People assumed Los Angeles was always sunny and wonderful, but the past few years had taught him otherwise. There wasn’t any snow, but it got cold enough at night to endanger anyone’s health. Even now, half an hour before sunrise, he caught wisps of his breath. His morning run was almost done. It was a winding route from his Hancock Park apartment, through Beverly Hills, and then down to the recruiting office. He’d measured it out to an even eight miles. He ran it every day, rain or shine, in under forty-five minutes, depending on traffic lights. At the end of the day he ran it home. The Army may have been done with him, but he was determined to stay worthy of his uniform. There were more street people all along his route. They held out desperate hands as he strode past them. There seemed to be hundreds of them these days. He knew the economic crash had left many people in a bad place, but it seemed like the number of homeless had doubled or tripled in the past few months. A few of them tried to follow him every morning and night.
