Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us?

That was Nietzsche, quoted in a kind of goodbye note that Raf left.

“I thought of a place,” Raymond said. “We’ll be lucky or we won’t.”

We jounced over the train tracks after the guard gate’s arm lifted. We passed a Fiesta, a food market with brass noise coming from loudspeakers over its entry doors. We went by scrap-metal yards, and a building titled O.K. CREDIT USED CARS AND TRUCKS.

Raymond’s engine was missing bad. He fought the stick for each gear shift. His suspension was blown.

We banged along beside a broad cement ditch—Buffalo Bayou.

“All right, darlin’,” he said. “This is gonna be rancid.”

“I’m ready.”

He looked over. “Maybe,” he said.

There was a marquee with pink and emerald bulbs and tall letters that read: THE NEW TEXAS MOTEL—WE HAVE HOURLY RATES—XXX-PLUS MOVIES!

Raymond whipped on a pair of dictator-style dark glasses.

He wheeled into the central court for the motel, where parking slots surrounded a circle of chicken-wire fencing. Inside the fence, a couple lean boys reclined, sunbathing on lounge chairs.

Attached to the motel was a shack called The Anzac Club. In a box of shadows from the overhang of its tin roof three Mexican women swayed. They were all three stout women, all rocking to the cowboy music issuing from the club. A newborn baby gestured in the arms of the stoutest.

Raymond got out and went over to her.

I stayed in the green car.

He ambled back to me eventually, swinging a room key. “You wanna come with?” he asked.

“I guess I do,” I said.

“Be sure now. You’re not counting on anything.”

I boosted off the mushy seat and stepped out of the convertible.

We entered the motel room through a rusted pummeled door that looked as though it’d been wrenched from its hinges and smashed in before.

Inside, a pinging air-conditioning unit kept the temperature icy and mixed up smells of people and disinfectant and a fruity incense.

The walls had new wood-tone paneling.

Mostly there was a bed—a swollen featherbed under a black velvet throw.

“Well, no husband,” Raymond said. He turned to me. “Maybe you’re glad.”

“But he was here? Here here?”

“Afraid so. My Spanish is leaky but I believe she said last night, and they didn’t none of them see him leave. But he’s left,” Raymond said.

He dropped onto the carpeting and got cross-legged. He popped on the TV.

The screen showed nude men with a slender woman, very busy.

“Good, the BBC,” I said.