Unlit neon. Pink stucco caked with grime. A rusty handrail bordering its second-story walkway. The kind of place that advertised clean rooms and color TVs, and made you wonder whether either claim was true. I pulled my rental into the Starlite’s lot as sunset painted the horizon red. The place was pretty empty, so I had my choice of parking spots. A twentysomething in an undershirt and a faded pair of Levi’s sat reading Hunter Thompson in a lawn chair outside his room, a crumpled takeout bag from the taqueria next door at his feet. As I climbed out of the car, he whistled. “Uh, Mikey—did you just get catcalled?” Even through the cheap Bluetooth earpiece, Lester’s amused tone was hard to miss. “I’m pretty sure he was whistling at the car, jackass. I told you it was too flashy.” Lester was my tech guy. My right-hand man. A master forger and a genius with computers, he always set up my aliases and handled my travel arrangements.
