Hanson is sleeping, watching the birds in his backyard at dawn with Weegee.
They’re looking through the bird book to decide if it’s a black-chinned hummingbird out there or an Allen’s hummingbird. Weegee holds up the bird book. “The book says you can’t tell the difference between the females.”
Hanson smiles at him. “Might be the same species.”
Across town in San Antonio Village—another country—Felix watches the night sky where a counterfeit star hovers above the bay, blinking and flashing out there, as if it is twinkling, in and out of position. Counterfeit stars. They put at least four of them up every night, at least four, sometimes more than that. High-altitude aircraft—he calls them star throwers—drop the stars off at dusk, synchronized with the aircraft strobe lights, to settle into position, where they go dark, then light back up when the aircraft have gone. It’s obvious what they’re doing, but no one has reported on it or written about them. How do they keep it a secret? The air traffic controllers have to know.
Most people never look up at the night sky, and the stars are masked by light pollution, but still, thousands of people must notice and don’t say anything. Afraid they’ll sound crazy.
Felix tries not to bring it up anymore, even to Levon. He can see in their eyes what they’re thinking when he does, smiling and agreeing with anything he says, like he’s crazy.
He can’t afford to get angry about it. That’s what the stars are hoping he’ll do. He can’t get angry.
The counterfeit stars know that he’s aware of them, what they’re doing. They’re listening to him think it right now. They don’t care if he knows. Because what can he do about it? Report it to the authorities?
He laughs. It’s almost 4 a.m.
Some strike force or task force is collecting intelligence on him, all the agencies—OPD, DEA, FBI, ATF, CIA. The DOJ’s in on it too—they own the judges. Others. Every night, without warrants or probable cause, with nothing. All illegal. They make the laws up and change them as they go. Tap his phone, bug his house. IRS in the banks counting his money. Informants everywhere. Snitches watching him day and night, recording every word he says, then splicing them into whatever they need him to say so he’s guilty. And the stars up there every night.
When they can’t catch him in something, they just make it up. Things that never happened. Classify them out of the public record, “Law Enforcement Only,” then reference them in a couple of bulletins or quarterly reports, and pretty soon they’re true. “Common knowledge, Your Honor,” and none of his lawyers will have access to dispute them. But they’ll still want their fuckin’ money.
Nothing to do about it now, he thinks, but go to bed. Try to sleep. It’s getting cold.