It was close to midnight but this stretch of Sunset was still lively. Music boomed from a neighborhood bar and from passing cars—hectic blasts of sound, a mosaic of genres. Ringtones chimed. A homeless woman screamed something about Jesus Christ. Kitty and Johan walked to the corner of Echo Park Avenue. A mural covered the exterior of the building across the street, amplifying the Latino vibe. Johan took out his phone and snapped a selfie with it. He uploaded it to one of his social platforms with a few deft clicks, then waited a beat, nodded, and slipped the phone into his pocket.

“Five hundred likes already.”

Kitty said, “What do you want from me?”

“Presentation is everything,” Johan said, removing a strand of blond hair from his shirt and letting it float away into the night. “This skateboarding soul-diva vibe you’ve got going on: beautiful, strong, but with an appetite for fun . . . that’s exactly what I’m looking for. I’d like you to work for me.”

Kitty recalled the solid thump of Cal Schifrin’s face meeting the brick wall at Fusion 44, and the way his bloody tooth had skated across the floor toward her.

“No,” she said. “You’re too dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Johan mocked a frown, pretending to consider the adjective, before coming up with another. “I prefer persuasive.”

“No,” Kitty said again.

“Listen, I’m talking about you doing the same thing you do for Sly Boy.” He used his smile again. “No trash cans, though. A different product. A higher class of clientele.”

Kitty opened her mouth to tell him that she wasn’t interested, but the words weren’t there. She stammered for a second, surprised at her hesitation.

“They say Los Angeles is the city where dreams come true. You could be waiting tables one moment, walking the red carpet the next.” Johan made a camera out of his hands and mimed snapping her picture. “That does happen, Kitty. But not often. For every one dream that sparks to life, twenty thousand crash and burn. They should call this the City of Broken Dreams.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“How long are you going to be scratching around for Sly Boy? How long before that brightness inside you fades, and you find yourself on a flight back to Jerkwater?”

“I don’t quit easily.”

“I can keep you dreaming.” He pointed northwest, at the Hollywood Hills perhaps, or at the few stars winking gamely through the light pollution. Then he pulled his cell phone from his pocket again and thumbed the screen. “Six-K likes.”

He showed her: the Cali Viking in Echo Park. A filter emphasized the blackness of his tattoos and the brightness of the mural behind him. Kitty glanced at it, but only for a second. Her gaze snapped back to the man himself. To his blue eyes and slightly skewed face. She couldn’t look away. That illogical science.