Camouflage

anyhow.”
    She sighed and nodded and slid off the stool unsteadily.
    “There’s a party. I take you there, you meet some guys, you take care of me?”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Like a hundred bucks?”
    “We’ll see.” It took her shoulder and aimed her toward the door. “If I score, sure.”
    They walked along Beach Road a couple of blocks and then down an unmarked gravel alley. She stopped at a Toyota that had more rust than paint, and jerked the driver’s-side door open with a shriek. “Here we go.”
    “You okay to drive?” The door on the changeling’s side didn’t open. She leaned across and pushed hard twice.
    “Yeah, yeah. Get in.” It smelled of mildew and marijuana.
    On the third try the engine, older than the driver, sputtered to life, and they jerked on down the lane. She drove with a drunk’s elaborate caution, weaving.
    “You don’t want me to drive?” It couldn’t die, but it didn’t want to attract attention from police by not doing so.
    “Nah, this is fun.” She found her way to the winding uphill road that the changeling recognized as the one leading up to the Stevenson mansion. Traffic was light, fortunately. The girl didn’t say anything. She was concentrating on staying near the center of the road.
    They passed Vailima and came into a woodsy area with no homes near the road. “Look for a orange plastic ribbon on your side,” she said, slowing to a walk. “Tied to a tree. ’Round a tree trunk.”
    “There it is,” the changeling said, and then realized human eyes wouldn’t see it yet.
    “Where? I don’t see.” She peered over the steering wheel and the right wheels crunched into gravel. She overcorrected well into the oncoming lane, forcing a Vespa off the road. The rider yelled something in Samoan but rode on.
    “Trust me. It’s up there.” After another couple of hundred yards the headlights caught the pale orange ribbon, sun-bleached emergency tape. She pulled into a dirt road just beyond it.
    “You got some eyes.” They could just see the road ahead, and the changeling held on. They splashed into potholes so deep the springs bottomed out with a clunk and the driver hit her head on the roof, laughing.
    They came to a Western-style house, an incongruous rambler, a little light coming from behind drawn blinds, lots of cars parked in the circular gravel driveway. There were clapped-out hulks like the girl was driving, but also new cars, two taxis, and a shiny limousine.
    Too many people, the changeling thought. Be careful.
    They picked their way up a board walkway set on the muddy ground. Pine smell of construction; latex paint. The house was new. Business must be good.
    She leaned on the doorbell and the front door opened a crack. A tall black man looked down at her. “Mo’o. You found some money somewhere?”
    She jerked her thumb in the changeling’s direction. “He’s got plenty.”
    The black man looked into its eyes for a long moment. “Why should I trust you?”
    “You shouldn’t. I don’t know anybody local. The slit said she’d take me where I could find some dealers.”
    “You buyin’ or sellin’?”
    “Right now I’m buying.”
    “Let me see some color.” A flashlight snapped on. The changeling opened his wallet, fanning bills. The man murmured, then flashed the light in the changeling’s face.
    “We’ll take a chance.” He opened the door partway. “You know if you’re a cop, your family dies, in front of you. And then you?”
    The changeling shrugged. “Not a cop; no family.” He passed through but the man stopped the girl.
    “I got money,” she protested. “ He’s got money for me.”
    “A hundred bucks,” the changeling said, and took two fifties out of his wallet, and passed them back to her.
    The black man let the money pass but still blocked the girl. “Go home, Mo’o. I don’t need any more trouble from your matai .”
    “I’m over twenty-one and she’s a bitch.”
    “You’re drunk. Sleep it off in the car.”
    “Wait for me in the car,” the changeling said, waving her away. “Give you another hundred if I get what I want.” She walked away, mumbling and staggering.
    Inside, it looked like the party was over but nobody’d gone home. There were about fifty people standing, sitting, or passed out. A table with food and bottles of wine and liquor was a picked-over mess. The air was gray with smoke. The changeling sorted out cigarettes, expensive as well as cheap cigars, the burnt-plastic smell