The rich are different, I thought: condemned to live their lives in public, they go through their paces at the edge of hysteria like show dogs from w… - Michael Nava

It was one of those winter days in Los Angeles when the wind has swept away the smog and the air is clear and the light still and everything has the immediacy of a dream. I parked on a street called Overland in the Hollywood Hills. It was lined with white-skinned birch trees. Their nude branches shimmered against the sky. Tattered yellow leaves clogged the gutters and the air was scented with the rainy smell of eucalyptus. There were no cars on the street and the houses were barely visible behind walls and fences and sweeping lawns that had never been trod upon except by gardeners.

"You want me to stipulate that the cops violated her constitutional rights?"
"This is the LAPD we're talking about, Kim. It would be shocking if they hadn't violated her rights."

I had loved so infrequently I felt a debt to those whom I had, for the reprieve from solitude.