Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim 1)

"Of course."

I make it out the door before he can give me another French bear hug.

I STEER THE Mercedes west toward the one other place in town that makes my skin crawl almost as much as the old apartment.

I turn off Sunset and onto Laurel Canyon Boulevard. The change from Hollywood to Beverly Hills is always sudden and startling, like flipping a switch. Bus fumes and strip-mall nail salons transform to trimmed green lawns and stately homes. This isn't movie-star Beverly Hills, but the older part. The homes are large, but not bloated parade floats. It looks like grown-ups might have lived here.

After crossing Mulholland, I turn right into a maze of streets all named Dona. Dona Isabel. Dona Marta. Dona Sarita. When I find the right Dona, I park and sit for a minute, thinking. I should have seen something like this coming. Things had been going too easy since I got back. Brad Pitt wasn't my fuck-you welcome back to the world. This is.

There's no need to get out of the car, but I do anyway, and cross the street to the empty lot where Mason's house - the place where our magic circle used to meet - once stood. The vacant land looks corrupt and out of place in this perfect landscape, like a starlet showing rotten teeth behind her million-dollar smile. Tall weeds grow through the sandy soil. There's a faded sign with the name of a real-estate developer and a "Coming Soon!" message on top, but it doesn't look like anyone has set foot anywhere near the lot in years.

The sun is going down fast. When a breeze picks up, I feel a chill. I know it's all in my head. Even at Christmas, L.A. isn't that cold, but it doesn't stop my teeth from chattering.

Night is coming on fast. I walk back to the Mercedes, get in, and light up one of the last few cigarettes from the pack Carlos gave me. I look at the empty lot and wonder what happened there. It doesn't look like the house burned. From what I remember, this neighborhood is on bedrock, so it probably didn't fall down in a quake. It just went away. I know I should go over and walk around to see if I can find something that could point me to Mason and the others. But not tonight. The shit and sulfur smell when I was dragged to Hell through the basement floor are coming back strong. I stay in the car, and when the last of the cigarette is gone, I flick the butt onto one of the manicured lawns and drive away.

I DITCH THE Mercedes a few blocks from Max Overdrive. At another time it would break my heart to have to leave such a brilliant machine behind, but L.A. is an all-you-can-eat car buffet, and now that I've seen what the knife does to locks and ignitions, I'm never going to starve.

I grab the oilcloth bundle with the guns and the bags with my new clothes. When I get to the store, it is closed, but I rap on the glass and Allegra lets me in.

"Damn," she says. "You clean up pretty good."

"Thanks." It feels nice being complimented by a human woman. The few kind words I'd heard in the last eleven years usually came from Hellions that looked like something a snake had just thrown up.

"Did you lose your key?"

"I forgot it. I haven't had to carry one for a while."

"Where did you live that you didn't need keys?" She looks at something in her hand that's beeping at her. It looks like a TV remote fucked a little typewriter and this is the bastard offspring. She types something on the tiny typewriter with her thumbs, and smiles.

"What's that you're playing with?"

"You've never seen one of these? It's a BlackBerry."

"Is it like a phone? But you're typing with it."

"I've got it now. You've been in a coma since the seventies. No. Abducted by aliens."

"You nailed me. Klatuu barada nikto."

"The Day the Earth Stood Still, right? That was one of my favorites when I was a kid."

"Me, too. So, why are you typing on your BlackBerry thing?"

"Just BlackBerry. Like you, Just Stark." She turns the little device so I can see it better. "You can talk on it or you can send text messages. It's like e-mail, only it's instant. You've heard of e-mail, right."

"Sure. But why would you type something to someone? Why not just call them?"

"Sometimes texting is more fun. Or, like now, if you're sending someone an address, it's nice to have it in writing."

"What's that on the screen?"

"It's Google Maps. I looked up the address so I could give Michelle directions." She clicks and the little screen changes. "See, you just get on the net and enter the address."

"You have the Internet on that? If I got the Internet, I could look things up on it, right? Names, places, history?"

"First off, you don't get the Internet. It's the Web, and you don't get it. You use it. And, yeah, you can look up anything you want."

"Can I get one of these?"