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“Be cool, Vincent. This will be over soon.”

I shouldn’t have put the na’at away. The fucker has his finger on the trigger of a snub-­nose .357 pressed behind Vincent’s left ear. I’m fast, but I’m not fast enough to stop the gun from firing. The extra good news is that while I still have a lot of the $500 Julie paid me, it’s back at Max Overdrive on the bedroom dresser.

“You, talker, give me your cash,” says Mr. 357.

“I don’t have any.”

I hold up the keys to the Crown Vic.

“Want a car?”

The crackhead shifts his stance nervously, pressing the gun hard enough into Vincent’s skull he might be tunneling for gold.

“Don’t fuck with me,” he says. “Give me the money.”

I speak slowly, like I’m trying to explain differential equations to a Chihuahua.

“I’d like to, but I don’t have any.”

Mr. 357 keeps hold of Vincent, but points the gun at me.

“Last chance, cocksucker,” he says.

“Really, man, I want to help.”

I measure the distance between us. It’s too far to grab him before he fires.

“Fuck it,” he says in a tone that I recognize.

As the gun goes off, Vincent screams and I jump to the right, hoping to slip past the bullet.

And I come down in a hurricane. Grit stings my eyes. I put up an arm to keep the wind from blinding me. Overhead, the sky swirls like oil in black water. Things blow by around my ankles. Trash it looks like, but trash that’s alive. The street is still the street, but time seems to be moving very slowly or I’m moving very fast. The slug from the .357 emerges from the barrel like a snail out for an evening stroll. Things boom in the distance. L.A. disappears. Crumbles to the ground. Things like swarms of insects land on the rubble and build the city again. Then it falls apart. And is rebuilt. Ants up the block use the living garbage to assemble other things. Horses. Rivers. Air.

This is it. The note really meant to take a sidestep, right out of reality and into the machinery that keeps the show running. This is the world, just from a different vantage point. Behind the scenes, where you aren’t supposed to peek.

I lean into the wind, struggle a few steps until I’m behind Vincent. I get out the na’at, and this time I take a step to the left. The wind lets up. The sound of the gun going off deafens me. I swing the na’at like a cosh at Mr. 357’s head. His skull makes a satisfying cracking sound and he falls like a hippo with the bends.

Vincent whirls around and looks at me.

“Where did you go?”

“Into the wings. Did you miss me?”

I push Vincent to the car and kick the crackhead’s pistol into Piss Alley. Let’s see if he or the cops have the balls to go in and pick it up. My guess is no.

Jamming the key in the ignition, I start the Crown Vic and head back through Echo Park. Somewhere in the distance, I can hear sirens. When the crackhead tells the cops about the guy who disappeared right before his eyes, they’re as likely to 5150 him as arrest him. Maybe vacationing for a few days in the loony bin will do him some good. The food can’t be worse than any other lockup and I bet the beds are better than jail. Hell, if the county throws us out of Max Overdrive, maybe I can get us all locked up together. It ain’t the Chateau Marmont, but it’s better than trying to live in the car.

And it will have a/c.

I DROP VINCENT back at Max Overdrive and head for Tamerlan Radescu’s place. I need to get as much done tonight as I can, before I turn into a bump on a log tomorrow.

The address on the slip Brigitte gave Julie was on Elrita Drive, near Mulholland. Of course Tamerlan lives in Laurel Canyon. Where else would the prick be?

I head down the winding roads through the hills, past gated palaces with circular drives and fences out back to keep the coyotes from eating the pets. Dump the car on Laurel Canyon Boulevard and go the rest of the way on foot.

The driveway is so long that I can’t see Tamerlan’s house from the road. I’d hop the Spanish tile fence out front, but there will be surveillance and alarms, and maybe even armed security. Instead, I hide in a shadow and take one step to the right.

The hurricane hits me again and I’m backstage. The sky is a whirlpool of glistening oil. The living garbage blows by. Some piles at my feet, tossed by the wind to land on my ankles. They touch me, run their smashed and crumpled bodies up my legs, trying to figure out what I am. Insects destroy and reconstruct the mansion as I watch. The fence disintegrates and I step past it before the insects have a chance to rebuild it.