Wonderful because he was a two-time L.A. Sheriff’s Department bodybuilding champion, a devoted father, and a Toys for Tots warrior each Christmas season. He had a heroic chin and an open face and a quick smile. He’d made a high-profile arrest on a double homicide almost two years back, which gave him good mojo in the department. He was thirty-nine, ten years older than Hood. Hood had patrolled with Laws before and had thought that something was eating the big man, but Hood believed there was something eating most of us.

They drove north on Division, east on Avenue I past the fairgrounds. Tuesday nights in winter were slow.

Hood’s world was the Antelope Valley, north of L.A. The valley is the new frontier, the final part of the county to be heavily developed. It is high desert, ferociously hot and cold, and dry. The cities are booming but not quite prosperous. Thousands of the homes are new. They’re affordable. The cities have nice names, like Palmdale and Rosamond and Pearblossom and Quartz Hill. There were no antelope in the Antelope Valley until the twentieth century, when some were released so the valley could live up to its name, a California thing, to dream big and fill in the details later. Beyond the Antelope Valley is the vast Mojave Desert.

“What do you make of AV after six months?” asked Laws.

“I like that you can see so far.”

“Yeah, you get the wide open spaces. It’s not for everybody. You’ll like the snow.”

Antelope Valley was in fact the Siberia of the Sheriff’s Department, but Hood had asked to be transferred here after some trouble in L.A. He wanted to forget and not be seen. He had been a Bulldog-in-training-LASD homicide-for about four weeks but it didn’t work out. Then he had talked to Internal Affairs about a superior he mistook for an honest man, and who was soon to stand trial for eight felonies. Hood would be called as a witness by the prosecution, which he dreaded.