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Apollo spots the motorcycle a mile away, a great rumbling purple streak of what's-a-muffler-who-cares, weaving deftly through the central California hills, and—wait, purple? Did he see that right? "Damn it."

Maybe, Apollo thinks desperately, Klavier Gavin is just passing through on his way to Pinnacles National Park. He thinks this knowing it's a lie. The only thing down this road is Bitterwater, population 302, some seriously dessicated hills, and one dead end.

The motorcycle's close now, and slowing down, pulling off towards the shoulder and scattering a flock of starlings in its wake. And—no no no, Klavier can't seriously be turning onto this road, of all roads—

Apollo swears, scrambling from the makeshift blind he's been sitting behind for the past two hours, waving his arms and sprinting across the gravel, shouting stop, stop! while feeling absolutely ridiculous.

Klavier swerves to a sliding stop like an action movie stuntman. He must practice that, Apollo thinks sourly—

"Herr Forehead!" Klavier calls, hopping off his bike. "Fancy finding you out here—"

"Get back," Apollo says, all but dragging Klavier backwards, while he's glancing over his shoulder like he's watching for a ticking time bomb—

"Something wrong?" Klavier asks, following Apollo's gaze. It's just dirt, as far as he can see, dirt and gravel.

But Apollo is glowering at him. "The killdeer nest," he says, gesturing at a little divot in the gravel. "You nearly hit it."

"Oh! Is that the bird everyone was excited about?" He cranes his neck to get a better look. "Come out, piepmatz—"

"They're not hatched yet. C'mon, give them space."

Apollo tugs Klavier's arm, and together they walk back to the only bit of shade for miles, a tattered blue oak draped where the road dead-ends, right next to Apollo's parked car. And the killdeer, who has been peeping wildly off to the side, swoops back over the nest and splays his wings atop it, like a tiny, furious dragon atop its gold.

Klavier watches it pensively. "So if that's not the rare bird, what is?"

He must be playing tourist, Apollo thinks. Meant to go to Big Sur and got lost. "If you're looking for condors, you made a wrong turn, like, an hour ago."

"No, not condors. The rare bird. The, ah..." He struggles for the word, then snaps his fingers: "The chiffchaff."

"What? You... know about that?"

In answer, Klavier rifles through in his pockets—those pants look really tight—and pulls out a rumpled bit of newsprint, handing it to Apollo:

Apollo folds it up without finishing the rest. "Bitterwater has a paper?"

"Oh, yes. I know the editor-in-chief." Klavier smiles wryly. "Also the features editor, the sports reporter, the movie reviewer..."

What? that many people? out here? Apollo pulls the paper out and skims the bylines. Front page feature: Clive Owens. Sports section: Clive Owens. Clive Owens, Clive Owens...

Ah. A one-man operation.

"He works at the general store that way," Klavier says, gesturing with a chuckle. "Very chatty fellow."

Apollo remembers the face, vaguely. He was at that store at six this morning to buy a coffee. He... wasn't really awake, yet. Crap, did he forget to say thank you to the guy? He flips the page, hoping there's not a gossip section detailing rude, caffeine-deprived customers—

"I was just out here for a ride," Klavier says, "but when Mr. Owens showed me that, I had to come see." He tilts his head to the horizon: "Where is everyone else? The paper promised a flock of birdwatchers."

Apollo taps the front page. "This is dated a week ago. The bird hasn't been seen in a while."

"Oh." Klavier frowns. "Then why are you here now and not a week ago?"

Apollo sighs. Given the median age and occupation of his fellow birders is seventy-two and retired, he ends up having to explain this a lot: "The bird was first seen on Monday. I have a job."

"Ah. Of course." Klavier considers. "And you had a trial case against me, no less. Sorry, did I keep you?"

"Of course not." Which is true enough; Apollo's clients come first, always. But it would have been really convenient if Klavier were less good at his job, so Apollo could've bailed before noon on Monday (a near-guarantee when Payne was doing the prosecuting), instead of 4:21pm on Thursday, a solid hour after the chiffchaff was last seen.

Klavier cracks his knuckles. "Alright, it's settled, then. How can I help?"

"What?"

"I'd like to help you find this chiffchaff. Is there something you do to call the bird in? A song some such? I'm quite good at mimickry." He purses his lips to whistle—

"No," Apollo interrupts. "No singing. You'll just scare it away."

