'I'll leave you two alone now,' I say, turning to the door.

When I reach the door though, I hear Deutschman groan behind me. I spin around to see him sliding onto his feet. Ella's panties fly back up her legs.

'Don't stop,' says Lally from the window. He turns from the camera to call over his shoulder, 'Leona – come see what we got for the show!'

I grab Ella, her dress half-scrunched into her panties, and pull her out to the hallway, fumbling and dropping Mom's camera along the way. Deutschman clatters into the bathroom ahead of us, eyes and mouth jammed open. I flick the photograph to him through the door.

'Destroy it, sir, and whatever you do – don't talk to that guy.'

Floorboards bounce as we charge to the front door and out over the steps. We're met by raindrops flying sideways through the porchlight, weaving at us like angry sperm. I yank Ella around the corner in a spray of gravel, to where my stuff is tucked in the shadows. And there stands Lally with his camera.

'Whoa, kids – wait up.'

I take Ella's shoulders and shove her away. She spins toward the road, one arm flailing, the other still adjusting the ass of her panties through her dress. Lally swaggers over to my pack, planting himself between me and the bike. He gives his balls a luxurious grope.

'My but you're such a career man these days.'

A thousand cusses jump to mind, but none of them come out. Instead I fix his leer in my mind, lower my head, and launch myself into his guts. 'Dhoof!' he flies back onto the bike, the camera spins through the air, then glances off his head with a crack.

'Sack of shit!' He unpeels his spine from the bike's frame and takes a swipe at my ankle. 'Wanna play in the real world, cock-sucker?' he snarls.

I snatch up the camera and rip out the cartridge. Then I take aim at him with my leg, and kick for all my life's worth. I connect hard, and he crashes back across the bike, dazed and bloody, in a shower of gravel.

'Wow, Lalito,' calls Leona, still out of sight behind the house. 'Your star just saw a spider back here – is this how the job's supposed to be?'

I haul up my backpack and sprint onto the road. Ella breaks cover from behind the parked Jeep across the street, lunging for my free hand. I pull her head-first into the dusk and we steam down the road, hand-in-hand, chased by fast-moving clouds.

'Lalo,' says Leona behind us. 'Be honest, now – as a name, do you prefer Vanessa or Rebecca?'

Our heartbeats trail us along rows of warped shacks, past makeshift porches dangling yellow light, into creekbeds, over bluffs; we suck air like jet-engines until we're spent. Lally will be back on the road by now, searching. Pissed as hell. And the law won't be far behind him. Feel the powerdime glow hot.

'Fuck,' puffs Ella when we finally stop.

I kneel next to her in the bushes behind her house. From here you can see down an overgrown alley that runs between her back fence and the shack next door. At the end of the alley, you can just make out the Johnson road. Keeter's, and the escarpment beyond, roll deep and black behind it. As my breath settles, I hear the first crickets, and the pulse of rustling grasses in the wind. Moist air from Ella's mouth strokes my face. I turn to look back through the bushes, where the outermost lights of Crockett's twinkle. In amongst the quiet you hear a soft bustle from town, then a car approaching. A learning comes over me gently, warm like a stroke. It is that I have seven fucken seconds to plan the rest of my life.

'Ell, I have to trust you with something important.'

'You can trust me, Bernie.'

'We got a hundred and forty dollars. That's seventy apiece.' I pull the cash from my pocket, and rifle through it for a ten-dollar bill. I stuff the ten into my pocket, passing the rest to Ella. 'Can you take sixty of this to Seventeen Beulah Drive? Can you do that for me? You'll have to tie up your hair, change your clothes, and sneak down there like a shadow. Can you do that?'

'Sure I can.' She nods like a little kid, you know how they nod too much. Then she stares at me through shining eyes. 'What're you gonna do?'

'I have to disappear awhile.'

'I'll come with you.'

'The hell you will. They'd catch us in a second.'

She presses her lips shut, and stares some more. I swear she's like your cat or something, how she just stares. A truck growls along the Johnson road. I tense until it passes. Ella just keeps staring. Then a door bangs in the middle distance, and a lady's voice screeches out.

'E-lla!'

Ella's face drops. I guess this was a real adventure we had just now; you can tell it broke the ice with Ella Bouchard. I squeeze her hand, for recent ole times' sake, and pick up my pack. 'If you see my ole lady, tell her I'm sorry, and I'll be in touch. Or, no, better – don't tell her anything, just slide the cash under the door. Okay?' I stretch out of the grass, but Ella's hand intercepts me at the leg. I look down at her face. It suddenly seems configured to make brave decisions in life, like willpower soaks through her pores or something. She leans up to my mouth and plants a clumsy kiss.

'I love you,' she whispers. 'Stay clear of Keeter's track, they's settin up that SWAT thing tonight.' She reaches for my hand and stuffs all her cash into it, all but my mom's sixty dollars. Then she springs to her feet and swishes away down the alley like a cotton ghost.

'Eee-lla!'

'Comin!'

I still feel her spit on my lips. I wipe it on my arm. As I melt into the dark on the escarpment side of the road, I see a figure bobbing through the light at Keeter's corner. It's Barry Gurie's unmistakable fat head. He ain't rushing. The hiss of a car approaches from the other direction. Lally's car. I run before its lights sweep the road.

Act III Against all odds

fourteen

Martirio twinkles like a nest of fireflies from the land above Keeter's. You can see the new sign at the Seldome Motel, and one corner of Bar-B-Chew Barn is visible, alongside the radio mast. If you squint, you can see the working spine of town, a centipede's legs of pumpjacks lit up along Gurie Street – fuck, fuck, fuck. I trace the spine as far as I can, down to Liberty Drive, at least. My town is beautiful from up here. It's as if a star shines for every creature in the constellation of Martirio, and a few more shine besides. There's just one tiny black spot at the northern edge of town, where no star shines at all. That'll be home.

Waves are coming. My survival instinct wore off when I left the Johnson road. Now, stamping Lally's video into the fucken ground, I can taste the salt of waves. They come with pictures of Mom in her darkened kitchen, scraping up any ole crumb of hope, to parlay into pie. But all she scrapes is bullshit. It slays me. She'll be muttering, 'Well at least he has a job, and we still have his birthday to look forward to.' But I'm halfway to the escarpment, on my way to goddam Mexico. Probably forever.

It's a little before ten. I can reach the highway in a couple of hours, then maybe hitch a ride, or catch a bus or something, down to San Antone. I take a last look at Martirio sparkling across the flats, my universe for all these long years. Then I set off toward the hills, all crusty and alone. My coping mechanisms open up to some cream pie. Remember that ole movie, with the beach-house? Plenty of folks must do that, for real. Nothing says you have to be a particular kind of person to do that. I imagine Mom coming down, after things blow over. I buy her some souvenirs. Maybe I send a maid back with her; she can jam that up. Leona's fat ass. A learning: deep shit sweetens your plans like crazy.