Against the back wall sits a cot bowed deep, Harriet presumes, from Fat Dude's tremendous bulk. At present, a skinny girl, maybe eighteen, maybe younger, sits watching the whole thing unfold with heavy, heroin-lidded eyes. She holds up a blanket as if to feign modesty, but one tiny tit pokes out the top with a cigar-butt nipple standing at attention, a fact to which the girl seems oblivious.

"Hold his head," Harriet commands.

Frankie grabs the biker's pale pumpkin head and slams it down against a carpet crusted with food stains and other biological blemishes.

"Now lift his head."

Once the head's back up, Harriet thrusts a photo under Fat Dude's nose. His watering eyes try to focus on it.

"This man's name is Ashley Gaynes," Harriet explains. It's a photo of Ashley at a party, laughing, a cup of something that might be beer in his hand. He and everyone else stand bathed in the glow of red Christmas lights. "A bartender across town said you might know him."

"Yeah, yeah," Fat Dude squeaks. "I know him. You shoulda just showed me the picture to begin with. I woulda rolled on that little asshole like it weren't nothing. He's the one who broke my… " He can't seem to bring himself to finish the sentence. He lifts the splinted hand off the carpet and waves it like a penguin's busted flipper.

"Gonna be tough to jerk off now," Frankie says, grinning ear to ear.

"He have a metal suitcase with him?" Harriet asks.

"No. No suitcase. Just some blonde bitch."

"Blonde?"

"Blonde like white blonde, like beach sands – a dye job. And he drives a Mustang. Early 90s. White. Back window busted out."

Harriet nods to Frankie, who lets go of Fat Dude's face. It booms into the floor like the boulder tumbling after Indiana Jones.

"That's all for now," Harriet says. "Thank you for your time."

"Fuck you people," he whimpers.

Clucking her tongue, Harriet whips the tip of her boot into Fat Dude's mouth, shattering teeth. He rolls over, coughing, blood bubbling up over his lower lip. One tooth slides out on an oozing river of red. It plops to the carpet.

"Let's go," Harriet says to Frankie, who follows after, chuckling.

NINETEEN

Date With Death

Fuck him, she thinks.

He's dead soon, anyway. His ticket's punched. His clock is set. Fate has taken a thumb of black ash and smeared it on his forehead. Nobody's marked his door with lamb's blood. God's got his number. Too bad. Sayonara, big guy.

The dude's got big cash. That one envelope alone had enough green in it to feed her, clothe her, give her a place to stay for weeks on end.

Not your fault. You didn't hunt him down and kill him. You're not a predator. You're a scavenger. A vulture, not a lion. You just found the body. Might as well pick its bones.

Yeah. Fuck him.

Then she sees him.

Miriam's standing in the parking lot of the motel, smoking a cigarette, and he shows up in his truck – the brakes hiss, he gets out, and she sees how he's cleaned himself up real nice. It isn't high fashion: blue plaid shirt, straight-leg jeans with nary a fraying hem or cut in the denim, big black cowboy boots (scuff-free).