He and David and Johnboy and Frankie were still at the bar when it closed at a little past two. They were overanalyzing a movie called We Don’t Live Here Anymore. They finally more or less stumbled outside and exchanged Hollywood hugs on the street next to Johnny’s fucking Bentley—talk about A-list—the spoils of the last movie he’d produced, a 400-million-dollar grosser worldwide, which made all the rest of them sick because all he’d done was buy a dipshit graphic novel for fifty thousand then sign up the Rock for ten mil. Genius, right? Yep—’cause it worked.

“Love ya, man. You’re the best, you sick, obnoxious, ostentatious bastard. You too, Davey!” he yelled as the silver Bentley pulled away from the curb and sped west.

“I know—I’m just a bastard right now,” David yelled back. “But I have dreams of being sick, obnoxious, and ostentatious, too. And talented—which is what’s holding me back in this town.”

“Hey, man—I hear you, I feel ya,” he yelled.

“Seeya, A-list! Ya hack!”

“I’m just a storyteller!” he yelled back.

Then he was kind of floating down a side street to his own car, a seven-year-old Beamer. Not a Suburban. He was definitely three sheets to the wind. Happy as a pig out of a blanket—humming Jimi Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary.” An in-joke that only he would get.

Until suddenly he began to sob, and he couldn’t make himself stop, not even when he was sitting on the lawn of some grungy apartment building with his head down between his legs, bawling like a baby.

And he was thinking, Just one more, just one.

One more kill and I’ll be good.

Chapter 100

Chapter 100

THE NEXT MORNING, he couldn’t sleep, and he drove up and down Melrose—past L’Angelo, which used to be Emilio’s; the Groundling Theater where Phil Hartman got his start; Tommy Tang’s; the original Johnny Rockets; the Blue Whale. His city, man. His and Proud Mary’s.

It was around 5:30 or so when he bounced into the Starbucks on Melrose, which used to be The Burger that Ate LA back in the day. Man, he did not like Starbucks, but they were open, the greedy little Yuppie bastards. The numbers dictated that they be open, right? The numbers ran everything these days.

And here he was—proving the number crunchers right. Five-thirty in the A.M. and he was already making their day.

God, he despised these dipshit coffee places, the new McDonald’s, overpriced rip-offs. He remembered when a cup of coffee was fifty cents, which seemed about right. But “Sumatra blend”—now that was worth two-fifty if it was worth a nickel. For a tall, which really meant a small.