“All right, Hogg.…” Denny sounded like he had a really bad sore throat. Or maybe somebody had hit him there. “That’s all … all right.”

A passing street lamp dragged slow light across our laps.

Denny put one hand on Hogg’s leg. Breathing hard, he slid it to Hogg’s fly. Hogg’s leg moved on a pedal. The light pulled away as we turned for the lot exit.

“Shit,” Hogg drawled. “You know you still got a nice touch, motherfucker? I guess that’s ’cause you take so much practice shuckin’ on your own. Do what you want. Just stay down.”

“… all right.” It sounded pretty hoarse. “I just wanted to feel it …”

As we came to the gate, half a dozen policemen started toward us. One waved us to halt.

“Oh, shit …” Hogg whispered, hardly moving his lips. As he slowed, though, Whitey came up the other way:

“He’s all right,” Whitey shouted. “Let him go. I just checked him out.”

Hogg gave the cops a big grin. “Go suck on some mule shit,” he said, too low for them to hear and still smiling. We bounced down onto the street.

Fifteen minutes later, when we’d been on the highway for maybe eight or nine miles, Denny said: “Can I come up now?”

We leaned as Hogg pulled around another curve.

“Can I come up? Is it all right, Hogg? It’s all right if I get up now, huh? That’s all right, ain’t it?”

“Yeah,” Hogg said.

Denny scrambled up between us. He kept trying to get comfortable, pushing the heel of his hand down against his crotch, then squirming, grimacing, and grunting. Hogg drove and didn’t look at him.

“Just a second, lemme …” Denny pushed up on the seat to pull at the bottom of his pants, then sat again, still squirming. “That’s all … yeah, I guess that’s right. Shit! You should of … Hey, man! Hogg? That was something, huh? That was … yeah, you know how I got at the motherfuckers! Yeah, I really did. I’m not kidding. That’s all right. Zap! Zap! Not like zappin’ people in the street. Zap! I really … Oh, shit! Yeah! I really killed some of them. With a gun, you know? For a while. I had a gun: I beat one motherfucker in the head with it.”

“That was my gun.” Hogg was still looking out the windshield.