Woman's lying in bed and the bed's on fire. She doesn't wake up.

Flame licks at her thighs like a lover and she doesn't wake up. Just down the hill the Pacific pounds on the rocks. California fire and life.

George Scollins doesn't wake up, either.

Reason for this is that he's lying at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck.

It's easy to see how this might have happened – Scollins's little Laguna Canyon house is a freaking mess. Tools, wood, furniture lying all over the place, you can hardly walk across the floor without tripping on something.

In addition to the tools, wood and furniture, you have paint cans, containers of stain, plastic bottles full of turpentine, cleaning rags…

This is also the reason the house is a bonfire.

Not surprising, really.

Not surprising at all.

California fire and life.

Two Vietnamese kids sit in the front of a delivery truck.

The driver, Tommy Do, pulls it off into a parking lot.

"Middle of freaking nowhere," says Tommy's buddy, Vince Tranh.

Tommy doesn't give a shit, he's happy to be getting rid of the load, a truck full of hot stuff.

Tommy pulls over by a Caddy.

"They love their Caddies," Tranh says to him in Vietnamese.

"Let 'em," Tommy says. Tommy's saving for a Miata. A Miata is cool. Tommy can see himself cruising in a black Miata, wraparound shades on his face, a babe with long black hair beside him.

Yeah, he can see that.

Two guys get out of the Caddy.

One of them's tall. Looks like one of those Afghan hounds, Tommy thinks, except the guy's wearing a dark blue suit that has got to be hot standing out there in the desert. The other guy is shorter, but broad. Guy wears a black Hawaiian print shirt with big flowers all over it, and Tommy thinks he looks like a jerk. Tommy has him tabbed as the leg breaker, and Tommy is going to be glad to get his money, unload and get the fuck back to Garden Grove.