“I’ll have to go by the ATM machine first,” Mort said, and Keith had lingered only a moment longer before following him across the street to the white van.

Sometime after ten, the van bumped across a railroad (another railroad, this city seemed shot through with them like varicose veins) and left the road, rocking over uneven ground, gravel and bigger rocks, then rolled to a stop a few feet away from what looked to Niki like it might once have been a loading ramp for the empty factories and warehouses. Her ass ached, and the small of her back, too, the place she imagined her kidneys to be, and she had to piss.

The platform was dark, too far from the streetlights, nothing but a dull red glow from a barrel and that surrounded by shivering men in ragged clothes, freezing scarecrows or tramps.

“That goddamn son of a bitch,” Daria said, relief and furious anger, and she slammed her fist hard against the sun-cracked vinyl dashboard, then jumped out of the van, and Niki could hear her Docs crunching toward the platform.

No one bothered letting Niki out this time; Mort swore and killed the engine, got out and followed Daria. So Niki was left alone to wrestle with the stubborn handle of the sliding door. By the time she caught up with them, Daria had climbed up onto the platform, hands on her sturdy hips, leaning down to yell at someone sitting on the concrete edge. It had to be Keith, guitar across his lap like a disobedient child, not dressed for the weather, and she could tell he’d be a tall man when he stood. It was too dark to see his face, and he was looking down besides, past his dangling legs at the ground where broken-bottle glass glittered faintly.

Mort stood a few feet away from her, helpless watcher.

“Do you have any fucking idea where all we’ve been out looking for your ass tonight?” Daria hissed, and then she kicked an empty beer can; the can flew high, end over tumbling end like a football or grenade, and clattered to the ground somewhere out in the darkness.

The figure did not move, did not shift its wide shoulders or tilt its head toward its accuser.

“Why the hell d’you do that?” he asked. “I’ve been right here all evening. Mort knows to look for me here.”

“Christ!” the swear spit like cracker-dry crumbs, and Daria turned, paced to the other side of the platform and stood staring out across the tracks. The bums watched from the safety of their barrel fire.

“I got a phone call that you’d been in a fight,” she said. “That somebody had cut your guts out over a bad deal.”

He shrugged and shook his head.

“Who said a damn fool thing like that?” he murmured, so low his bear’s voice was almost lost in the wind.

“What the hell difference does that make?”

“Because some people will say anything, Dar. You gotta know who to believe and who’s just full of shit.”

Muffled laughter from the glowing ring of bums and junkies, and one of them said, “That’s some fine white-bitch ass, all right, Mr. Barry. Yessiree…”

“L.J., why don’t you just shut the hell up,” Keith said, but Daria had already turned on them, had taken a step toward the huddled circle of orange-brown faces and warming palms; Niki felt Mort tense in the dark beside her.

“Man,” Keith sighed. “You’re only gonna piss her off more than she already is.”

“I ain’t tryin’ to disrespect your lady,” said the man with arms like twigs and a face like a hungry weasel, all guilty innocence. “I’m just payin’ her some due, that’s all.”

“Shut up, L.J.,” another of the men growled.

“You just gotta be properly respectful of fine white pussy like that, that all I’m sayin’. That’s all I’m sayin’.”

Niki took a step closer to Mort, felt her hand on his arm before she knew she’d put it there.

A howl like metal past fatigue, the point where stress becomes shear, and Daria rushed the men, moved howling her steel gash howl across the platform, and most of them had time to jump out of the way before she reached the barrel. Except for the one they had called L.J., who stood like a shabby rabbit in blinding headlights.

Daria kicked high and her right boot connected with the rim of the barrel; it lifted a little ways off the concrete, short flight before gravity took it back and it tipped over, spraying embers and ash, showering the paralyzed L.J. in the sizzling rain, dumping its little inferno at his feet.

“FUCK OFF!” she screamed, vague word shapes pounded from the howl, and L.J. dove off the side of the platform, yelping and cursing, stomping his feet and slapping madly at his clothes. Some of the other men moved in cautiously to help put him out.

And from the smoking barrel litter Daria seized a charred stub of wood, broken fruit-crate slat, held it high like a burning tomahawk and turned back to Keith Barry. He stood up slowly, moving as if invisible lead hung from his limbs, one hand out like a traffic cop or safety guard, the guitar hanging limp from the other. Upright, he was at least a foot taller than Daria.

“Man, you have got to get a grip on yourself,” he said, and Niki kept waiting for him to flinch, take a step backward, for Mort to intercede. But no one moved.

“You listen to me, Keith Barry,” she said. “I am sick and goddamn tired of this shit.”

“Mort. You better tell her to back off, man.”

“We have a show tomorrow night at Jekyll’s, Keith, and you will be there, and you will be as straight as you are still capable of being. Are you listening to me?”

She held the brand a little higher, bright cinders dripping to the concrete at her feet.

“What the hell is your problem?”

“I said, you will be there. All you have to do is say, ‘Yes, Dar, I’ll be there and, no, I won’t be too fucked-up to even take a piss.’”

“Mort?” he asked, the name uttered almost like a prayer.

But Mort was insensible granite beside Niki, immovable.

“Last chance,” Daria said. “You gonna be there or not? ’Cause if you’re not, I have absolutely no reason not to go ahead and shove this board up your ass right now.”

“Tell the woman you’re gonna be there, asshole,” said the man who’d told L. J. to shut up.

“Yeah,” Keith said, and Niki felt a little of the white-blue tension, the crackling threat, drain out of the air. “You know I’m gonna fucking be there.”

“And you’re gonna be straight,” she said.

“Yeah, straight,” and he sat back down, the guitar held out like a shield of wood and strings. “I ain’t gonna fuck up this show.”

Daria sighed, seemed to let out a breath she might have held a hundred years, dropped the glowing slat and ground it out with the toe of her boot. Niki felt herself breathing again, pulled her hand back from Mort’s shoulder.

“Sound check’s at eight o’clock,” she said. “Don’t be late.” And she stepped past him, then, down from the platform without looking back.

“Come on,” she said as she passed Niki and Mort. “This place smells like rat piss.”