“You get picked up without a motorcycle license, the bike gets impounded, you get a ticket, and your regular driver’s license can be suspended.”

“You asked a cop?”

Arno and I are headed for Milton’s. The GTO reeks of something sickeningly sweet and vaguely reminiscent of Good & Plenty candy.

“What’s that smell?” I ask, rolling down the window to get some air.

“What smell? I don’t smell anything.”

“New aftershave?” I guess.

“Maybe.”

A minute later, we stop at Milton’s. When he comes out of his house with his hair shorn close to his skull and the scraggly mustache gone, he looks more like a sophomore in high school than someone entering his second year of college. He gets into the back seat and sniffs. “What’s that smell?”

“His new aftershave,” I tell him.

“What’d you do, Arno, take a bath in it?” Milton rolls down the windows in the back.

“Fuck you very much. And while you’re at it, you can both drop dead,” Arno growls, and starts to drive.

“Wearing that stuff, I’m surprised you haven’t,” Milton shoots back.

I look over the seat. “So, what happened?”

Milton reaches into his pocket and turns down the volume on his transistor radio. “Court date’s in a few weeks.”

Maybe it’s my imagination, but he seems pretty relaxed for someone who’s been charged with attempted arson. Arno turns onto the Expressway service road and accelerates. The GTO’s throaty dual exhausts rumble (the mating call of the muscle car). Because the windows are open, I have to hold my hair back so it doesn’t whip into my eyes. Milton taps me on the shoulder and hands me a rubber band.

It’s around nine o’clock, but there is still a trace of light in the sky. It’s Saturday night. I feel a searing ache in my heart, wondering what Robin and the baby-seal killer are up to.

Arno adjusts the rearview mirror so he can see Milton and yells over the wind rushing through the car. “You’ll never be a lawyer now!”

“I don’t want to be a lawyer,” Milton says.

“Or a doctor or a politician.”

“Not those, either.”

“Well, it’s gonna make things hard, no matter what you want to do.”

“The oracle hath spoken,” Milton jeers.

“At least you got rid of that smudge of dirt over your upper lip.”

“Thanks, zitface.”

“You get a lawyer?” I ask.

Milton darts his eyes at the back of Arno’s head. There’s something he doesn’t want him to hear. He’ll tell me later.

At Nathan’s, we get hot dogs, Cokes, and fat, greasy crinkle-cut French fries. (Robin never liked this place. She thought it was too dirty and noisy.) When Arno goes to the bathroom, I lean across the table to Milton. “What’s the story?”