Mabel was eighty-eight years old and had owned that cottage for forty-seven years. She wore a bathrobe over a T-shirt and cotton sweatpants. Her face was lined but still held its shape. She weighed less than one hundred pounds but had lots more teeth than Olive. She lived alone and was independent.

“Hello, Olive, dear,” Mabel said. “Pour yourself a nice cup of tea and have a cookie.”

“I can’t stay, Mabel. Farley wants his breakfast.”

“Breakfast? At this time of day?”

“He slept late,” Olive said. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay and see if you need anything from the market.”

“That’s sweet of you, dear,” Mabel said. “I don’t need anything today.”

Olive felt a stab of guilt then because every time she shopped for Mabel, Farley kept at least five dollars from Mabel’s change, even though the old woman was surviving on Social Security and her late husband’s small pension. Once Farley had kept thirteen dollars, and Olive knew that Mabel knew, but the old woman never said a word.

Mabel had no children or other relatives, and she’d told Olive many times that she dreaded the day when she might have to sell her cottage and move into a county home, where the money from her cottage sale would be used by county bureaucrats to pay for her keep the rest of her life. She hated the thought of it. All Mabel’s old friends had died or moved away, and now Olive was the only friend she had in the neighborhood. And Mabel was grateful.

“Take some cookies with you, dear,” Mabel said. “You’re getting so thin I’m worried about you.”

Olive took two of the cookies and said, “Thanks, Mabel. I’ll look in on you later tonight. To make sure you’re okay.”

“I wish you could watch TV with me some evening. I don’t sleep much at all anymore, and I know you don’t sleep much. I see your lights on at all hours.”

“Farley has trouble sleeping,” Olive said.

“I wish he treated you better,” Mabel said. “I’m sorry to say that, but I really do.”

“He ain’t so bad,” Olive said. “When you get to know him.”

“I’ll save some food for you in case you stop in tonight,” Mabel said. “I can never eat all the stew I cook. That’s what happens to old widows like me. We’re always cooking the way we did when our husbands were alive.”

“I’ll sneak over later,” Olive said. “I love your stew.”

Pointing at her orange tabby cat, Mabel said, “And Olive, if Tillie here comes around your house again, please bring her when you come.”

“Oh, I love having her,” Olive said. “She chases away all the rats.”

Late that afternoon, they were finally on the street, the first day that they’d gotten Farley’s car running and Sam’s Pinto returned to him.

“Goddamn transmission’s slipping on this fucking Jap junker,” Farley said. “When we collect from the Armenian, I’m thinking of looking around for another ride.”

“We also need a new washing machine, Farley,” Olive said.

“No, I like my T-shirts stiff enough to bust a knife blade,” he said. “Makes me feel safe around all those greaseballs at Pablo’s Tacos.” He was thinking, When Cosmo pays me, bye-bye, Olive. Barnacles are less clingy than this goofy bitch.

He lit a smoke while he drove and, as so often happened since his thirtieth birthday three years ago, he started feeling nostalgic about Hollywood. Remembering how it was when he was a kid, back in those glorious days at Hollywood High School.

He blew smoke rings at the windshield and said, “Look out the window, Olive, whadda you see?”

Olive hated it when he asked questions like that. She knew if she said the wrong thing, he’d yell at her. But she was obedient and looked at the commercial properties on the boulevard, here on the east side of Hollywood. “I see… well… I see… stores.”

Farley shook his head and blew more smoke from his nose, but he did it like a snort of disgust that made Olive nervous. He said, “Do you see one fucking sign in your mother tongue?”

“In my…”

“In English, goddamnit.”

“Well, a couple.”

“My point is, you might as well live in fucking Bangkok as live near Hollywood Boulevard between Bronson and Normandie. Except here, dope and pussy ain’t a bargain like over there. My point is that gooks and spics are everywhere. Not to mention Russkies and Armos, like those fucking thieves Ilya and Cosmo, who wanna take over Hollywood. And I must not forget the fucking Filipinos. The Flips are crawling all over the streets near Santa Monica Boulevard, taking other people’s jobs emptying bedpans and jacking up their cars on concrete blocks because no gook in history ever learned to drive like a white man. Do you see what’s happening to us Americans?”

“Yes, Farley,” she said.

“What, Olive?” he demanded. “What’s happening to us Americans?”

Olive felt her palms, and they were moist and not just from the crystal. She was on the spot again, having to respond to a question when she had no idea what the answer was. It was like when she was a foster child, a ward of San Bernardino County, living with a family in Cucamonga, going to a new school and never knowing the answer when the teacher called on her.

And then she remembered what to say! “We’ll be the ones needing green cards, Farley,” she said.

“Fucking A,” he said, blowing another cloud through his nose. “You got that right.”

When they reached the junkyard and he drove through the open gate, which was usually kept chained, he parked near the little office. He was about to get out but suddenly learned why the gate was open. They had other security now.

“Goddamn!” Farley yelled when a Doberman ran at the car, barking and snarling.

The junkyard proprietor, known to Farley as Gregori, came out of his office and shouted “Odar!” to the dog, who retreated and got locked inside.

When Gregori returned, his face stained with axle grease, he wiped his hands and said, “Better than chaining my gate. And Odar don’t get impressed by police badges.”

He was a lean and wiry man with inky thinning hair, wearing a sweatshirt and grease-caked work pants. Inside the garage a late-model Cadillac Escalade, or most of it, was up on a hydraulic lift. The car lacked two wheels and a front bumper, and two Latino employees were working on the undercarriage.

Olive remained in the car, and when Gregori and Farley were alone, Farley presented a stack of twenty-three key cards to Gregori, who looked them over and said, “What hotel do these come from?”

“Olive gets them by hanging around certain hotels on the boulevards,” Farley said. “People leave them at the front desk and in the lobby by the phones. And in the hotel bars.”

Then Farley realized he was making it sound too easy, so he said, “It’s risky and time-consuming, and you need a woman to do it. If you or me tried hanging around a hotel, their security would be all over us in no time. Plus, you gotta know which hotel has the right key cards. Olive has that special knowledge but she ain’t sharing it.”

“Five bucks apiece I give you.”

“Come on, Gregori,” Farley said. “These key cards are in primo condition. The perfect size and color. With a good-looking mag strip. You can buy those bogus driver’s licenses from Cosmo and they’ll glue to the front of the card just perfect. They’ll pass inspection with any cop on the street.”

“I don’t talk to Cosmo in a long time,” Gregori said. “You see him lately?”

“Naw, I ain’t seen him in a year,” Farley lied. Then, “Look, Gregori, for very little money every fucking wetback that works in all your businesses can be a licensed driver tomorrow. Not to mention your friends and relatives from the old country.”

“Friends and relatives from Armenia can get real driver’s license,” Gregori said imperiously.

“Of course they can,” Farley said, apologetically. “I just meant like when they first get here. I been in a couple of Armenian homes in east Hollywood. Look like crap on the outside, but once you get inside, there’s a fifty-two-inch TV and a sound system that’d blow out the walls if you cranked it. And maybe a white Bentley in the garage. I know you people are real smart businessmen.”