The snarl of a muffler did it. Kitty blinked and stumbled back a step, looking up to see the Mustang pull a U-turn and rumble up to the curb.

“My ride,” Johan said, and brushed past Kitty. “Think about what I said.”

“Sure, whatever,” she said, but her words were lost beneath the Mustang’s growl.

“And don’t worry about trying to find me.” Johan dropped into the passenger seat, then closed the door and looked at her through the open window. “I’ll find you.”

Another snarl, and the Mustang pulled away. It rumbled northwest on Sunset, out of sight before it was out of earshot. Kitty stood in one spot, swaying in a light breeze, only moving when a piece of trash tumbled across the sidewalk and got caught beneath her sneaker.

2
Suicide

Kitty got back to her apartment at 1:47 a.m., wanting only to sleep, to fall into a dreamless, concrete state and not wake until the date had changed.

It had been a long night. And fierce. The Viking had gotten under her skin. She closed her eyes and he was there. I can keep you dreaming. So arrogant. So self-important. Of all the things he’d said—and the violence she’d seen—this was what bounced around her mind and kept her from sleeping (from dreaming, ironically).

She lay in bed, watching the clock on her cell phone tick off the minutes: 2:28 . . . 2:29 . . . I can keep you dreaming . . . 2:30 . . . 2:31. A radio played in a neighboring apartment, at a volume she would never have picked up during the day, but in the still of night it came through clearly. She heard Young Thug and the Weeknd and Roddy Ricch. A breeze meandered through the urban hillside and shook the palms beyond her windows.

2:55.

I can keep you dreaming.

3:16.

“Get him out of your head, girl. Come on.”

At 4:06, Kitty grabbed her phone, thinking she’d call her mama—7:06 in Louisville, Mama would be awake, making breakfast—but instead she found the Cali Viking on Instagram. Three-point-two million followers. She saw the selfie he’d taken with the Ricardo Mendoza mural in Echo Park, now up to 14K likes. There were hundreds of other photos: a gallery of vanity and entitlement.

She didn’t click “follow.”

4:42. Kitty put her phone down. She’d decided not to call her mama, although she wanted to hear her voice more than anything. Kitty was too tired to make any sense, though, and Mama would only worry.

The neighbor’s radio had been switched off. It was as quiet as it ever got in this part of the city. The palm trees rattled, the traffic rumbled and hissed. Kitty would prefer the roar of the Pacific, or the coyotes howling in the hills, but she could live with this for now.