—I caution you, young lady, that the Astrologicon is not to be taken lightly. I suspect the path of your life appears clearly before you—a path that in all probability is popular, convenient, and profitable. But the Astrologicon cares nothing for popularity, convenience, or profit. Rather, like the Oracle at Delphi it will advise you to do what you should regardless of opinion, difficulty, and cost.

He handed the hexagon to Eve and gestured to a slot in the machine marked by four converging arrows. Then he put his hands together and bowed.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Eve dropped the token in the slot.

There was a buzz followed by a whir. The needles on the temperature gauges began to climb and after a blast of steam the axles of the engine set in motion the pistons and pinwheels. The proprietor led them down the length of the machine, pointing to each kinetic phase—to the interpolator and the centrifuge and the epistemolog—until with the ring of a desk clerk’s bell, an envelope fell into a sterling silver toast caddy.

The envelope was addressed in fine calligraphy to Evelyn Ross—November 5th, 1938. Eve thanked the proprietor. Then she led Olivia to an uncrowded spot under a lamppost and placed the envelope in her hand.

—Livvy, whatever this says—I think you should follow it to the letter.

Olivia didn’t smile at the suggestion. She only nodded and closed her fingers around the envelope.

Then the two continued their progress past the roller coaster toward the very end of the pier where they could now see the ocean-going casinos bobbing outside the city limits. And it felt to Olivia as if the continent was being tilted and all of California was going to slip into the sea. And though she couldn’t remember the exact reference—and whether it was from mythology or the Bible—she knew instinctively as they approached the pier’s limit that she mustn’t look back.

Litsky

THE GIRLS ON THE dance floor at El Rey’s came in all his favorite colors. There were girls from across the Rio Grande with tequila-colored skin who liked to wag their fingers and shake their heads in coy dissuasion. There were girls from Alabama and New Orleans who had skin the color of bourbon and dispositions twice as sweet. And the girls from the islands came as black as a glass of rum molasses. Ochre, tawny, bronze, beaver, russet, pistol, pitch: Litsky had a taste for them all. So what did he care, if he was the only cracker on Shepherd Avenue. What did he care, if he was the only cracker in all of L.A.

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