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remember, because he didn't believe in that spooky shit. At all. That was for the hucksters down on Venice Beach, and drunk girls with cheap tarot decks, or Pete Voss at a pinch — Sleepy Pete seemed to think he had some otherworldly voodoo vibe going on because his mom was an eighth Blackfoot or Buddhist or whatever the fuck. He primarily seemed to believe this when he was stoned, however, and though that was most of the time Hudek was convinced it was utter bullshit — both in Pete's case and worldwide. Hudek had understood from an early age that the world worked in hard, straight lines, and that the curvy crap was for losers. The world likes get-up-and-go. The world likes people who get in its face. Sleepy was kind of an airhead all around, no doubt, but he was big and loyal and did a slow but steady job of selling product, and he was long-term crew, so whatever.
    What Hudek did remember was this:
    Sitting in the car with Pete on the side and Brad Metzger in back, parked at the end of the turn-off on Tujunga Canyon Drive. They had the roof down, catching rays while they waited. And waited. The car belonged to Hudek, paid for in cash. Most in his position would have some souped-up retro boat — he did too, for a while — but recently he'd decided a businesslike Merc sent better signals. The cops gave you less grief, too. Not quite yet twenty years old, Hudek also owned his house outright. Nothing pimp, merely an unobtrusive three-bed in Summer Hills, but it had a pool and a big double garage and the size of his television was something to behold. Pete and Brad lived over in Simi Valley, south of Santa Barbara, with their respective parents. Everybody they knew did, having done little in the year since school except learn that jobs no longer dropped out of the trees in California and that having played mildly impressive ball in high school meant jack shit to the outside world.
    They were parked with the car pointed back up the track, the dusty, shrubby wall of the sub-canyon rising steeply on the right-hand side. It was hot. Sleepy was playing a hand-held video game that went ping, ping, beep. Brad was droning on about the chick he was boning and whether he should pay to have her nose done. Having boned the chick in question himself, Hudek was of the opinion that Brad's ability to bear her company would not outlast the post-op period, especially as the short-term potential for blowjobs would be critically diminished. He would let Brad figure that out for himself. If the guy was thinking about throwing that kind of money at a chick, he was being paid too much.
    Paid too much by Hudek, that meant.
    'I fucked her, man,' he said suddenly, on a whim. 'Year ago.'
    Brad was silent for a moment. Then he started talking about some other girl.
    When Hudek looked at his watch again it was seventeen minutes after one. They were over a half hour late now. That was unique. It was a pain in the ass to drive right across the Valley to do this, but that's the way it had always been. Hernandez had always been reliable, too, so Lee didn't mind doing it his way. This was not being reliable, which meant the pain in the ass became much more acute. Especially now. Now that he had the Plan, reliability was going to be key.
    He glanced at his watch again, unnecessarily. Still seventeen minutes past. For just a moment it looked to him as if the sweep of the second hand was slowing, as if this minute was swelling and might burst.
    Maybe that was it. Maybe that was when he got the twitch, had his odd feeling; the intimation that the day was heading down a road towards a future that was not yet signposted.
    Then it was eighteen past.
    He heard a lighter spark behind him. 'Brad, don't smoke in the car.'
    'Fucking roof's off, man.'
    Hudek turned in his seat and stared at the boy in the back.
    Brad shook his head, opened his door, got out. He walked a little way from the vehicle, over to the canyon wall. Sat on a rock and smoked the cigarette down. What