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gun.
    At least I’m not running , I think.

    * * *
    A nd then ? Nothing.
    There’s no more graffiti, no smashed windows, no car fires. I start to think I braced myself for something that won’t happen. Hell, I start to hope for that.
    Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe there’s some local gang that happens to use the same symbol.
    Maybe I went and bought an illegal gun for no reason at all.
    The other problem only gets worse.
    I hide Detective Rivers’s business card the moment I get home, just to keep myself from calling her. I keep waking up early, but I sit at my kitchen table and drink cup after cup of coffee instead of going to the beach where she might be.
    I cannot get involved with a police detective, no matter how smoking hot she is. Not only am I trying to evade some very bad people, but figuring shit out is her job. I have plenty of shit I don’t want figured out just now.
    I settle for jerking off and thinking about her a lot .

    * * *
    F inally , I can’t take it any more. I can’t have Luna, but I can still get laid.
    I pull my motorcycle out of the garage and go for a ride down Highway 1, along the Pacific coast. The cool sea breeze that seeps under my helmet and through my jacket is the first thing in days to make me feel better, and I lose myself in the twists and turns of the asphalt, in the constant roar of my engine combined with the ocean down below.
    When I get there, the Landlubber is almost crowded. There’s a tiny stage in the back, and some band full of long-haired hippies is playing. They’re not good, but they could be worse. At least they’re loud, and it’ll keep me from having to talk too much.
    In one corner there’s a group of women. They’re all wearing sequins, one’s wearing a crown, and as I get closer, I can see her sash: BACHELORETTE.
    The gods of getting laid must be smiling.
    I order a Jim Beam on the rocks, and just as I’m about to go over, a blond girl from the group comes up to the bar and rattles off a list of shots to the bartender. I check her finger, because I learned that lesson. No ring.
    “You’re with the bachelorette party?” I ask.
    She looks over at me, almost annoyed at first. Then she smiles.
    “I am,” she says. “I’m not the bachelorette, though.”
    “I guessed as much,” I say. “You’re not wearing the crown.”
    The blond glances back at her friends.
    “She insisted,” the blond confesses, then rolls her eyes. “It’s not a bachelorette party unless everyone in a five-mile radius knows she’s getting married. Congrats, you found some guy to put a ring on your finger. Great .”
    I lean in toward her.
    “You know, forty percent of women cheat at their bachelorette parties,” I say, lowering my voice.
    I made that up, but her eyes widen and she raises her eyebrows. She sneaks a glance over at her crowned and sashed friend.
    “She wouldn’t,” the blond says, but she doesn’t sound like she completely believes it.
    “It’s one last chance to get crazy before you get married, I guess,” I say, and take a gulp of Jim Beam. The blond is pretty attractive, in a generic sort of way. It’ll be enough to scratch this itch, at least. “You know, go to a bar, go home with some guy who’ll do absolutely filthy things to you, and then settle down.”
    I wink at her, and she bites her lip. The bartender comes over with the shots.
    “I wouldn’t know,” she says, handing the bartender a credit card. “I’m not engaged or married or even seeing anyone right now.”
    Subtle , I think. Not that subtlety is my strong suit.
    “Is one of those yours, or can I buy you a drink?” I ask, draining my whiskey.
    The girls laughs a little, playing with her hair.
    “Sure,” she says. “Let me take these over there.”
    “What do you want?”
    “One of those purple things in a martini glass,” she says, and walks back to her friends.
    I order two of those purple things, because why not. The girl takes a long time with her friends, and