and, with a parting glance that suggested that Honor was guilty of unsportsmanlike behavior, the lioness shot away across the parking lot.
Honor was grateful for the intrusion but peripherally aware that it brought different consequences. A jet meant people. Conscious people who doubtless have firm views on the proper use of rental Ferraris and bulldozers. Honor set about correctly hotwiring the motorcycle and placing herself in a position from which she could reasonably claim ignorance of anything untoward that might have happened at the Los Angeles Zoo that afternoon.
But then the sound stopped. Honor looked up to watch the passenger jet enter a powerless glide and dive out of view toward the ocean. She was once again the only conscious person on earth.
Riding a motorcycle is its own sort of freedom. Riding a Harley Davidson at top speed on the sidewalks of downtown Los Angeles without a helmet moments after narrowly escaping death by lion is a sense of liberty very nearly approaching flight. Honor flew now toward the coast, guided vaguely by a need to drive a train or steal a yacht or eat caviar with her hands.
The city was different from Honor’s short memory of it. It was still gridlocked and silent but there was movement now among the people on the streets. Tentative groups were loosely forming and some even gave the appearance of a wary sentience. Mostly, though, if they had any interest at all it was in raiding the fruit and vegetable stalls on the sidewalks of Chinatown or the scattered and sparse and understocked grocery stores Honor passed along Broadway as she entered the theater district.
This wasn’t looting, though. It was more like grazing on fruits and flowers and unwrapped bubblegum and cigars and whatever else might confused for food by the debutant consumer. The citizenry was docile and unthreatening and gave the impression of a Disney movie placed in a Los Angeles populated entirely by orphaned baby deer. If there was any sign of menace it was in the subtle sameness of the little herds — some tall blond men in golfware or, quite possibly, clown costumes had assumed control of a delicatessen next door to a café under the administration of a dozen hare krishnas. Across the street four or five motorcycle cops had been joined by two security guards to occupy a candy store. The effect was subtly disturbing and suggestive of some developing peril but the only explicit effect was to make Honor realize that she was hungry.
Honor found herself in the drunkenly ill-focused former downtown Los Angeles which looked like the genteel founding quarter of a much nicer metropolis that had lost most of its treasures in a rigged game of chance. The proudly patchwork gothic/deco/Spanish-residential Los Angeles City Hall and the comic-book detail of the Hall Of Justice seemed to be justifiably embarrassed to share their neighborhood with the obstinately dull Civic Center and aggressively ugly police services building. But the courts and the county jail and sheriff’s office and LA Detention Center gave Honor a subversive thrill that she only partially understood, and she decided to play out her next adventure here.
She rolled to a stop outside the Regent Hotel because it looked old and expensive and the sort of place that would have an absurdly over-priced wine list and just enough caviar on hand.
The hotel was an immaculate relic of an age when what things looked like mattered. Honor entered through a revolving door of wood and brass and beveled glass into an age when it made sense for a hotel to have a two-story, rosewood paneled lobby overlooked by an expansive mezzanine accessible by twin staircases, all resting on a tiled mosaic of Poseidon rising from the surf accompanied by a dolphin. The maritime theme was repeated on the walls by commissioned floor-to-ceiling paintings of ships in peril and bustling seaports. Poseidon's realm was scattered with deep velvet armchairs
Honor was grateful for the intrusion but peripherally aware that it brought different consequences. A jet meant people. Conscious people who doubtless have firm views on the proper use of rental Ferraris and bulldozers. Honor set about correctly hotwiring the motorcycle and placing herself in a position from which she could reasonably claim ignorance of anything untoward that might have happened at the Los Angeles Zoo that afternoon.
But then the sound stopped. Honor looked up to watch the passenger jet enter a powerless glide and dive out of view toward the ocean. She was once again the only conscious person on earth.
Riding a motorcycle is its own sort of freedom. Riding a Harley Davidson at top speed on the sidewalks of downtown Los Angeles without a helmet moments after narrowly escaping death by lion is a sense of liberty very nearly approaching flight. Honor flew now toward the coast, guided vaguely by a need to drive a train or steal a yacht or eat caviar with her hands.
The city was different from Honor’s short memory of it. It was still gridlocked and silent but there was movement now among the people on the streets. Tentative groups were loosely forming and some even gave the appearance of a wary sentience. Mostly, though, if they had any interest at all it was in raiding the fruit and vegetable stalls on the sidewalks of Chinatown or the scattered and sparse and understocked grocery stores Honor passed along Broadway as she entered the theater district.
This wasn’t looting, though. It was more like grazing on fruits and flowers and unwrapped bubblegum and cigars and whatever else might confused for food by the debutant consumer. The citizenry was docile and unthreatening and gave the impression of a Disney movie placed in a Los Angeles populated entirely by orphaned baby deer. If there was any sign of menace it was in the subtle sameness of the little herds — some tall blond men in golfware or, quite possibly, clown costumes had assumed control of a delicatessen next door to a café under the administration of a dozen hare krishnas. Across the street four or five motorcycle cops had been joined by two security guards to occupy a candy store. The effect was subtly disturbing and suggestive of some developing peril but the only explicit effect was to make Honor realize that she was hungry.
Honor found herself in the drunkenly ill-focused former downtown Los Angeles which looked like the genteel founding quarter of a much nicer metropolis that had lost most of its treasures in a rigged game of chance. The proudly patchwork gothic/deco/Spanish-residential Los Angeles City Hall and the comic-book detail of the Hall Of Justice seemed to be justifiably embarrassed to share their neighborhood with the obstinately dull Civic Center and aggressively ugly police services building. But the courts and the county jail and sheriff’s office and LA Detention Center gave Honor a subversive thrill that she only partially understood, and she decided to play out her next adventure here.
She rolled to a stop outside the Regent Hotel because it looked old and expensive and the sort of place that would have an absurdly over-priced wine list and just enough caviar on hand.
The hotel was an immaculate relic of an age when what things looked like mattered. Honor entered through a revolving door of wood and brass and beveled glass into an age when it made sense for a hotel to have a two-story, rosewood paneled lobby overlooked by an expansive mezzanine accessible by twin staircases, all resting on a tiled mosaic of Poseidon rising from the surf accompanied by a dolphin. The maritime theme was repeated on the walls by commissioned floor-to-ceiling paintings of ships in peril and bustling seaports. Poseidon's realm was scattered with deep velvet armchairs
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