After twenty-year-old Travis Del Rio got out of Rhea’s car he hurried across Vine to an alley a half-block up from Fountain. Three doors down, he pushed a button next to a steel door with a camera above it. Someone buzzed him in.
Inside the cavernous photo studio and lab, Travis went to the counter. A woman looked up. “Ah.” She said, “It’s ready.” She handed him a round tin film container about three inches in diameter. “Uncut.”
“Thanks Jess.” He told her, then left.
Back outside, on Vine, he looked around at the light traffic. He popped the tin into his pocket. When there were no cars on the block in either direction, he leapt straight up and disappeared into the night sky.
Travis loved flying at night. The skies, even over LA, weren’t very crowded between four and five. It just wasn’t an all-night town. New York was; Vegas was, Paris was but LA was a company town and that company was the film business and people had to be on set usually by five or six am. There were only a few flying about now, getting from one place to another or just digging the swoon through night air. There were a few birds and bugs out too, some of them he knew. Two night owls, Chloe and Drew, were perched on the HBO cable stretched above the little houses on Vista del Mar, looking for rats. But for the most part, he felt harmoniously alone. It was basically a forty second flight from Vine and Fountain to his boss’s house but Travis zipped on over to the Gelson’s on Franklin and Bronson. The upscale supermarket was open twenty-four hours. It also housed Victor Bene’s pastry shop. Travis bought a slice of Princess Cake, a blond brownie and an individual kiwi tart. To go.
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