Wrong City Read Online Free

need to find a market for
it.” Sparky fished around in his wallet and produced a business card. He handed
it to Vish. “That’s my office. I’ll be in on Monday.”
    Vish glanced at
the card. Sparky Mother, it read, with a telephone number. No title, no company
name. It also had a little line drawing on it, a fuzzy blue cartoon tiger
holding a sparkler.
    It was far and
away the dumbest business card Vish had ever seen.
    “Okay. Thanks,”
he said. He stuffed the card in his pants pocket. This was confusing. Was
Sparky agreeing to take on his book, despite his clear antipathy toward it?
What did he do, exactly? He’d said he was a manager… no, he’d said he was on
the management side, which wasn’t quite the same thing.
    Sparky grinned.
“You’re not going to call me, are you?”
    “I don’t know,”
Vish said. “Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know anything about you.”
    “So Google me.
That’s a good place to start. See what you think after that.” Sparky shrugged.
“I can do amazing things with you, if you’ve got the balls to let me.”
    Bit of a taunt
there. Unmistakable. “We’ll see.”
    “We surely
will.” Sparky nodded toward the curved road, where an approaching pair of
headlights sliced through the darkness. “That’s my ride.”
    A black sports
car pulled onto the shoulder just ahead of them. Sparky slid off the hood of
his own car and ambled over to the driver’s side.
    A tinted window
rolled down. An Asian woman, Korean maybe, with bobbed copper hair and huge
gold hoop earrings looked up at Sparky from underneath a thick sheaf of glossy
bangs. “Hey, you,” she said. “Hop in. They’ll tow you in the morning.”
    “Thanks, Poppy.
Poppy, this is Vish.” Sparky beckoned him over. “He was nice enough to keep me
company, I figure the least we can do is give him a ride home.” He turned to
Vish. “Where do you live?”
    Poppy glanced
at Vish. She was extremely pretty and extremely made-up. Eyes lined in a thick
layer of smudgy black, lashes long and spiky. She wore a gold tank dress
covered in large sequins that glittered when she moved.
    While Sparky’s
attention was on Vish, she caught his eye and shook her head, just a fraction
of an inch, once.
    Ah. “Don’t
worry about it,” Vish said. “The bus is fine. Thanks anyway.”
    Sparky frowned.
“You sure?” he asked. “We can at least run you down the hill to your bus stop.”
    “I need the
walk,” Vish said. He’d grown a little cold sitting in the night air with
Sparky, and his white button-down shirt and the dumb red polyester vest Jamie
made all her employees wear so they’d look like a cohesive team weren’t
providing much warmth. A ride would be nice, actually, but Poppy had sent him a
very clear signal he shouldn’t take Sparky up on his offer. “Hollywood isn’t
far from here.”
    “Suit
yourself,” Sparky said. He stuck out his hand. “Good meeting you, Vish. And
thanks.”
    “Sure.” They
shook. Sparky’s nails were manicured; the white cuff that stuck out from
beneath his suit coat was crisp and immaculate. Diamond cufflinks glittered.
    “Call me
Monday, right? We’ll talk,” Sparky said. He sauntered around the front of the
car and slid into the passenger seat.
    With a quick
nod at Vish, Poppy pulled forward, flipped a u-turn in the middle of the road,
and headed down the hill.
    Vish followed
at a slow walk. As soon as Poppy’s car rounded the first turn, the lights from
the taillights vanished, leaving him alone in the dark.

Chapter Three
    I t took just over two hours to reach his
apartment. A slow and mostly empty bus through Hollywood, an interminable wait
at a grim, lonely stop on the wrong end of Fairfax, another bus down Venice
Boulevard all the way to the ocean. A foggy night here, colder and clammier
than it had been in the hills.
    His apartment
was stuffy. Vish yanked open the windows. He should get some sleep—he had to
open the shop at nine tomorrow, and it was now past two—but he