'It's not necessary, Robin.'
She laughed. 'Go anyway.'
'I don't need to. This is nice.'
'Domestic bliss?'
'Mega-bliss.' I put my arm around her.
She kissed it, then removed it.
'Go, Alex. I don't want to lie here listening to you toss.'
'I won't.'
'You know you will.'
'Being alone is preferable?'
'I won't be. Not in my head. Not with what we've got going for us now.'
I tucked her in bed and went out to the living room to wait. Milo knocked softly just before midnight. He was carrying a hard-shell case the size of an attache and had on a polo shirt, twill pants, and windbreaker. All in black. Regular-guy parody of the L.A. hipster ensemble.
I said, 'Trying to fade into the night, Zorro?'
'We're taking your car. I'm not bringing the Porsche down there.'
I pulled out the Seville; he put the case in the trunk, got in the passenger seat. 'Let's roll.'
I followed his directions, taking Sunset west to the 405 south, merging with hurtling trucks and the red-eye crowd heading out to the airport.
At the junction with the Santa Monica Freeway, I hooked over toward L.A. and traveled east in the fast lane. The highway was emptier than I'd ever seen it, softened to something impressionistic by a warm, moist haze.
Milo lowered the window, lit up a panatela, and blew smoke out at the city. He seemed tired, as if he'd talked himself out over the phone.
I felt weary, too, and neither of us said a word. Near La Brea a loud, low sports car rode our tail, belched and flashed its brights before passing us at close to a hundred. Milo sat up suddenly-cop's reflex and watched it disappear before settling back down and staring out the windshield.
I followed his gaze upward to an ivory moon, cloud-streaked and fat, though not quite full. It dangled before us like a giant yo-yo, ivory mottled with green-cheese verdigris.
'Three-quarter moon,' I said.
'More like seven-eighths. That means almost all the nuts're off.
Stay on the Ten past the interchange and get off at Santa Fe.'
He kept grumbling directions in a low voice, taking us into a broad, silent district of storehouses, foundries, and wholesale jobbers.
No streetlights, no movement; the only vehicles I spotted were penned behind prison-grade security fences. As we'd traveled away from the ocean, the haze had lifted and the downtown skyline had turned chiseled and crisp. But here I could barely make out the shapes, miragelike against the matte-black stasis of the city's outer limits. The silence seemed glum-a failure of spirit. As if L.A.s geographical boundaries had exceeded its energy.
He directed me through a series of quick, sharp turns down asphalt strips that could have been streets or alleys-a maze that I'd never be able to reverse from memory. He'd allowed his cigar to go cold but the
smell of tobacco stuck to the car. Though the breeze streaming in was warm and pleasant, he began raising the window I realized why before he finished: A new smell overpowered the burntcloth stink of cheap leaf.
Sweet and bitter at the same time, metallic, yet rotten. It leaked through the glass. So did noise-cold and resonant, like giant steel hands clapping-scraping the night-lull from somewhere far away.