"Ah. Then, shall we go bushwhacking—" He takes a step toward the sagebrush.

Apollo pulls him back. "Not that either. There's not anything to it except waiting." When Klavier keeps staring at him, Apollo gestures at the eastern side of the field: "You could keep an eye over there, I guess."

He does. Apollo looks west.

Fifteen minutes later, Apollo sneaks a glance over his shoulder. Klavier's still there, thumbs in his pockets, staring exactly where Apollo pointed, rocking back and forth on his heels with perfect equanimity.

He'd expected Klavier to get bored and wander off by now. But, since he hasn't...

"Normally," Apollo says, "chiffchaffs feed by gleaning, but the earlier reports said he was sallying off these manzanitas. Guess the bird thinks he's a phoebe."

"Fantastic," Klavier says. "And that means, ah, what, precisely...?"

Apollo smiles, for the first time all day. "If you see a bird hopping off a bush, fluttering a bit, and then landing again, give me a shout."

By hour two of the stakeout, Apollo's starting to wonder if Klavier is a little bit superhuman. Not in a superhero way—in an eerie-fae sort of way.

See, living in LA, everyone has a few celebrity sightings. Apollo once saw Will Powers pumping gas, and later on, some reality show star buying Twinkies at 7-11 while wearing stupendously oversized sunglasses. Without the makeup and lights they look normal. It's nice. Reminds him that they're all just humans getting by.

But not so with Klavier—whose hair is styled as though he's about to walk onto a photo shoot, not a hair out of place, even though the temperature's reached a hundred and ten and the wind's blowing tumbleweeds all over. Apollo's own hair wilted long ago. And Klavier's still wearing all his motorcycle gear, even though he's got to be sweating under that jacket—he does sweat, right?

Apollo thinks about edging closer to check. Sniff test or something. But that would be weird, right? Maybe if he's surreptitious about it—

"What's that?" Klavier says, pointing. "That thing flapping in the distance."

Apollo follows Klavier's finger, squinting, fully expecting to say oh it's just another crow or savannah sparrow, again—except it does look like something, flitting around in the scrub half a football field away—

Apollo leaps to his scope, pivoting and pointing it so quick that Klavier whistles. And he'll be damned, but there it is, out of habitat entirely but here, the chiffchaff at last. It's a full week after everyone else thought it was gone, it's here and it's his first ever ABA code 5 sighting, it's here and it's even chirping—

"Look!" Apollo practically shoves Klavier in front of the scope, because he can't not share this. (Also, it's nice to have another witness, in case the regional eBird reviewer gets uppity.) "Can you believe that view. Wow." It feels nice to laugh with hysterical joy, for a change, instead of laughing with hysterical ha-ha-oh-no-this-case-is-impossible dread, like he's done a few too many times these past few months. He's laughing, and whooping, and he even jumps into the air, because nothing in the world can bring him down—

"Herr Forehead," Klavier says delicately, as though speaking to a child, "you must be mistaken. That cannot be the rare bird. It is just a little zilpzalp."

—except that.

"Just? What do you mean just?" Apollo pushes Klavier aside to get another look—did he bungle the ID?—but no, it's the chiffchaff for sure. "And it's not a zilpza—zilpa—zilp-whatever, it's a chiffchaff."

"Nein, Apollo, it is a zilpzalp. I recognize it for sure. We saw them all the time when we toured in Europe."

Right. Whatever. No need to rub in the fact that he'll never be able to afford any fancy overseas birding trips on the Wright Anything Agency salary, thanks. And anyways: "That's the point," Apollo insists. "Sure, you can see chiffchaffs in Europe, but they're common there. This is the first time a chiffchaff's ever been seen in North America."

Klavier lifts a hand to his chin, considering. "No offense to deserts," he announces, wiping some dust off his pants, "but I think I'd rather watch them from the Biergarten on a nice spring day."

If Apollo weren't still riding the bird-of-his-life high, he'd say something snippy about that. But instead he laughs because, yes, he is ridiculous: "Guess that makes me a bit of a masochist, huh."

Klavier smiles. "I like your moxie," he says, and god, this heat really is getting to Apollo's head, because he can feel himself flush. He rushes back to the scope. If he's going to pass out, he wants to pass out watching the bird.

"So where are his friends?"

"What?"

"The bird's friends. They travel in flocks, yes?"

