The Getty Museum glowed white, a castle on the hill above us. We were coming up fast on the Skirball exit.
“Anyway, so, so, Mr. Roegenberger, so we walk back to the car after a quick stop for dinner. A Subway attached to a gas station, just across the state line. It’s twilight. It’s not even dark. And here we find two men in the process of stealing the minivan. One of them was crouched, you know, crouched under the steering wheel with his wrench and his pliers, working on the wires. And the other one—he’s got the gun. He’s got it, it’s pointing at us. And I said, It’s okay. I said, You just go right ahead and take the vehicle. Because I’m no dummy, Mr. Roegenberger. I’m no fool.”
He glanced at me then, and I nodded. “You’re no fool,” I said. “You’re no dummy.”
“It’s just a car. But see—see—this man was on drugs, you see. You understand? Later on we would find out that he was under the influence of various substances. Bath salts. Have you heard of bath salts, Mr. Roegenberger? Apparently they can make a person behave in unpredictable ways. The other man, he was a professional car thief. But this guy...this man...his name was Vance. Later on we found out his name was Vance.”
“Oh,” I said. “Vance.”
“And he just—well—I don’t know. We’ll never know,” Steve whispered. “But he just started shooting and he shot and shot and shot.” Steve put his blinker on. He lurched out of the HOV lane, moving rightward. “And everybody died, you see? Just my luck, see? Everybody died. Everybody but me.”
He was waiting for me to say something, but what was I supposed to say?
“Well, that’s terrible, Steve,” I said lamely. “That’s just terrible.”
“Yes,” he said. “Terrible.” We took the exit. We flew down the off-ramp, took a hard left up onto Laurel Canyon Drive. “And it’s all your fault.”
And then we were going up.
Poor Steve slowed the Odyssey just enough to allow for the tight turns and dead-man’s curves of Laurel Canyon Drive as it climbs up into the Hollywood Hills. My stomach bobbled and quivered inside me, a ball of liquid, as he whipped the two tons of minivan upward.
“So, hey,” I said, keeping my voice as calm and casual as I could. “Steve? There is some kind of misunderstanding here or something. I did not steal your vehicle. That was not my fault, okay? I’m just a guy. I’m just some guy. What happened to you, that’s—well, like you said, Steve. It’s terrible. But this is not your vehicle.”
“Well, of course it’s not my vehicle,” said Steve. “That Odyssey was impounded by the police. After the crime scene was processed. After all of it. I know this isn’t the same car. I’m not an idiot.”
A long pause. Just driving, fast up the hill, too fast. Higher and higher. Up and up.
He picked a turn to take off Laurel Canyon, one of the tight little one-lane side roads that wind up yet higher then narrow until they turn into the private driveways of millionaires. Halfway up that small road, he jerked the wheel hard so the car turned all the way to the right, and then he slammed on the brakes.
“Steve?” I said. “Steve.”
He turned off the car. Carefully, ridiculously, he depressed the rectangular button to turn on the hazards. We were perpendicular to the roadway, lengthwise to two lanes of traffic. The front end of the Odyssey was pushed up against the gates of whatever studio executive’s palazzo this was, and the butt end poked very slightly out over the edge of the steep face of the hill. If someone came flying around from the north, they’d smash directly into us. If, on the other hand, someone came up from the south, they’d send us spinning around and off the hill. In the one second it took me to process these particulars, to realize how much peril we were in here, Steve had pulled a small silver gun out of the pocket of his cheap-ass windbreaker. The gun was pointed directly at my face. His expression had not changed.
“Steve...” I said. “Come on. I don’t know Vance. I didn’t kill your family. I live in California, Steve.”
“But you do steal cars.”
“I do not!”
He thumbed back the hammer on the gun and said, “You organize the stealing of cars.”
“Yes,” I said, pulling my body backward, away from the gun. Squirming inside my seat belt.
“Okay. Yes.”
“Tell me how it works, Mr. Roegenberger.”
I hesitated; gulped for air.
“Talk.”
“We—we—get lists from the DMV. On Hope Street. I have a—there’s a guy there. I pay him. For existing VINs. Unclaimed VINs. Vehicle numbers.”
“I know what VINs are.” Steve had undone his seat belt, inched his gun hand closer to me.
“We clone the lists, and then we retag them onto different cars.”
“Different cars? Different cars? Stolen cars. Stolen from where?”
“From Oregon, Steve. From—I don’t know. Idaho. Washington State. Far, far, far from Indiana.”