He winked at her as he took his foot off the brake and gently pressed it down on the gas pedal. “Pick a game.” He was facing forward now, lifting his butt off the seat to dig a hand into the back pocket of his jeans. The hunting knife reappeared, folded inside its wooden case. “You can hook your seat belt, if you want. If you pick James Bond over Grease, I won’t let you drown. I’ll cut you out, when the time comes.”

“You’re not funny, Colby.”

He sang: “ ‘Nobody does it better …’ ”

“I mean it,” she said, trying to suppress the tremor in her voice. “You always take everything too far. You got busted for having a gun, and now you’re fooling around with a knife—”

“Let’s talk about why I got busted,” he said, dropping the folded knife into his lap so that he could steer with both hands. “You took my license plate, that night at the beach. Don’t tell me you didn’t.”

“So? What’s your point?”

“My point is, I was a little high, and I had some weed on me, and I had my old man’s clip-loader in the glove box. And I would have gotten home just fine if I’d had a goddamn license plate on my car. That’s why they pulled me over. Believe you me, Ragazzino, I ended up ‘playing adult’ for that one.”

“I want to go back,” she said, raising her voice.

“No can do.”

“I mean it. I want to go back to Talbot and Lefty.” They were picking up speed now. The grass and trees fell away from either side and the river loomed ahead. She felt her body draw back against the vinyl seat.

“You should have thought of that before.”

“Fuck you!” she yelled. “You fucking asshole! Take me back to Talbot, now!”

He slammed his foot down on the brake pedal. The tires locked but the car kept moving, rubber shrieking against cement, sliding sideways until her body lifted from the seat and her elbow slammed against the door. They stopped.

“Why?” Colby asked, still gripping the steering wheel and staring at her. “You screwing Talbot? Is that why you’re out with him?”

The pain in her elbow throbbed with the thumping of her heart.

“Big-dick Lefty must get jealous,” he said. “Or do him and Talbot share you?”

“I’m not—” She winced, and tried to level her expression while deciding on the best response. There were maybe six feet of runway between her side of the car and the river. After a moment she said, “I’m not seeing Talbot.”

“No?”

“Just Lefty.”

His face drew in as if he’d been hit with a bad smell. “Lefty?”

She reached into her jacket for a cigarette. Her hand was trembling. “We’ve been out a couple of times.”