One night a few years into their relationship one thing led to another, and they ended up rolling around in bed. It was more like fighting than fucking, and both of them felt okay afterward, so they’ve kept it up. It’s nothing they plan, just something that happens now and then. Four years ago they fell in with the Fiends, again thinking about safety in numbers, but also looking to make some money, and it’s been a wild ride ever since.

Bob 2 finishes his coffee and scrutinizes the menu board on the wall.

“The Bicentennial Special,” he says.

“What?” Bob 1 says.

“Cherry, vanilla, and blueberry on a sugar cone.”

“Knock yourself out.”

Bob 2 goes to the counter. The high-school girl scooping sundaes and working the register is scared of him and Bob 1, he can tell. Their long hair, their beards, their tattoos. Good. The more scared people are, the better.

“Gimme that Bicentennial thing,” he says.

Movement at the motel catches Bob 1’s eye. He straightens from his bored slouch and puts his face to the window. A man steps out of the room they’ve been watching. He matches Moore’s description of McMullin, and a black rover aura shimmers around him. He makes sure his door is locked, shoves his hands in his pockets, and walks toward the ice-cream parlor.

Bob 1 stands and calls to the girl, “Where’s the back door?”

He and Bob 2 dash through a storage room and out into an alley behind the shop. Hurrying to the end of the alley, Bob 1 peeks around the corner and watches McMullin enter the ice-cream parlor. A bell rings when the door opens. Bob 1 pulls his head back and takes a bag of sunflower seeds out of his pocket. He tosses some into his mouth and cracks them between his teeth.

“You aren’t gonna keep an eye on him?” Bob 2 says.

“You didn’t hear that bell?”

A few minutes later the bell rings again. McMullin leaves the shop, carrying a cup of coffee. He crosses Van Buren and gets into a Dodge Dart parked in front of his room, starts it up, and pulls out of the lot.

The Bobs dash to the Hornet they stole in order to be less conspicuous than they would on their Harleys. They keep a car between them and the Dart as they follow McMullin. He makes his way to a drive-in theater and turns into the entrance. Bob 2 pulls to the side of the road. The jittery red and yellow neon on the back of the giant movie screen dances across the hood of the Hornet.

“What now?” Bob 2 says.

“I guess we’re going to the show,” Bob 1 replies.