“What happened?”

“How’s the boy?”

“Still sleeping. Are you going to be okay?”

“It looks worse than it is. Mostly dirt. Let me in please.”

She stepped aside, and I handed her the convenience store bag on the way to her bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror. I wasn’t pretty, face a caked mix of blood, dirt and sweat. I filled the sink with cold water, splashed my face. The water stung the cut over my eye. I ignored it, kept splashing until I looked almost human again. I wiped my face on one of Molly’s clean towels, smudged it brown and red, tossed it on the floor. I drained the water, turned on the cold tap again and scooped handfuls of water until I got the dirt taste out of my mouth.

I took a leak, flushed.

Molly hovered in the hall, waiting for me to come out.

“Toby, stay here. Every time you go out there, something—”

“I have something to do.”

I walked past her and into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator. She’d put my other two energy drinks in there. I took them. There were two chicken legs on a plate. I took them too. Back in the living room, Molly looked at me, frowning with her whole face, arms crossed. I didn’t have time to think of anything I could say to make her feel better. I looked at the boy. He was still sleeping. Good.

I went toward the front door.

“Toby, please.”

“Molly, just watch TJ, okay? Stay here and watch him.”

I left quickly before she could think of anything else to say to me. I went through my pockets until I found the right set of keys. I unlocked Roy’s Peterbilt and hauled myself up into the cab. The truck was a fucking monster. I sat, looked over the gearshift and gauges, trying to remember back a few years when I’d driven a pal’s big-rig a total of twice just for laughs. I started the engine and cranked the air-conditioning.

The air felt good. I sat there a second, not moving, just letting the air conditioning hit my dirty, sweaty skin.

I sat and ate the chicken legs, tossed the bones out the window. The armrest was also a storage compartment for CDs. I flipped through Roy’s music collection with a raised eyebrow. He had Celine Dion, Kenny G, Lionel Richie, Abba Gold, Three Tenors, Sade, Britney Spears, Seal, Clay Aiken …

Damn, Roy. What the fuck?

I shoved Abba into the CD player, drowned out the opening seconds of “Dancing Queen” grinding the Peterbilt into first gear. The thing finally lurched forward, and I was off and running. I eased out of the residential neighborhood, trying not to flatten mailboxes or picket fences as I went. I made a wide slow turn onto main, found the alley I was looking for the other side of Skeeter’s.

I pulled past, then attempted to back in but had to stop before taking out a railing on Skeeter’s front deck. I pulled forward and tried again. Five more tries, and I’d cussed every bad word I could think of, but I finally backed the rig into the alley. I killed the lights, but left the engine on with the air conditioner blowing.

I sat and watched Main Street, popped open an energy drink and choked it down. Abba sang “S.O.S.” S.O.S. Damn right. Abba wasn’t so bad. I would never admit that to a single living soul.

I fished the box of .38 ammo out of my pants pocket and reloaded the revolver. Instead of sliding it back in the holster, I set it on the passenger seat where I could grab it fast. I knew Karl was probably steaming, waiting for me at the stationhouse, but I had something to take care of that just wouldn’t wait. And fuck Karl anyway. Just fuck that guy.

Fuck everybody.

Ten minutes crawled by, and I finally saw the Mustang come rolling down Main from the west. I knew he hadn’t given up on me, knew he’d come back this way sooner or later. I knew it, you cocksucker. Under the street lights, the Mustang looked rough. My upside-down Nova had clearly lost the battle, but the Mustang had taken a pretty good beating. The front was mashed in like somebody had punched the car in the nose, scrapes and dents along the side. The cherry paint job was crusted with dirt and grime.

Good. Fuck you, Ford Mustang Mach 1.

They passed, and I counted to thirty. Then I flipped on the headlights and pulled out of the alley, followed the Mustang. I kept it to the speed limit. If they thought I was up to something, they’d simply hit the gas and fly away.

We headed out of town going east, and I felt sure I knew where they were headed. The Mona Lisa Lodge was the only motel for miles and miles and it was two minutes from Coyote Crossing. I eased up, let the Mustang pull ahead of me. I couldn’t let them get too far. Hard to follow with their tail lights out. Blamed myself for that one.

Until they fired me I was the law. But this was about more than that. This was payback. I shifted gears and kept pace. Hell is on your heels, you sons of bitches.

The Mona Lisa’s green neon sprouted on the horizon. There wasn’t much to the motel. A dozen rooms lined up in a row and a dank office with an ice machine and a Pepsi vending machine. Probably Widow McCarthy on duty at the desk or more likely sleeping one off in the back office. I knew what the inside of the rooms looked like. Plain earth tones, dingy yellow tile in the bathrooms. No pictures on the wall. Two fuzzy channels on the TV. I’d been to the Mona Lisa twice with Molly when her Dad was in town, and we couldn’t wait. I’d told Doris I’d picked up a late shift. Molly had told her dad she was sleeping at a friend’s.

I wondered if I could convince Molly to stay in Coyote Crossing and marry me. Maybe she would learn to love the boy. That made me laugh. Hell. She probably didn’t even love me. Might as well pull the moon from the sky and put it in my pocket. And anyway, I was probably going to jail.

The Mustang pulled into the hotel parking lot, parked in front of the room at the far end of the line. I didn’t slow the Peterbilt, drove right on past, just another all night trucker on his way to nowhere, USA.

I made it a quarter mile down the highway, decelerated and made a slow U-turn. I paused in the road, let the truck idle. I lit a cigarette. Let them get comfortable in there, drop their guard.

I headed back for the motel, working my way up through the gears. I thought about killing the headlights but switched on the brights instead. “Waterloo” blasted from the speakers. I hit the Mona Lisa’s parking lot full speed, angled myself toward the Mustang.

The Peterbilt plowed into the driver’s side with a pop crunch, like hitting an empty soda-pop can with a baseball bat. The big-rig pushed the Mustang up on its side, and I shoved it along like that for a second until it bounced out of the way. I headed back for the road, turned for another pass.

Two Mexicans spilled out of the motel room, guns in hands, a guy in red and the honcho in the black shirt. I aimed the rig at their front door and started shifting gears. Kept leaning on the horn. They lifted their pistols.

I blasted the big-rig’s horn at them just as they opened fire. Slugs punched through the windshield a foot to my right, spider-webbing the glass. The next shot inched closer, and I hunched in my seat, still shifting and pressing the gas pedal. I didn’t quite get up to speed like I’d hoped, but I guess I was making my point because both the Mexicans fled back into the hotel room.

Bad move.

I blasted the horn one more time before the Peterbilt smashed through the door and window, dust and rubble raining down on the rig’s windshield. I put it in park and killed the ignition, grabbed the revolver which had slid to the floor and climbed down from the cab. I stumbled on the rubble. An arm in a red sleeve stuck out from under the rig’s front tire. I decided I didn’t want to see any more.

I got to my feet, slipping on the loose rubble. The rig’s headlights stabbed through the swirling dust in the motel room. A figure emerged through the beams of light, like a ghost drifting through the dust cloud. He came closer, and I saw it was the honcho in the black shirt, one hand clutching a pistol, the other wiping at his eyes. He coughed hard, waved the gun in front of him.