They sprint across the road, hop on their bikes, and speed away. Yuma’s calmer now, thanks to either the fuck or the fireworks show. Real Deal would like to be angry with her, but he remembers a few years back when he went on a three-day binge and she stayed by his side the whole time, somehow getting him out of every bit of trouble he got himself into. Afterward, he asked why. “I’ve got all my chips on you,” she said, and that’s been their motto ever since.

Antonia and Elijah are parked outside a bar that’s closing for the night. The drinkers turned out of the tavern stand stunned on the sidewalk like people whose houses have been whirled away by a tornado, but there’s not a rover among them.

The Fiends’ next stop is a coffee shop called Helsing’s. They intended to step inside briefly to check out the customers but end up at the counter with menus in front of them.

“It’s time to move on,” Antonia says.

“New Orleans?” Elijah says.

“We’ll take it slow, search all the towns we pass through on the way.”

“Think the others will go for that?”

“They know it’s silly to keep riding around here night after night when the fuckers who dusted Bob are probably long gone. Bob will kick, but he’ll either accept it or be on his own.”

“I take it you wouldn’t be sorry to see him go.”

Antonia lets a shrug be her answer, sips her coffee. “They eat raw fish in Japan,” she says. “It’s supposed to be healthy for you.” She peruses the menu. “And we’ve got hotcakes. I’m so fucking sick of hotcakes.”

“I met a man who swore by potatoes and vinegar,” Elijah says. “That’s all he ate, and he claimed never to have been sick a day in his life. Claimed, in fact, that he survived the plague in Istanbul.”

“Remember that girl in Seattle?” Antonia says. “Dutch Charlie had turned her?”

“Dutch Charlie,” Elijah says. “I haven’t thought of him in forever.”

“He had that girl who took arsenic to stay skinny, a drop in her tea every evening.”

“Your memory is a marvel,” Elijah says.

Antonia appreciates the compliment but doesn’t acknowledge it, being shy that way. She goes back to griping about hotcakes instead.

She and Elijah continue to ride the streets after their meal but with no more success than before. At 3:30 they return to the motel, the first ones back. A red light is blinking on the telephone when they get to their room. Antonia calls the office, and the night man answers.

“A Mr. Beaumont called,” he says. “Wanted me to tell you it’s urgent.”

21

21

W​HAT DID BEAUMONT SAY IT WOULD TAKE TO MAKE PEACE WITH the Fiends?”