"Let me clarify. When I say I'll be in charge, that doesn't mean I'm going to actually be doing anything. I'll mostly be gone or working upstairs."

"Ah," she says, even colder than before. She knows exactly what Kasabian does up there and she doesn't approve. An L.A. girl with a conscience. They're about as rare as unicorns.

"Not doing anything is Mr. Kasabian's management style, too. You'll fit right in." Her heartbeat kicks up and her pupils dilate. Why the hell am I noticing these things?

She frowns, looks down, then up at me. "Please, don't tell him I said that."

"Your secret is safe with me."

Her breathing slows. She relaxes, just a hair. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"What the hell is wrong with your clothes?"

"Yeah. I had a little accident coming into town," I say, giving her a sheepish grin. It's a look that girls used to like when I was young and not entirely unhandsome. Talking to a cute human girl that I might have flirted with in my former life, I forget for a second that I'm no longer young or handsome. I shift to what I hope was a more neutral expression.

"I might need to pick up some new things. What do you think?"

"Don't bother. I hear that arson is the new black." She crosses her arms, giving me her best defiant look.

"Stark."

"Stark. Just the one name then, like Madonna?"

"Or Cher."

"Okay, Mr. Stark…"

"Stark. No 'mister.' Just Stark."

"Okay, Just Stark. Here's the thing-I quit. I can run this place in my sleep, but Mr. Kasabian obviously doesn't trust me enough, so he brings in some, if you'll excuse me, thug buddy to keep an eye on me? No fucking thanks."

"The last thing I'm here to do is keep an eye on you. The truth is, I don't have any place to stay and Kasabian told me I could crash upstairs. The running-the-shop thing is purely honorary. As far as I'm concerned, you're in charge. Run the place any way you like."

"You still look like somebody I probably shouldn't know."

"Yeah, you said that." I take a step toward her, waiting to see if she'll take a step back. She doesn't. Nervous, but brave. I like her already. "Listen, a thug is someone who's out for no one but himself. Me? I take care of my friends." Alice's face flashes in my brain, a reminder of how empty a promise like that can be. Good intentions and a dime won't get you a damned thing in this world. Reluctantly, I push Alice back into the dark. "Stay here and I guarantee that you'll work in the safest video store in L.A."

"Gee, that's not at all terrifying."

"Also, whatever Kasabian has been paying you, I'll give you a fifty percent raise."

Now I have her attention.

"You can do that?"

"There's no one here to tell me I can't. I figure, as long as I'm technically in charge, I can pay people whatever I like."

"When will Mr. Kasabian be back?"

"I have no idea. You know how these family things are. It could be a while."

She nods, looks down, then up at me. "Okay. I'll stay. For now."

Hallelujah. "Thank you, Allegra." "You're welcome, Just Stark."

I WAIT FOR an hour upstairs, until the store fills with the lunch-hour crowd. When there's enough ambient noise downstairs, I figure that I can check on Kasabian and be covered if he starts screaming again.

He's right where I left him on the shelf. When he sees me, he doesn't scream. He just moans.

"For chrissake, put a bullet in my head or change the goddamn channel!"

On the set, some daytime talk show is playing. An older guy in a suit and a bottle blonde are talking about an actress I never heard of and a pasta maker that's going to change everyone's life.

"Please, turn this shit off."

"I don't know. That sounds like one damn fine pasta maker."

"Fuck you."

"Do you have a car?"

He stares at the TV, ignoring me. I reach over and turn down the sound.

"The keys are in my right hand pocket," he says.

I tilt his comatose body to the side so I can reach into his pocket. Got 'em.

"What kind of car is it?"

"Give me back my body."

"Where's Mason?"

"I don't know."

"I don't believe you."

"Trust me, if I knew how to send you to Mason, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Then I'd ask him to let me watch as he ripped your balls off."

I turn the talk show back up and lock the closet door. Muffled profanity comes from inside.

I grab the garbage with the bloody clothes and sheets and head down the stairs to the store. Allegra and another kid are behind the counter, busy with customers. There's a rear exit to the store in a small storage room behind the porn section. I get out the bone blade and try a trick that worked in Hell. Placing the tip of the blade into the lock, I push it inside and turn. The lock clicks open.

Behind the store is a short alley with a couple of Dump-sters. I toss the garbage bag and head for the street.

It's nice out. Sunny, but not yet hot. I feel a lot more human and settled today, just another normal guy with a .45 tucked in the back of his jeans, out to run some errands. I counted Brad Pitt's money last night and it came to twenty-two hundred bucks, so I'm sure I can get everything I need.

I keep pressing the little unlock button on the key chain and my good mood evaporates when Kasabian's car finally chirps. A white Chevy Aveo with a dented trunk. Only rental companies buy white American cars, which means that not only is Kasabian's car a piece of shit, it's a used piece of shit. But who's more pathetic, the guy who drives a used piece of shit or the guy who steals it?

IT'S WEIRD STARTING over from zero. It changes the scale of your ambitions. Instead of fantasizing about what kind of mansion you'll buy when you win the lottery, you ask yourself, Do I own socks? Do I have a toothbrush? Do I have a shirt that's not covered in blood?

Money is strange, too, if you haven't used it for a while. Hell is mostly a barter economy. Especially among the high and mighty, having to buy something is a massive social faux pas. It means that you don't have anything good enough to trade or you aren't clever enough to swindle your way to your heart's desire. Brad Pitt's wad seemed like a fortune when I counted it, but I blow through most of it in a couple of hours.

The big money goes for a few choice items. A new pair of Caterpillar steel-toed boots, because steel is always a good idea. I also pick up a long, light overcoat. There's a reason spies and private eyes wear trench coats in all those old movies. They're big enough to hide a multitude of sins, especially the kind with bullets. I pick up a long, charcoal-gray silk overcoat at a West Hollywood rent-boy boutique. Anything heavier than silk will look ridiculous in L.A., and wearing a black overcoat is nature's way of telling you to lay off the Bauhaus.

Down on Melrose, the movie biz show-offs and trust-fund bikers meet at smart cafes for lattes and burgers that cost as much as a face-lift. Out in front of the cafes stretch long, gleaming lines of $40,000 Harleys that have never seen a speck of dust or a splash of mud. As much as these clowns set off the self-righteous parts of my white-trash ego, I know there's one good thing about them. They demand the best bike gear available.

At a bike shop that's laid out more like a museum than a store, I pick up leather race pants and an armored motocross jacket. After getting shot and almost stun-gunned, I like the idea of having a layer of Kevlar between the world and me. I also get a Kevlar jacket liner, a kind of long sleeve mesh shirt with armored panels sewn in. I'll wear the liner under the overcoat and hope it's not so bulky that I look like a robot in a bathrobe.

I put on my new boots, pants, and the motocross jacket in one of the dressing rooms, and toss my burned stuff into the trash on the way out of the store. That's just about the last of it, I think. The last physical connections to my former life. The only thing left is the Germs T-shirt, now full of blood and bullet holes, stuffed under the mattress back at Max Overdrive. Maybe I should have tossed it with the rest, but Alice gave it to me, so it stays with me until I crash and burn for good.