“Yeah. At a drive-in in La Grange.” Kitty raised her eyebrows. “First and last date with that fucking guy.”

“Remember the scene where the dude’s severed head bounces down the basement steps?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Thonk-thonk-thonk. Hit every fucking step on the way down. Like a goddamn Slinky.”

“Yeah. It’s etched into my mind.”

“Denny did that.” Luke’s eyes flared with excitement. “One take. No CGI. You know how hard it is to get the head to hit every step? He used ball bearings and raw beef liver. Had to get the weight exactly right.”

Kitty frowned and drank her beer, trying not to dwell on Luke’s enthusiasm for severed heads.

“Anyway,” Luke continued. “I bailed Denny out of a gambling debt to the tune of seventeen thousand dollars. This was back in the day. He’ll never be able to pay me back, which means I can always call on him for a favor.”

“What can he do?” Kitty asked.

“He’s made a shit-ton of pictures,” Luke replied. “Knows a lot of people. I can ask him to get you face time with an agent. Hopefully a lunch meeting. That way, the referral comes from Denny, not me.”

“You’d do that?”

“I owe you big, Kitty. It’s the least I can do.”

A grin stretched across Kitty’s face. It felt, for a moment, like all of her—a Cheshire Cat on the hood of Luke’s old Dodge, beaming into the soupy night sky. Something dislodged inside her, too. A tension. A reserve. The space around her dreams expanded.

“Thank you, Luke,” she said. “Holy shit, thank you.”

“A referral isn’t a guarantee,” Luke said. “This is Hollywood. Anything and nothing can happen. And once you’re in front of the agent, you’re on your own. Just, you know . . .” He shrugged, a touch bashful. “Be your winning self.”

“I’m hungry,” Kitty said. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“Yeah? Well, you may want to be careful who you share that willingness with.” Luke finished his beer, wiped his lips with the back of one hand. “The big bad wolf may be in prison, but there are still a lot of fucking dogs out there.”

Kitty quit her “courier” job two nights later, but maintained her working connection to Sly Boy. The possibility of lunch with a talent agent may have encouraged this decision, but it wasn’t the only thing. She lingered on what the Viking had said to her. Hopping between garbage cans. My little raccoon. She didn’t want to be a raccoon. She wanted to fill the sky with light. You deserve better.

And maybe she could have shouldered the indignity for a month or three, or at least until she started getting regular auditions, but a couple of things happened that fast-tracked the move.

The first was Angelo Gallo, who’d bumbled toward her from a shadowy doorway, cupping his crotch, high on crystal.