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were turbulent and disjointed. He was
cruising Boystown. The rainbow-hued streets were wall-to-wall men, each more
gorgeous than the last. Except for one familiar face. The acne scars made David
Laine’s skin look pitted and diseased in the gaudy lights of West Hollywood.
The cheap cut of his clothes looked even more frumpish as he kept appearing and
disappearing in the wandering crowd.
    Abruptly the crowds vanished. The dark streets
were empty. Chris looked around for his SUV, but every time he found it, his
keys wouldn’t work, or they slipped from his fingers and disappeared into the
shadows pooled around his bare feet.
    Someone else was there.
    “David?”
    Only he knew it wasn’t David.
    He spotted the SUV, parked by itself down an empty
street, covered in graffiti. Hurrying toward it was like plowing through deep
water. When he reached it he pounded on the golden door panel, smearing red
paint all over his hands until it looked like they had been dipped in blood.
    The door popped open. “About time,” he muttered
and jumped inside. The door slammed shut with a solid thunk .
    Someone ran down the street toward him. In the
kaleidoscopic streetlights he recognized David. Chris jammed the key into the
ignition and the Lexus rumbled to life.
    David shouted something, shaking his shaggy head
and waving for Chris to pull over. Instead Chris goosed the gas pedal and shot
out into the midnight black street. Odd, his headlights didn’t come on.
    “Chris.”
    The fingers that closed over the bare skin of his
shoulder were boneyard cold. In contrast the breath on his cheek was a furnace.
He turned and found himself staring into a smiley-face mask. The lipless chasm
of its mouth was open in a humorless grin. The oily barrel of the gun pressed
against his left eye. Chris heard an odd buzz as the trigger was depressed.
    He woke with a scream buried in his throat. The
buzz came again.
    He jerked upright; the issue of Linux he’d been
leafing through was slithering off his lap. Belatedly he realized the sound was
his doorbell.
    Head woozy, heart trip-hammering in his chest, he
nearly tumbled to the floor, only catching himself at the last minute with a
painful bump to his shin on the granite coffee table.
    He staggered to the front door, leaning forward to
peer through the mullioned window.
    At first he confused the figure standing under his
porch light with the faceless killer in his dream. Then the figure turned into
the light.
    He flung the door open. “Trevor?”
    “I was cruising the area and saw your lights on.”
Trevor glanced back over his shoulder. “Did I wake you?”
    “No—yes.” Chris rubbed his sore ankle on the back
on his leg and tried not to let his eyes dart around while he scanned the
shadows beyond his door. “Sort of, I guess. I think I was dreaming.”
    “Nothing fun, from the looks of it.”
    “No,” Chris said, remembering the sound the gun
had made as the masked man pulled the trigger. “Not fun.”
    “Want some company? I picked up a bottle of Silver
Oak Cabernet the other day. You can tell me if it’s any good.”
    “Silver Oak?” Chris glanced at the plastic bag in
Trevor’s hand. “What year? Ninety-eight?”
    “Is there any other?”
    “Come on in.” Chris closed and locked the door
behind him. When Trevor walked by he breathed in the scent of Yves Saint
Laurent and soap. He inhaled and began to think this evening might not turn out
so badly after all.
    Chris briefly told him about his SUV while he led
him back into the media room, where a pair of talking heads filled the
sixty-inch screen. Chris grimaced as he overheard the last of the newscast.
    “...another apparent victim of the so-called
Carpet Killer, who has been terrorizing the gay community of Los Angeles and
environs for weeks now.”
    The image on the screen shifted. It was night, but
there was more than enough light to see the blue-garbed EMTs emerge from behind
a crumbling building with a sheet-draped gurney. Other