I am so close. I’ve won him over with my compliments and there’s no choice. I need that password. I need it now. I text Delilah: Random question. Do you know the password for Henderson?

She writes back: Jim Walsh’s Hooded Bathrobe

I write back: Thanks

She writes back: Best one ever right? I love his passwords. Love old 90210 .

I don’t write back. She writes more: I might go. Are you going?

But I can’t have Delilah around. After I show up with Calvin, I will slip away, some bullshit about meeting a girl, and then I will find Amy and get her alone and I can’t have Delilah following me around asking me who I’m looking for. It’s vicious, it’s cruel, but there’s only one way to stop her from showing up at Henderson’s. I write back: Actually fuck it. Do you wanna get a late dinner, 10 or 11? I wanna go to Dan Tana’s. Yeah?

She writes back: YES

Calvin is playing music, going into party mode, raving about Henderson’s guac. And I’m sure Delilah is in her apartment, bouncing up and down, deciding what slutty dress she’s going to wear for me tonight, not realizing that she would look much better if she covered up, if she teased me.

I imagine Amy is on her knees sucking off her boyfriend and I bet she doesn’t have to do anything to get ready for their big party tonight. I bet they have maids.

12

YOU don’t go to a party empty-handed and my reusable Pantry bag is stuffed with rope, my Rachael Ray knife, rubber gloves, plastic bags, duct tape, and Percocets from Dez.

I spent all afternoon looking for pictures of Henderson’s house online. Sometimes it’s easier to plan the crime if you know a little bit more about the scene. But I couldn’t find pictures of Henderson’s house online and I went a little crazy trying to figure out what to do.

If Amy loved me, it would be different. I could make eye contact and signal for her to meet me outside and we could whisper to each other about our regrets and our unresolved feelings. I could tell her to make an excuse and we could slip off together and drive into the mountains or the beach. Los Angeles is full of places to hide a body, but when the person inside the body doesn’t love you, it’s not an easy thing, turning that breathing person into a dead one.

I bought a ton of Percocets off Dez, figuring this is Hollywood. People overdose all the time. But then I realized that Henderson’s in love with her and if she passes out, he will be all over that shit and call an ambulance. So I Lyfted to Home Depot, where I bought random stuff, rope and duct tape, plastic bags, cable ties, and plastic gloves. The girl at the register winked and said she’s also a big fan of Fifty Shades and this is what has become of our society. Fucking and killing are the same damn thing.

Now I walk outside with my bag and Delilah texts: Not stalking but have fun grocery shopping. ☺

I ignore it. For her own good. I want her to learn to be less available.

At La Poubelle, Calvin is already semi-wasted, practicing hashtags. “Which do you like better?” he asks. “House of Henderson or Henderson’s House?”

I start planting the seeds for my alibi and tell him I invited this girl from Tinder. He says cool, and he better remember this in the event of an investigation. Calvin orders an Uber and three of his buds show up—fuck fuck fuck—and we pay our tab to meet them outside. The guys all brought beer and they toss their sixers in the trunk, and they give me shit because I insist on holding my reusable Pantry bag on my lap. It’s too crowded and Calvin’s friends are too loud and they won’t let up about my fucking bag.

Pissant one: “Is your makeup in there?”

Pissant two: “No, his dick is in there.”

Pissant three: “I heard about those retractable dicks. You get a lot more done every day.”

Calvin: “Guys. If you give JoeBro any more shit about his retractable dick, he’s not gonna tell you where you can get one.”

These guys are pale and puffy with ostentatious T-shirts under wrinkled flannel button-downs and they hate Woody Allen and they love Wes Anderson. They dismiss Crimes and Misdemeanors as wordy and I think they never even watched the whole thing. I wish it were socially acceptable to brandish a knife. But the driver is an innocent bystander and I wouldn’t subject him to any additional torture. We are close, and I still don’t know how I’m going to kill Amy.

Pissant one: “Americans aren’t funny enough to get Parks and Rec.”

Pissant two: “Parks and Rec isn’t American enough to get Americans.”

Pissant three: “I’d fuck Amy Poehler.”

Pissant one: “I’d Poehler Amy Fuck.”

Calvin: “Is that because she’s your Poehler opposite?”

Calvin nudges me; he did too much coke. “JoeBro, come on,” he says. “You’re the one who wanted to go so bad. Get into it. People would fucking kill to be going to this party right now.”

We continue up into the hills and this country needs a draft; these assholes should be challenged, beaten down. The Uber driver is unassuming and blank and I wouldn’t be surprised if he kills us all. People disappear in Los Angeles; this is a sad place, haunted. We are still driving, up, up, up, and I am not a pissant in Pumas and these idiots won’t shut up.

They brand Chelsea Handler a slut and Jimmy Kimmel a sell-out and Jimmy Fallon a lucky motherfucker and they are wrong about so much in the world and are we there yet? I don’t aspire to slave away and live up here. These hills are glum and neutral, even as we climb, and my ears pop and I should have come alone. I don’t have a plan and these hills aren’t even the right hills, the glamorous sparkling mounds that hover above Chateau Marmont. These are the hipster hills, where lazy people in cool clothes pretend they never wanted to be gross rich but only wanted to be comfortable, you know, chill.

My phone alarm goes off because it’s ten thirty. I text Delilah: Some shit going down, hang on, maybe late night drink instead of dinner.

She writes back: That’s cool. Let me know! I can bring booze!

The world is too extreme with Delilah and her lack of self-respect and Amy with her big fat ego. I will deal with one girl at a time and I put my phone in Airplane mode. We slow down. We are here. The driver says he is not available to shuttle us home later and he gets to leave, the lucky bastard—and my throat is tight and my underwear shrunk—the dryers at Hollywood Lawns are no good—and my teeth chatter. I was starting to think I’d never get here and now this is it.

I follow the pissants into the house where Bobcat Goldthwait lived for a few weeks in the late ’90s (like I give a fuck). There is a security camera by the open gate and a sign over it that reads STICK YOUR TONGUE OUT AT ME I’M FAKE. The thing about Californians is they think fearlessness is cool; there isn’t a single security measure intact, which is great news for me.

We cross the overgrown lawn where hipsters idle taking selfies and talking about making it to Mecca. We give the password and enter through the oversized mahogany door—motherfucker—and I smell eucalyptus and cucumbers and money. I don’t see Amy. I grip my bag.

“Calm down,” Calvin says. “Look around. Lord Henderson is the freaking honey pot.”

I let him go find the guac and then slump onto a couch and I’m annoyed that I like the couch. I haven’t been anywhere nice in so long. If I had money I would have a house just like this, and I can’t believe Amy is Henderson’s girlfriend. She lives here, with all the fine things and I was deluded to think that she would be holed up in a shithole with a sisterhood of competing aspirational climbers. My head spins and I get up. I will not sit on this couch, knowing that she has sucked Henderson off on this couch.