The Night Crew [antikvár]

one The corner of Gayley and Le Conte, at the edge of the campus: Frat boys cruised in their impeccably clean racing-green Miatas and cherry-red Camaro ragtops, with their impeccably blonde dates, all square shoulders, frothy dresses and big white teeth. Two skinny kids, one of each sex, smelling of three-day sweat and dressed all in black, unwrapped Ding-Dongs and talked loud about Jesus and the Joy to Come; celebrating Him—and vanilla-creme filling. At the Shell station, a tanker truck pumped Premium down a hole in the concrete pad, under the eye of a big-bellied driver. And above them all, a quarter-million miles out, a buttery new moon smiled down as it slid toward the Pacific. The Bee was impatient, checking her watch, bouncing on her toes. She was waiting at the corner, a JanSport backpack at her feet. Her face was a pale crescent in the headlights of passing cars, in the Los Angeles never-dark.