It was as though he had disappeared, as Mexican wizards were said to do, changing into crows and hawks and jumping straight up in the air.

Indian demons.

Hart shivered again.

A block away, Shadow Love was on the phone. "Barb? Could you pick me up?"

CHAPTER 19

Lucas woke in the dark, listening, and finally identified the sound that had woken him. He reached across the bed and touched her.

"Crying?"

"I can't help it," she squeaked.

"A little guilt, maybe."

She choked, unable to answer for a moment. Then came a muffled "Maybe." She rolled over to face him, her knees pulled up in fetal position. "I've never done this before."

"You told me that," he said into the dark. He groped around for a moment, found the switch on the bedside lamp and turned it on. Her head was down, her face concealed.

"The thing is, I knew I would be. Unfaithful. That one night, in my room, I almost didn't stop you. I shouldn't have. But it was… too quick. I couldn't handle it," she said. "Then when Hood went down and I was freaked out and you were freaked out and I got out of town… On the way to New York, on the plane, I cried. I thought I wouldn't see you again, wouldn't get to sleep with you. But I was relieved, you know. When they told me I had to come back, I was crying again. David thought I was crying because I didn't want to come back. But I was crying because I knew what would happen. I was so… hungry."

"Hey, look. I've been through this," Lucas said. "I feel i bad about it sometimes, but I can't stay away from women.; A shrink would probably find something weird is wrong j with me. But I just… want women. It's like you said, I j get hungry. I can't stop it. It's a drug, you crave it."

"Just the sex?" She rolled over a bit, her head cocked toward him, watching his eyes.

"No. The woman. The back-and-forth. Hanging around. The sex. Everything."

"You're a relationship junkie. Always need something new."

"No, that's not quite right. There's a woman in Minneapolis, I think I've gotten in bed with her once or twice a year since I was a rookie. Sixteen, eighteen years. I see her and I want her. I call her up, she calls me up, I want her. It's not newness. It's something else."

"Is she married?"

"Yeah. For fifteen years, must be. Has a couple of kids."

"That is strange." There was a moment of silence, then she said, "Part of the guilt is that I don't feel worse than I do. You know what I mean? I liked it. I haven't had sex that good since… I don't know. Ever, I think. It was like a blackout. With David, it's soft and gentle and the orgasms come, most of the time anyway, but nothing feels… driven. Everything is always under control. David is thin and doesn't have much hair. You're hard, and you've got all this body hair. It's like… it's so different."

"Too much analysis," Lucas said after a moment. She reached out and touched his face. "I just wanna fuck," he said in a gravelly parody of lust.

"That's ridiculous," she said. She pulled herself closer to him, snuggled on his arm. "Do you think the guilt will go away?"

"I'm pretty sure of it," he said.

"That's what I think too," she said.

They left early, Lucas grumpy in the morning sunlight, but touching her often, on the elbow, the cheek, the neck, brushing hair out of her face. "Let's go for a while. We can stop on the road for breakfast. I can't eat when I'm up this early," he grumbled.

"Your internal clock is screwed up," Lily said as they settled into the Porsche. "You need to get reoriented."

"Nothing happens in the morning, so why get up?" Lucas said. "All the bad people are out at night. And most of the good ones, as far as that goes."

"Let's just try to make it back to the Cities in one piece," she said as he spun the drive wheels and left the motel parking lot. "If you want me to drive…"

"No, no."

They drove straight into the morning sun. Lily was feeling chatty and craned her neck at the oddities of the prairie.

"I'm going back a different way, a little further south," Lucas said. "I like to see as many roads as I can. I don't get out here very often."

"That's fine."

"It won't add much time," he said.

The day started cold but rapidly warmed up. A few minutes after they crossed the Minnesota line, Lucas pulled into a roadside diner. They were the only customers. A fat woman worked in the kitchen behind a chest-high stainless-steel counter. They saw only her head. The counterman was a thin, big-eyed man wearing a dirty apron. He had two days of beard and rolled a Lucky Strike, half smoked and now unlit, between his thin lips. Lucas ordered two hard-fried eggs and bacon.

"I'd recommend that," he said to Lily.

"I'll have the eggs, anyway," she said. The waiter yelled back to the cook and then stumped off to a chair and picked up the local weekly.

"Have you been here before?" Lily asked quietly when the waiter's back was turned.

"No."

"So how can you recommend the bacon and eggs?"

Lucas looked around the diner. Paint was peeling off the ceiling and a black mold was attacking the seams of the aging wallpaper. "Because they've got to fry it and that ought to sterilize it," he said under his breath.

She glanced around and suddenly giggled, and Lucas thought he might be in love.

After breakfast, when they were back in the car, the talk slowed and Lily moved her seat to a reclined position. Her eyes fell shut.

"A nap?" asked Lucas.

"Relaxing," she said. Her breathing grew steady, and Lucas drove on. Lily dozed but didn't sleep, opening her eyes and sitting forward at turns and stops. After a while, she found the steady soft vibration of the car had become arousing. She opened her eyes just a crack. Lucas had put on sunglasses and was driving with a steady, relaxed watchfulness. Now and then he turned his head to look at passing attractions that she couldn't see from her low position. She reached out and put a hand on his leg.

"Uh-oh," he said. He glanced at her and grinned. "The animal is alive."

"Just thinking," she said. She stroked his thigh, her eyes closed again, letting herself feel the coarse weave of his jeans.

"Dammit," Lucas said after a few more minutes. "My dick is going to break off." He pushed himself up in the seat, reached down the front of his pants and changed things around. She laughed, and when he sat down, she put her hand back in his lap. He was erect, his penis reaching up beneath his fly to his belt.

"Ooo, too bad we're in a car," she said.

He looked over at her, grinned and said, "You've played this game before?"

"What game?" She stroked and he pushed her hand away.

"You're done," he said. "It's my turn. Take off your panty hose."

"Lucas…" she said. She sounded shocked, but she sat upright and looked out the car windows. They were alone on the rural highway.

"Come on, chicken. Off with the pants."

She looked at the speedometer. A steady sixty miles per hour. "You could kill us."

"Nope. I've played before."

"Mr. Experience, huh?"

"Come on, come on, you're bullshitting now. Off with the pants. Or live with the consequences."

"What consequences?"

"Deep in your heart, you'll know that I know you're chicken."

"All right, Davenport." She pushed herself off the seat, and with some difficulty pulled off her panty hose.

"Now the pants."

She pushed herself up again and took off her underpants.

"Here, I'll take them," Lucas said. Without thinking, she handed him the pants; he quickly dropped his window and threw them out.

"Davenport, for Christ's sakes…" She was looking back down the highway where the underpants had disappeared into a roadside ditch.

"I'll buy you new ones."