“At least I’m still as God made me.”

“God?” Antonia says. “You fucking child.”

“I dig blondes, but why’s your hair so short?” the possum says. “You trying to look like a man?”

Antonia slaps her hand on the table, smirking when the possum jumps.

“We’ll have what you owe us,” Elijah says.

The possum sets a paper bag on the table. Elijah picks it up and glances at the stack of bills inside.

“And the other?” he says.

“Meet me out back,” the possum says.

He downs his coffee and gets up to pay at the register. Antonia and Elijah walk outside. The diner’s neon sign puts on its show, flashing pink—TRUCK—flashing green—TOWN—flashing red—CAFÉ. A semi pulls into the gas station next door and stops, brakes hissing, at a diesel pump. A uniformed attendant runs out and shouts, “Good evening, sir. How can I help you?”

“If you could go anywhere, where would you go?” Antonia asks Elijah.

“Wherever you were,” Elijah says.

“What if I was in Japan?”

“I’d go to Japan.”

“Italy?”

“Italy.”

“Atlanta?”

“Don’t make me go to Atlanta.”

The possum comes out and says, “Follow me.”

Antonia and Elijah start their Sportsters and ride around behind the restaurant. A bright orange light burns at the top of a pole, but the possum’s Lincoln is parked away from it, deep in the shadows. He reaches the car as the Fiends pull up beside it.

The car’s dome light goes on when he opens the door. He grabs a cloth drawstring sack from behind the front seat and passes it to Elijah like it’s got something that stinks in it. Elijah looks inside. The baby is lying at the bottom. Elijah can’t tell if she’s dead or alive until he pokes her with a finger and she opens one eye.

The possum pulls out another bag, this one from Safeway.

“There’s formula in here, Pampers,” he says.

Antonia takes this bag, though she’s thinking the kid won’t be around long enough to need what’s in it. The possum slides into the Lincoln and drives across the parking lot to the frontage road. Beyond that, cars and trucks zoom past on the freeway, bound for better places.

Elijah opens one of his Harley’s saddlebags and lowers the sack containing the baby into it.

“Think it’ll be okay in here?” he says to Antonia.

“Why are you asking me?” she says. “I don’t know anything about babies.”