He considered just driving on and coming back to deal with what ever it was later, but the urge to find out what was going on won out over what he felt was the more commonsense plan of action, to just keep going down to 611, get on the turnpike, and drive west until he saw red rocks and tumbleweeds. He parked the car and walked slowly across the lawn, flashes of muscle pain lighting up his arms and legs, bright spots and clouds in his eyes.

When she saw him crossing to her, she started shaking her head and pointing at him and then the door of the little apartment over her garage. “Men came for you. I told them no.”

“It’s okay, Mrs. G.”

“No, it’s not okay. These men are big, they have…” She brushed her hand down her arms. Tattoos. Yeah, he thought. I bet they had tattoos.

“I thought police, but they’re not police. I can’t have this.” She turned and gave a stream of Ukrainian to her son, who nodded and looked sage, not wanting a part of this now that he had gotten a closer look at Ray. She paced and ranted while Ray smiled and edged closer to the door, his hands up.

“I know, Mrs. G. They won’t be back.”

“No! It’s you. You won’t be back.” Then there was more Ukrainian and she poked her kid hard in the stomach and pointed at Ray.

“Okay, Ma. Okay. Jesus,” the kid said. She wandered off muttering, and Ray stood looking at the kid, who shrugged. “You see how it is? She wants you gone.”

“I see it.”

“Whoever those guys were, they scared the shit out of her.”

“Ah, just some… friends. It’s nothing.”

“Yeah, but she’s an old lady.”

Ray said, “Let me just get some shit and I’ll get out of here.” He moved up the short flight of stairs and turned around. “Tell Mrs. G,” he said, but then shook his head. There it was again, his face burning, his breath coming short, not enough air to inflate his lungs. He put his hand on his chest, and the bits of light through the trees danced in his head. He watched the big kid cock his head.

“Man, you okay?”

Ray grabbed the banister, held up a hand. “I’m fine. Just tell your mom I’m sorry, and thanks for putting up with… You know.”

He turned back up the stairs and saw boot prints on the door, but the lock had held, and he let himself in. Everything looked the same, all his stuff was untouched, but it all looked shabby and unfamiliar in the hard sunlight. He stood for a while, then went into the bedroom and got his duffel and threw it onto the bed. He packed his clothes and looked around. What did he want? His music, some DVDs. On the wall were movie posters he had gotten from the mall. Nothing he couldn’t replace in ten minutes. There was nothing of him here. He flashed on standing in a cell upstate on the day they were gating him out, a CO watching him while he looked at a couple of pictures stuck to the wall with the tacky bits of putty they made you use.

There was almost no one who would look for him here and no one who would realize he was gone. His money and his guns were all he had, and that was in the car or locked away. He threw a handful of CDs and movies in with the jeans and underwear and T-shirts and left quickly, without looking back.

He drove aimlessly around for a few hours. Over to the river, down to Oxford Valley. Across the bridge at Trenton and back up 29. Looking for a place to be.

AT DUSK HE collected Manny, and they went back to Monk’s and got more junk. They spent the night in another motel, this one in Lahaska. In another room somewhere a man and woman made lovemaking sounds that were like a terrible anguish. They paid for three days in advance and stayed high as much of the time as they could, breaking the fall off the heroin with coconut rum and hash. Ray would do coke out of the one- hitter to get straight enough for runs to a Wawa to get Tastykakes and soda and hoagies they’d pick at and then throw away.

It reminded Ray of when they were young and boosting cars and they’d get four or five hundred bucks for a car and blow it all in a few days on CDs and movies and dope and clothes and buying girls drinks. Seeing the same movie over and over. Terminator 2 and Predator 2 and a long list of crap they watched back to back for the explosions and the guns, the sounds echoing around inside their dope-hollowed brains.

But events kept going, even if the two of them were stuck in a groove. Sherry and Theresa came home from the shore. Sherry needed her car, so Ray told Manny to buy her something and take it out of the money at the U-Store It place in Warrington and he kept the Honda. One of the bikers burned at the barn died, and the story faded off the news. No one seemed to be looking for them. What ever it was that had happened didn’t seem to be ongoing.

On the fourth day Manny went home to Sherry’s, and Ray called Ho Dinh.

“Man, how the hell are you doing?” How da hell. Ho’s accent was more pronounced when he was agitated, and his words were clipped short now.

“I’m good, you know. I’m cool.”

“Yeah? We were worried. Tina showed me the paper, all that shit that happened up there.”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“You sound high.”

“Well, good and high.”

“Well.”

“No, man, I wanted to say thanks.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“For hooking me up with, you know.”

“I thought maybe you had a problem, Ray.”

“No, no. I guess it all worked out.”

“Man, are you all right?”

“Really, I’m good. Really, Ho.”

There was a long pause on Ho’s end. “If you say so.”

Ray wanted to tell him the truth, but what point was there? He wanted to say his head was full of death and fire and he couldn’t close his eyes without being drunk or high and he wanted to start screaming and never stop. He wanted to tell him that one night while Manny was fixing in the bathroom he’d taken out the old army Colt and dry- fired it into his mouth. But there would be something in there that Ho might see as aimed at him for setting him up with Cyrus. He didn’t want that. What ever Ho had done had been to help him out and protect Tina and the kids.

“No, I’m just taking a little vacation, really. I’ll call you in a few days.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I’ll come over, bring some wine. Tell Tina.”

“Okay.” Ho didn’t hang up. “Just so, you know.”

“Thanks, man. I owe you big on all of this.”

“Ray.”

“Really, man. I’ll talk to you soon.”

AFTER MANNY WENT home Ray moved to a cheaper motel, one of those places that used to be a real motor hotel back in the forties, with little cabins set apart down a short drive. He was stuck somewhere. He sat and watched the tiny TV in the room, flipping through dozens of programs about life on another planet. He would go to the car, stand there juggling his keys, not knowing where to go.

Ray called Manny’s guy Monk again for dope, but he said he was short and gave him a name in Fairless Hills. Ray drove down around dusk into a neighborhood of close- set houses, pickups and cars showing Bondo and rust. Sprawling neighborhoods of postwar homes elbowing each other for a little sun, a little air. He sat outside, watching the house while it grew dark. There were kids’ toys in the yard and a blue plastic turtle filled with sand and empty beer bottles. After a while he walked up and knocked. An older guy with prison- yard eyes answered and stood holding the door between them. Ray had the feeling he had something in his hands behind the door.

“What?”

“Monk gave me your name.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Was he wrong?”

“Monk is always wrong. He’s a punk.”

“I don’t want to get into anything, man. I just want to get what I’m looking for.”

The guy shook his head and slammed the door. Ray had started walking back up the cracked walk when the door popped open again. A small woman in shorts was standing there showing tattoos snaking up under a tube top. Her hair was a colorless brown, and there were lines etched around her mouth, but she seemed hopeful.