You’re waiting for Greed to make its appearance. It always does. Guaranteed. In this scam it’s always a dude, because they smell a chick in distress and can’t pass up an opportunity to help her out and cheat her at the same time.

“Will you take twenty-four thousand in cash?” Greed asks.

You can hear the pride in his voice when he says the word. Cash. You try to sound firm. “I need twenty-five. I think that’s a pretty good deal for a 525 with twelve thousand miles, isn’t it?”

“You said LoJack and navigation?”

“Premium sound, too.”

“Twenty-four, cash.”

“Okay. I’m Allison.”

“Rex. What’s your address?”

Laurel Canyon. Dusk on an August Saturday, about eight P.M. The L.A. sky is orange and gray and the air smells like flowers and exhaust.

The lot is tree-shaded, surrounded by a wall heavy with nightshade. There’s a “For Sale” sign out front on the street. It took me weeks to find this place. The right place is everything.

I park down the street and wait outside the house, a swanko glass-and-steel job with big smoked windows. Nobody can see me from the street. I’ve got my back to the driveway. I’ve got my gloves on and my mask on and my hair under a wig and the wig in a ponytail. My leather satchel sits on the ground beside me.

When I hear the car coming up the drive behind me, I hold Cañonita up next to my ear. Cañonita is a.40-caliber, two-shot, over-and-under, ivory-handled derringer that fits in the palm of my hand and from any distance at all looks like a cell phone. It will blow a big hole in you but is accurate only to about ten feet. Maybe. I continue to stand in front of the window with my back to the driveway.

In the smoked glass I watch Greed come up the drive in an old BMW 535, probably a ’92; he’s got it washed and waxed and the “For Sale” sign taped inside a window. He’s five minutes early. I leave my back to him, and my head cocked toward Cañonita.