"You think Mikey meant to kill that man?" Honey Bee asked.

"No way," Joe Mack said. "He's just… dumb."

Honey Bee nodded. Mikey was dumb. And violent. Unlike Joe Mack, who was just dumb. Mikey might not have meant to kill the old man, but he probably enjoyed it. Give him a month or two, and he'd be bragging it around, just like Shooter and the black dude in California.

When she was done with Joe Mack, he washed off his face and looked at himself in the mirror. Christ: he looked like a German butcher, big, red, wind-burned nose sticking out of a dead-white face.

"What do you think?" Honey Bee asked.

"Ah, man… Not your fault, though." He rubbed his head. "Bums me out."

She went to the back door, peered through it. Lyle Mack was in the back, moving stuff around. She turned back to Joe Mack, hooked the front of his jeans. "You could come upstairs, later, if that'd make you feel better."

Joe Mack's eyes cut toward the door. Lyle would be really upset if he found out that Joe was screwing his girlfriend. Maybe.

"He's way in the back," she said.

"Yeah, but still…"

"I don't mean right this minute."

"Well…" He stepped close to her, slipped his hand up under her skirt to her underpants. She wore white cotton underpants, and for some reason, that really wound his clock. "That'd help, Honey Bee. I mean, I'd really appreciate it. I'm feeling kinda low." THEY BACKED away from each other when they heard Lyle Mack coming back. Lyle pushed through the swing door, took in Joe and said, "Whoa."

Joe Mack rubbed his head again and said, "I look like I just got out of the joint. I look like they been sprayin' me down for head lice."

"Better'n taking a fall on the old guy," Lyle Mack said. "You know, you look about ten years younger."

"Yeah?"

Lyle Mack turned to Honey Bee and said, "I need you to run out to Home Depot and get some stuff. I got a list."

"I gotta get the wieners started," she said.

"I'll get the wieners. I want you out of here," Lyle Mack said. "Like, now. Don't come back for an hour."

She looked at him for a minute, then said, "More trouble."

"I don't want you to know about nothing, 'cause then you can't get hurt," Lyle Mack said. He followed her around, being nice, gave her a squeeze-she was in a huff-and got her out the door and on the way.

When she was gone, Joe Mack asked, "What was that all about?"

"Cappy's coming over," Lyle Mack said. CAPRICE MARLON GARNER dreamed of flying alone out of Bakersfield, up through the mountains, straddling his BMW, wind scouring his shaved scalp, sand spitting off the goggles, slipstream pulling at his leathers; and then down the other side, in the night, toward the lights of Tehachapi, then down, down some more and boom! out into the desert, running like a streak of steel lightning past the town of Mojave, blowing through Barstow to the 15, then up the 15 all the way to the lights of Vegas, coming out there at dawn with the lights on the horizon, the losers heading back to LA in the opposite lane…

Pulling up to the city limits, getting gas, sitting there with the BMW turning over like silk, and then boom! back down into the desert, the BMW hanging at 120, the white faces of the people in their Audis and Benzes and Mustangs, like ghosts, staring out at the demon who whipped by them in the dawn's early light…

The ride was the thing. The world slipped away-work, history, memory, dreams, everything-until he was nothing more than a piece of the unconscious landscape, but moving fast, a complex of nerves and guts and balls, bone and muscle and reaction.

And he dreamed of sitting up on a high roof in Bakersfield and looking out over the town, the roofscape, the palm trees and mountains, the hot dry wind in his face. Sitting up there, it felt like something might be possible. Then you'd smell the tar, and realize it wasn't.

And he dreamed of the men he'd killed, their faces when he pulled the trigger. The BMW had come from one of them. He'd put the shotgun to the man's head as he signed the papers, whining and pleading and peeing himself, and when the papers were in Cappy's pocket, boom! another one bites the dust. The Mojave was littered with their bones.

He'd killed them without a flicker of a doubt, without a shred of pity, and enjoyed the nightly reruns… SOMETIME IN THE early morning, the Minnesota cold got to him, and he stirred in his sleep. Eventually he surfaced, groaned and rolled over, the images of California dying like a match flame in a breeze. He'd kicked off the crappy acrylon blankets, and the winter had snuck through the ill-fitting windows, into the bed. He'd unconsciously pulled himself into a fetal position, and now the muscles of his back and neck cramped up like fists.

He groaned again and rolled over and straightened out, his back muscles aching, pulled the blankets up to his chin, and listened: too quiet. Probably snowing again. Snow muffled the sounds of the highway, of the neighbors. He caught sight of the alarm clock. Nine o'clock. He'd been asleep since six, after a three-day run on methamphetamine and maybe a little cocaine, and work; they were all mixed up in his mind, and he couldn't remember.

He was still tired. Didn't want to get up, but he swung his feet over the side of the bed, found the pack of Camels, lit one in the dim light that came through the window shade. Sat and smoked it down to his fingers, stubbed it out and trudged to the bathroom, the old cold floorboards flexing under his feet, the room smelling of tobacco and crumbling plaster and peeling wallpaper. THE ONLY bathroom light was a single bulb with a pull string. Cappy pulled on it, and looked at his face in the medicine cabinet mirror. Picked up some new lines, he thought. He was developing a dusty look, with a slash from the corner of his nose down toward his chin. Didn't bother him; he wasn't long for this world.

Today was his birthday, he thought. One more year and he could legally buy a drink.

He was twenty years old, on this cold winter morning in St. Paul Park. AFTER COMING BACK to Minnesota, he'd stopped in his home-town, looked around. Nothing there for him. He looked so different than he had in junior high, that it wasn't likely that even his father would recognize him.

But one guy had. A kid he'd grown up with, named John Loew. Loew had come into the SuperAmerica as Cappy was walking out. Cappy had recognized him, but kept going, and then Loew had stopped and turned and said, "Cap? Is that you?"

Cap turned and nodded. "How ya doin', John."

"Hey, man… you really…"

Cappy gave him the skeleton grin. "Yeah?"

"… look different. Like a movie guy or something. Where've you been?"

"You know. LA, San Francisco, West Coast."

A woman got out of a Corolla and came walking over and asked, "John?"

Loew said, "Carol. This is Cap Garner. We grew up together, went to school together."

The woman was Cappy's age, but he could tell she was also about eighteen years younger: a woman that nothing had ever happened to, a little heavy, but not too; a little blond, but not too; a little hot, but not too. She looked at Cappy with utter disdain and said, "Hi, there."

Cappy nodded, threw his leg over the BMW, and asked Loew, "So what're you doing? Working?"

"Going to Mankato in business administration. Finance." He shrugged, as if apologizing. "Carol and I are engaged."

Cappy pulled his tanker goggles over his eyes and said, "Glad it's working for you, John."

John said, "Yeah, well," and stepped toward the store. "Anyway…"

"Have a good day," Cappy said.

Riding away, he thought, Isn't that just how it is? This guy grew up next door, he's going to college, he's got a blond chick, he's gonna get married, he's gonna have kids, and not a single fuckin' thing will ever happen to him. Except that he'll get married and have kids. For some reason, that pissed him off. Some people go to college, some people go to work throwing boxes at UPS. MINNESOTA WAS GRINDING him down. Before the last cold front came through, he'd taken the BMW for a ride down the highway, and in fifteen minutes, even wearing full leathers, fleece and a face mask, he'd been frozen to the bike like a tongue to a water pump.