I already knew Roy’s story, but he told it so sad I almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

“She’s going to be out of your hair soon,” I said. “You know once she’s off to college she’ll never come back. Not here.” Saying it out loud like that hit me right in the gut. “Anyway, you can behave yourself until then.”

“Can’t be soon enough,” Roy said. “Get my friggin’ life back.”

Some life.

Howard Boyle’s house was at the end of the street where the neighborhood petered out and blended into open field, and a half-wrecked windmill beyond. There were a hundred places like this in Oklahoma where a town suddenly stopped and you stood staring into wide open nothing. Boyle’s house wasn’t much more than a shabby shotgun shack, but it still had more room than my trailer. We climbed the steps, knocked on the door. It took a long time for Howard to flip on the porch light and open up.

Howard ran the tire and lube store in town. He’d inherited it from his daddy and hit the skids in the late eighties. Some rich guy from Tulsa who made a habit of snatching up troubled businesses for a song bought the place but kept Howard on to run it. Looking at the slack-bellied, balding fifty-something wreck in front of me, I saw a man who didn’t have a damn thing to look forward to when he got up each morning. No family. No legacy. No talent for anything accept changing a tire. Even his boxer shorts looked like they weren’t hiding much. Probably the perfect drinking buddy for old Roy. Sure.

Howard squinted at us and scratched his belly. “What time is it?”

“Late,” I said. “Or early. Depends if you’re coming or going.”

“You arrest Roy?”

“Not tonight. We thought he might crash on your couch.”

Howard made a face, like maybe he wanted to know why but was just too tired to ask. “Yeah, okay.”

Roy started into the house, paused in the doorway. “What’s a man supposed to do? I mean for fuck’s sake, can you tell me that? How does a man know?”

I really couldn’t say what he was getting at, but I said, “We just do our best as we go along, I guess. And maybe it’ll seem like the right thing when we look back on it later.”

This seemed to satisfy him. He nodded and went inside. Howard followed him in and turned off the porch light.

I lit a cigarette and smoked my way back the way we’d come. What’s a man supposed to do? How does a man know? Damn right. Preach it, Roy. From the mouth of babes, the Good Book said. But once in a while a tumble-down drunk got it right too. Roy didn’t have the answers any more that I did, but at least he knew the questions. And that’s half the battle.

I smoked and walked and wondered if that was all bullshit or not.

When I got back to Main Street, I saw the Ford Mustang Mach 1 parked right behind my Nova.

CHAPTER SIX

I was halfway across the street, and they didn’t see me at first, the three Mexicans standing around the Nova looking through the windows. I froze, puffed the cigarette, and wondered what to do.

I didn’t do anything. They saw me first.

They nudged each other, pointed in my direction, stood up straight and moved away from the Nova. I could either haul ass or square my shoulders and get all Johnny Law.

“What seems to be the trouble here, gentleman?” I said.

I’m just not very smart.

They edged closer, taking it slow, looking me over.

All three wore silk shirts, buttons undone to reveal gold jewelry. The one in the lead wore a black shirt. His head was shaved, gold hoop earrings. The two behind him were in red, beards, various tattoos. It looked like somebody had driven though town and puked a Los Lobos tribute band into the street.

One of the redshirts fired off some syllables in Spanish, and I caught the word pistola.

The one in the black shirt looked me over again and shook his head. “No.”

My hand automatically went to my belt. No gun. Shit. It was still in the Nova.

The Mexicans grinned and came at me.

I plucked the Winston out of my mouth and flicked it at the lead guy’s face. It bounced off his cheek, orange sparks flying, not really doing any damage, but he flinched and pulled up short. I went low and jabbed a fist in his ribs, heard some of the air go out of him. A second quick punch for good measure.

Some personal history: When you’ve played guitar in as many roadside honky-tonk shitholes as I have, you learn to throw a few punches. You learn that hesitation can earn you a black eye and a fat lip.

The two red shirts closed in on either side. I felt the stars go off hot behind my eyes as a fist slammed into my face.

Some additional personal history: I always took more than I dished out.

They grabbed at me fast, trying to wrestle me down. I kicked out, connected my heel with something and heard a grunt. More fists in my gut and a blow to the back of my head, and I oozed down to the asphalt.

I lay there a second with the vague sense of them standing over me. Pressure on my chest. My eyes focused and I saw it was a boot, the bald one keeping me down with a foot on the chest. The other two went through my pockets.

I found my voice and managed, “What the hell, man?”

“ Quiate tu boca.”

Right.

One of the red shirts yanked a set of keys out of my pocket, held them up and jingled them. “Aqui.”

They chattered at each other some more, and I got the idea they were talking about what to do with me. I thought about shoving the guy’s boot off my chest and making a run for it, but I still had cartoon tweety-birds circling my head, and I was hoping I could think of some better plan that didn’t involve me running and having three Mexicans jump on my back.

I got lucky. Headlights sparked into view at the end of Main, coming right toward our little scene in the street. The Mexicans jabbered at each other again, and one of the red shirts gave me a goodbye kick in the ribs before they all jumped back in their muscle car. They squealed the tires as they tore away from the curb. I flinched away as a tire came within three inches of my head.

I sat up, watched the taillights vanish the other direction out of town. I wasn’t exactly sure what had happened. The other car came up behind me, and I twisted to look, muscles sore, a vague pain through my whole body.

The kid stuck his head out of the window of the Trans Am. “You okay, man?”

I stood slowly, a miserable groan leaking out of me. “I told you to go home.” His mouthy pal wasn’t in the passenger seat anymore.

“Who was that just drove off?” he asked.

“Bad guys.”

“You going to chase them?”

“Can’t. They got my keys.” I patted my pockets, was surprised to feel a lump and pulled out my set of keys. “Wait.” I looked at them. Yep. They were mine. I snapped my fingers. The Mexicans had grabbed Roy’s keys. Ha. Take that, fucking beaners.

“I’m serious this time,” I told the Trans Am kid. “Get home.”

He shrugged and drove away.

I thought about going after the Mexicans, but it was still three against one, and I hated to admit it, but that Mustang could blow the doors off my Nova. What the hell did they want with me keys? Had they come all the way to Coyote Crossing to steal my Nova? That would make them the world’s worst car thieves.

I went inside the station and cranked the radio. I tried to raise the chief, and when that failed I tried Billy or anyone at all. This was bullshit. Somebody was always supposed to be on duty, either here or listening on the scanner at home. I flipped over to a couple of other channels we used and tried calling all the same people. Nothing. Where the hell was everybody?

I suddenly wanted to feel the weight of my revolver on my belt real bad. I went out to the Nova and fetched my gun, paused when I heard an engine. Maybe a street over. Maybe two streets. Sounded like a big V-8. I got back inside and sat at the desk, swung out the revolver’s cylinder. Just as I thought, no bullets.