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“I don’t know what’s going on either. I’m just trying to cover all the bases.”

“You’re going off to get killed and leaving me and Chihiro to fend for ourselves. We don’t even have the store to go back to.”

I head across the parking lot.

“I’ll try to be back by dark. Just give her the note if I’m not.”

The Crown Vic is still parked by the Museum of Death. I forgot I left it in a metered spot. There are about fifty tickets and a tow-­away notice on the windshield. I throw them all in the gutter.

My right arm is still pretty useless, so I have to lean over and start the car with my left. I didn’t take any of Allegra’s pills because they’d make me too loopy to drive, which already makes me dislike Wormwood goddamn Investments.

I drive south, left-­handed all the way. Am I nervous or just on autopilot? The oil fields seemed to appear out of nowhere just a few minutes after I left the hotel, but I know I’ve been driving for at least half an hour.

I turn on Stocker Street and see an open gate to the fields. I’m not that stupid. I park on the shoulder of the road around the corner and go through the gate on foot.

Inside are a few sheet-­metal buildings, a ­couple of trailer offices, breaker boxes, and a scattering of porta-­potties. All around me, the oil pumps rise and fall like those stupid drinking-­bird toys. ­People don’t think of L.A. as an oil town, but they’ve been sucking crude out of the ground for over a hundred years. More ­people have died for these fields than in all the gangland gunfights and hits in L.A. The Mob tried briefly to make a move on them. Oil was the only money game that managed to completely and utterly shut them out. That’s how much muscle petroleum has always had in this town.

I come around a corner and into a scene I’d expect only Samael could pull off.

Food trucks are lined up in a semicircle. Mexican, Korean, southern, and a few others. At the end of the line are a ­couple of trucks that look like they’re handing out desserts.

In the middle of the semicircle, on the packed dirt ground, is a long dining table set with crystal glasses, and expensive-­looking china and cutlery. Eight ­people, four men and four women, move between the trucks and the table. They’re in suits and evening gowns. They all stare at me when I come around the corner.

A bald man with his jacket off and sleeves rolled up heads in my direction. Right behind him is a dark-­skinned woman pretty enough to make Salma Hayek blush. It’s all plastic surgery, of course. The tightness of her face is a dead giveaway. The man has had work too. When he smiles, enough of his face doesn’t move that I bet he has his own in-­house Botox Dr. Feelgood. Still, this is no time to get judgmental. With my limp, gimpy arm and dirty boots, what do I look like to them? A Victorian street urchin with his nose pressed against the window, hoping for some scraps of their Christmas goose.

“Stark,” says the man, extending his hand. “Thanks for coming. I’m Geoff Burgess. And this is Eva Sandoval.”

He’s not the same Burgess I saw at the fight club, but there’s a decent enough resemblance. I shake both of their hands and look around.

“This is quite a spread. You always eat like this?”

“Not at all,” says Burgess.

“Geoffrey is just showing off because we’re having such an important guest,” says Sandoval. She takes my good arm and walks me over to the food trucks. I wonder if Sandoval got on my left out of old-­world charm or to make sure I can’t reach the Colt. Burgess walks on my right. I’m surrounded. Politely, but still surrounded.

“I hope you’re hungry,” says Sandoval.

“What do you recommend?”

She smiles at me.

“I hear you’ve developed a taste for Japanese. Maybe some sushi?”

A Chihiro joke. Great. We’re already starting with the veiled threats. Or was that just a little rich-­­people humor to remind me that no one has secrets from shits with enough money?

I look over at the southern truck.

“How’s the fried chicken?”

Burgess says, “Outstanding. That’s what I had. Beer batter with enough cayenne to wake you up, but not send you to the emergency room.”

“That’s for me, then.”

Burgess raises a hand, and when we get to the truck a leg and thigh are waiting for me in a paper tray. I take it and some napkins and follow my hosts to the far end of the dining table. Before I can sit down, the other lunch guests get to their feet and applaud something. I look around and realize it’s me. The applause doesn’t last long, but it’s still unnerving. The last time anyone gave me a standing ovation was in the arena in Hell.

“Don’t mind them,” says Sandoval. “They want you to know how happy we all are to finally meet you.”

I nod, spread out a napkin on my lap.