He’d gone from a beautiful house in Sherman Oaks to a two-bedroom mission revival in Silver Lake. Kitty could stand at her window and look down into Luke’s living room—could see him watching TV in his boxers and eating Cap’n Crunch right out of the box. And okay, it wasn’t as cool as smoking weed with Seth Rogen or bumping beautifuls with Jamie Foxx, but—like working for Kris “Sly Boy” Streeter—it was a start.

Kitty picked up the goods from the trunk of a Cadillac parked in Norma Triangle (same Caddy every time, different location), then took a bus to East Hollywood and went to work. Twenty minutes in, she made Angelo’s drop: an ounce of crystal packed into the false bottom of a Starbucks cup, tossed into a trash can outside Slick’s Coin-Op Laundry on Melrose. Angelo’s boy arrived moments later. He dug through the trash can and removed the drop. Kitty snapped a photo from across the street—making like she was taking a selfie, although there was no reason for her, or anyone, to take a selfie in this neighborhood. She needed the photo, though, as proof the pickup had been made. Kitty had no dealings with the money side of things. She delivered the goods, that was all. She supposed Ruben—Sly Boy’s muscle, a man-shaped iron girder—collected, and God help the cranker who didn’t pay.

Kitty pocketed her phone, put her board beneath her, and skated away. She’d pushed once—rolled maybe ten feet—when Angelo stepped out from the doorway of Gray’s Marketplace, right in front of her, and she would’ve taken a spill if he hadn’t grabbed her upper arm.

She flipped the front of her board up, caught it in her right palm while trying to pull her left arm loose. But Angelo dug his fingers in and grinned.

“You gotta be more careful, girl.”

His real name was Salvador Gallo, but he had earned the nickname Angelo because of his soft black curls and doll-like good looks. He’d appeared in commercials for Gap and Tommy Hilfiger in the early 2000s, and was a semi-regular on the short-lived ABC sitcom Almost Always. Then his drug usage went from recreational to obscene, and that was the end of his career. Now his curls were laced with dirt and he had black grooves between his teeth. There was a canker on the side of his nose that never healed.

“Hands off, Angelo.”

“Or what?”

Sly Boy had warned her not to engage with the buyers. “Every degree of separation is a degree that will keep you out of prison,” he’d said. “You don’t want these people getting to know you. They will fuck you over if they get the chance.” Most of Kitty’s drops were clean. No contact. But a buyer would surface on occasion, assuming their presence was welcome.