the zone, still dilated in. * Yet there was this dispassion, too, something also common in the wake of a scam, even a workaday one like this. First I get high, then I get low. The little voice inside my head is saying, “Yeah! Score!” but then, after a pause, “Now what?” In this business, it’s always about the now what, and after the what, there’s just more what and more what after that. In the grift, we call it the disconnect, and actually you have to have the disconnect, or otherwise you start having sympathy for your marks, and then you play them soft. Not good.
But this party, past its peak, had passed its pique. True, there were still some targets about, getting drunker and more vulnerable by the moment. At minimum, I could lay pipe for snukes down the road. Yet suddenly I couldn’t be bothered. I thanked my host (who pretended to know who I was) and headed out.
I walked downhill to my car, but loitered at it and didn’t get in. There was something bothering me about me, a mental splinter of sorts, or a toothache I couldn’t help probing with my tongue. Where did I and the party part company? It wasn’t like me to ride a bummer. I like parties. I like me. I like my job. I like how every single situation I’m in is an opportunity to hone my craft. I mean, I could be getting my television hooked up and find some way to con the cable guy. That’s a gift. I love that gift. I use it every chance I get and I never, ever get tired of it. “All manic all the time,” that’s the tag line for Radio Radar. But just then I felt flat as a piece of paper. What had sucked all the joie from my vivre?
And here came the answer, dancing barefoot down the street, holding her strappy heels in her left hand. Balance appeared to be a problem, for the street was steep and all those GMDQs seemed to have gone to her head.
“Well,” she said, “if it isn’t Hoover Loverhandler, master of the mufti.” She came up and stood quite close to me, and pronounced each next word like a sentence: “I. Want. A. Cigarette.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Fresh out.”
“That’s okay. I don’t really smoke.” She smiled. “Like you don’t really drink. I saw you ditch your bourbon.” Really? She was watching me? I’m not used to that, and couldn’t decide whether I liked it or not. “But still, you seem like a knowing guy.” She twirled her shoes by their straps. “Do you know what these are?”
“I believe they’re called come-fuck-me pumps.”
“Ooh,” she said to the universe, “this is a smart one.” Then, to me, “Drive me home, smart one. I’m smashed.” To prove the point, as if it needed proving, she waggled her fingers in front of her face, said, “Five, no, one!” and fell out laughing. Though it was less like being drunk and more like a staged reading from the Book of Drunk.
“What about your car?” I asked.
“No car. I teleported.”
“Really? In this neighborhood?” I archly arched an eyebrow, pushing it doubly ironically high.
“Of course not,” she said. “Who teleports in this neighborhood? My friend drove. She split with some guy.” Allie put her hands on her hips, framing her waist with her shoes. “So? Ride home or what?”
So I drove her home. Or no, not exactly home. At her instruction, we switchbacked along Mulholland to Outpost, then downhill into Hollywood. But when I got into the grid, somewhere near Gower and Fountain, she said, “This’ll do,” and was out of the car before it even stopped.
She’d left behind one of her shoes. “Hey,” I said, bending to pick it up, “You …”
But she was gone. Nowhere to be seen. For a drunk chick with one shoe, she sure moved fast.
Maybe she teleports after all.
* * *
*Why not? Can’t one be on target and wide open, too?
* * *
4.
java man closest 2 u
I f you Google “Radar Hoverlander,” you’ll get a bunch of hits on thrust vector control systems—radar-guided surface deployment mechanisms for off-planet rovers. Most of it is blue-sky development shit: “As soon as the rover is ready to roll, the tether connection will be severed and the Sky Crane will fly off and crash-land a short distance away.” Which certainly sounds like a party, but anyway it amuses me to think that my quirky name has such an