The Gay/Lesbian Adult Video Theater, A Kentucky Colonel’s.

Your dingy apartment complex. You live there.

A retail furniture warehouse outlet.

A robotics and camera discount repair shop.

Two used-car lots. A Pizza Hut.

Yes, despite theory, the monad still exists.

Here you are, right?

A coin and map store. A dance hall.

The parking lot fronting all these establishments. The cars.

Billboards, traffic signals, street lights, street signs,

Telephone wires scoring the sour milk sky,

and so on, out to where parallax brings the tracks and the two sides of the long straight boulevard together. In short, the OC commercial street, which one can see repeated a hundred times anywhere in the county. But no sign of an accident.

“Well?” says Abe.

“Let’s try the address they gave us.”

“But,”—they track around to Emerson Street backing Garden Grove Avenue—“it’s just the back lot for the furniture outlet, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but observe, there’s maybe some aps tucked on top of it there. A look is in order.”

Abe shakes his head. “Looks suspiciously like police work to me.”

They get out of the truck and walk up the outside of the building on concrete stairs that rise above an alley between buildings. The alley is filled with gray metal trash dumpsters and flattened cardboard boxes of immense size. At the top of the stairs is a wooden door that’s been kicked open a lot, once painted an orange that’s faded to dusty yellow. Xavier raises a fist to knock and there’s a sudden yelping, like a dog in pain. They look at each other. Xavier knocks.

“Keep out! Ah, God—get the fuck out of here!” It’s a woman’s voice, hoarse and wild.

“Hmm,” says Xavier. Then he calls out: “Rescue squad, ma’am!”

“Oh! Oh, you! Help! Help!”

Xavier shrugs, tries to open the door. It’s locked. “Your door is locked!”

“Don’t bust it! He’ll evict me—ahh! Ahh! Help!”

“Well, come open up, then!”

“Can’t!”

“Well.” Xavier looks at the door, jiggles the knob. Nothing doing.

“Help, damn you!”

“We’re trying, lady! It’d be easier if you hadn’t locked your door!” X looks around. “Here, Abe, the kitchen window is just over the rail, and it’s open. It looks like you’d just about fit in.”

Abe looks at the little window dubiously. “It’s too small. Besides, it’s hanging out over the alley!”

“No it’s not. Give it a try, I’ll hold on to you.”