Now Luke emerged from the garage, carrying an Adirondack chair in both arms. He was also dressed in boxers, but with a baggy Black Sabbath tee that dropped to his ass.

“Almost there, muchacho,” Luke said, and launched the chair. It landed on top of the Ventura Knights poster. “One quick minute.”

This exchange lasted another twenty seconds, give or take, with Luke and the neighbor snapping at each other like small dogs. Then the neighbor retreated to his poky little house and slammed the door. It would have been amusing at any other time—these two men sounding off in their underwear—but Kitty couldn’t get beyond the obvious: that this was the actor in the final moments of his life. Unless, by chance, the neighbor’s intervention had somehow derailed his plans.

But no.

Luke had thrown his belongings onto the lawn, and kept the driveway clear, so that he could drive his car—a dented Dodge Caliber, not the Tesla of yesteryear—into the garage. He did so now, buzzing the driver’s-side window down as he pulled forward. Kitty watched from her third-floor vantage point, one hand covering her mouth, as the Caliber rolled into the freshly cleared space.

The brake lights flared briefly. The tailpipe trembled and fumed.

Kitty imagined Luke reaching for the clicker clipped to the sun visor, activating the garage door, wiping tears from his cheeks with his other hand. The picture had no sooner entered her mind when the door started down on its tracks.

“Oh man. This shit is happening.”

The bottom of the garage door met the flagstone driveway, forming a near-perfect seal. Kitty pushed away from the window, still tired but decidedly not tired. Adrenaline for the win!

“I can’t even,” she said, but she picked up her skateboard and went to him.

Luke’s house in Sherman Oaks had an eight-foot steel gate with an intercom system, but here his driveway met the sidewalk like every other schmuck’s. Kitty took it at speed, bending her knees to absorb the uneven surface through the wheels of her skateboard, adjusting her balance to account for the slope. She hopped off at the bottom, kicked the tail of the board, and caught it beneath her arm. The garage door was windowless, buckled at the bottom where Luke had doubtless thumped his car into it. Kitty heard the Caliber’s poisonous engine grumbling on the other side.

“I don’t need this shit, Luke,” she said.

Although it occurred to her that maybe she did, because the Viking had been knocked off the top spot in her mind, and that was a good thing. She could take control again, get this day—her sense of self—back on track. Jesus, she might even sleep later.

But first, she had to save this washed-up actor’s life.