think about Cindil. She worked at the place until she was murdered. I rescued her from Hell and I need to give her a call. Adjusting to life back on Earth can be a little . . . well, look at me.

Back at Max Overdrive, I give Candy first crack at the donuts. I take an apple fritter, and Kasabian and Vincent descend on the rest like cruise missiles. They’re watching a weird version of Spider-­Man I’ve never seen before.

“It’s the version James Cameron was supposed to direct,” Kasabian says.

I watch for a few minutes, but I’ve never given much of a damn about poor, pitiful me Peter Parker, so I go upstairs to have a drink with my fritter.

“Aren’t you supposed to be off playing I Spy with Tamerlan’s flunkies?” says Candy.

“Not until tomorrow. My job today is to wait.”

“For what?”

“I’ll know tonight.”

“What are you doing until then?”

“Eating this donut and drinking this drink.”

She closes the laptop and pinches off a piece of her donut between thumb and forefinger. She chews and swallows it.

“I was thinking of taking a break too. Why don’t you pour me a drink and take off your clothes? We can wait on your whatever together.”

“Don’t you have work to do?”

“Why do you think I want your clothes off?”

She doesn’t have to ask twice.

AFTER I’M SURE everyone is asleep, I grab my coat, go downstairs, and head out.

I get halfway through the sales floor when Vincent’s door opens.

“It’s nearly three,” he says. “Where are you going?”

“I just have to check on something.”