She was smart enough to leave at the same time as the old man, however, and Clay and Savy departed minutes later, leaving the property abandoned but for the restless soul in the Generator. Clay drove the predawn streets, finding a street sweeper here, a jogger there, and as they drew closer to Savy’s neighborhood, hoodlums parting company or a prostitute walking home.
“I think we have to come to a grim reality,” Clay said stiffly. “The only way we can resist them is to put the band on hiatus. With Karney and the Demons out of commission, the Hailmaker will need to find the next big thing quickly, right? If we refuse to play, he’ll move on to some pop star.”
To this, Savy said nothing, didn’t even blink her eyes, and Clay feared she was either in shock or, worse, disagreeing with him. Finally, her chin rose and fell. “The price of fame is just too high.”
“I’ll look out for you, Sav. Monetarily speaking. I’ll get a real job, sell this Jeep, whatever it takes. Okay?”
Savy stared out the window. “I’m sorry I didn’t come clean about Bass.”
“You knew I’d be an asshole about it, and I didn’t disappoint.”
“I couldn’t stand him when we were in a band together. Now, things are different.”
“Lucky guy.”
“I doubt that.” Savy chewed her nails. “According to Mo, I’ve taken after our mother, not knowing how to treat the people who love me. I’m sorry if I’ve been that way with you.”
“You haven’t,” Clay told her.
They landed a parking spot in front of Savy’s building. The street was empty and the sky was going a particularly lustrous shade of orange. Birds sang sweetly in the trees. As they crossed the building’s interior court, Savy tucked her arm inside Clay’s and they walked like that, leaning into each other, to her apartment.
Her key had hardly slipped into the lock before the door flew back, and they found Mickey, looking sleep-deprived and miserable. “We were waiting up,” he explained.
Clay entered behind Savy and immediately caught the ire of her abuela’s bloodshot gaze. “Donde está Guillermo?” the woman demanded, in her bathrobe, rigid and alert on the couch. And though the rest was lost in translation, the clipped speech and admonishing tone was clear enough for a house pet to comprehend.
“We stuck him in a Lyft at eleven o’clock,” Savy replied, alarmed. “I tipped the driver extra to bring him straight home.”
“You let him go on his own?” Mickey said, and there was a parental anger in him. “You didn’t check his eyes?”
“It was dark in the club…” Savy replied, but her voice wavered. The facts were clear: Savy had been so caught up with her show, her handsome Fishman, with limo rides and record contracts and malevolent seduction, that Mo had slipped through her fingers.
Shit, Clay thought. I forgot all about him! The bathroom stall at the Viper. The sound of Mo’s voice, highly sedated. A memory so alive in his mind he could reach out and touch the stickered partition that had divided them. He might have helped Mo, talked him out of whatever he was doing—if it hadn’t been for a dead girl’s insistent hand.
“I’ll find him,” Savy promised, and like that, she was gone again, leaving Clay to face the four-eyed firing squad of her brother and grandmother.
“We will,” he echoed, and fled in Savy’s wake, their boots echoing through the court with its trash-filled swimming pool and slumbering homeless. He didn’t know where the rusted Marquez Datsun was until its engine squealed, turning over on the quiet street. “Savannah!” he called, but she was already tearing away.
Clay darted for the Jeep and got its wheels spinning in record time. Signs, parked cars, and palm trunks whipped by as he gathered speed. Several blocks down, Savy caught a red at the first major intersection; she slowed, but didn’t stop, hanging a left on Van Nuys Boulevard. As Clay reached the light, it turned green and he cut the wheel at top speed, closing the distance.
He tried her cell, but Savy either didn’t have her phone or was paying no attention to the rings. So they sped along in tandem, the dead streets beginning to come to life, early commuters honking as Savy blew another light, ripping through at seventy. If this kept up, a cop was bound to pull her over. Which wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe then Clay could convince her to let him drive. He didn’t care if she’d done it before and lived to tell the tale; he didn’t care if daylight was breaking—he couldn’t let her tour dealer’s dens and meth basements on her own. Who knew what would be waiting? Thieves? Rapists? Davis Karney? Suddenly, Clay was certain there was a larger plot at work here, that Priest or the Hailmaker or whoever the fuck was after them at the moment, wanted to separate him from his guitar player. If he could only talk to her before she got one of them T-boned, she would see it as clearly as he did.
They were on the 101 South, racing along at eighty-plus miles an hour, Clay fearful her Datsun wouldn’t hold together at such speed, when he finally lost her. There was a caravan of delivery trucks taking up three lanes and by the time Clay weaved in and out of their diesel crawl, Savy’s taillights were out of sight.
He held out hope as far as Alvarado Street, with the downtown skyline hovering in his windshield, before he accepted she was gone.
He ended up on Mulholland Drive, on a turnout overlooking Studio City and the sprawling urban Valley that lay