"Um." Apollo clears his throat. "When a rare bird shows up like this, it's because of migratory misorientation. Like, he meant to fly a thousand miles southwest and went a thousand miles northwest instead."

This is all a way to avoid saying, the bird's catastrophically lost and in the wrong habitat and totally alone and probably going to die, even though that's absolutely true, because it's morbid and depressing and really puts a damper on the whole rare-bird-sighting thing if he thinks about it too long. Which he is, right now. No thanks to Klavier.

Klavier, however, tilts his head with interest: "So this chiffchaff is an explorer, ja? A Marco Polo bird seeking new sights. Or maybe he's on tour?"

Ridiculous. But... maybe? It's not like Apollo can look inside the bird's head, after all. "Right. Yeah. I like that."

The sun's starting to set. Apollo can tell from the length of their shadows, and the pink tint in the sky, growing deeper moment by moment. The wind is almost chilly enough for a jacket, but Apollo doesn't want to go back to his car and grab it, not yet.

Klavier's staring ahead at that sky when he asks: "I wonder if Kristoph would've liked this."

That's a name he hasn't heard lately. "Kristoph is a... birder?"

"When we were little." A small smile tugs at Klavier's lips. "Inspired by Charles Darwin, I believe. He knew all the names, and kept those little checklists you bird people so love. Fancied himself a gentleman scientist." The smile fades, as slightly as it first appeared. "I was just the hanger-on."

It feels weird, staring at Klavier when he isn't staring back, so Apollo looks toward the sunset too. "I never heard Kristoph talk about it."

Klavier shrugs. "He abandoned it after a while. He said something about other birders being... 'jumped-up neurotic bean counters with a feather fetish'...?"

Ouch.

Klavier laughs. He's looking at Apollo again. "Between you and me, I think he was just sulking because someone bested him. Some dispute over, ah, the difference between two little hawks...?"

"Accipiters?" Apollo asks, embarrassingly automatic.

"Yes! Those! How did you know?"

Because they're horrendously tricky little bastards, Apollo thinks. "Lucky guess," Apollo says.

"Well, that happened, and then Kristoph declared birdwatching a juvenile waste of time, just like that." Klavier snaps his fingers, for effect, and frowns. Then, more quietly: "Whenever he dropped something, he dropped it entirely. Hobbies, clubs. People."

It's been two months since that jury trial. Two months since the two of them got Kristoph sentenced again.

Apollo clears his throat. "Have you gone to see him yet?"

"No." Klavier laughs. "Isn't that awful?"

Apollo shrugs. "It's not like I've gone to see him either."

It's not the same, of course. Apollo was an employee of Kristoph's for six months; Klavier's known the man as long as he's been alive. But Klavier smiles gratefully anyway.

"As for me, I could never drop anything. I rescued all his field guides from the garbage bin. Seemed a shame to just throw out all those beautiful pictures." He tilts his head. "I still have those books, now that I think of it."

"We should look at them sometime," Apollo blurts—too quickly, he can tell right off, because Klavier raises an eyebrow. Not the cool-detached-amused way, but like he's been taken aback. "I mean, I want to see the books." Knowing Kristoph, he probably bought the best that money could buy, and Apollo would kill for some first editions—"I mean, not just the books," he adds hurriedly, because there's a flicker on Klavier's face that makes something in Apollo's stomach twist, and the guy did just help him find the rarest bird in the whole state. "It's just, I mean, if you, I know, um—"

"Are you alright, Apollo?" Klavier asks, smirking. "You seem all... aflutter."

Oh. Groan.

As if on cue, the chiffchaff lifts, rising neatly from its bush. It soars up the hill and out of sight.

"And that's that." It's nearly too dark to see anymore, anyway. Apollo grabs his scope and folds it up.

"That's it?" Klavier says, with a disappointment that is bafflingly unfeigned. Last time Apollo tried to bring a guy to a stakeout, he'd whined about being bored after thirty minutes.

"There's other rare birds, you know," Apollo offers haltingly. "I can sign you up for the mailing list. Spring migration's starting, so–"

"Are you offering to bring me along?"

"No." Apollo pauses just long enough to watch Klavier pout. Then: "Not until we get you a real pair of binoculars. Can't just have you borrowing my stuff all the time. I know a good shop near the courthouse."

He looks from Klavier (satisfyingly thunderstruck), to the motorcycle, to his car, then back to Klavier, slinging his scope over his shoulder: "See you back in LA, bird guy."