“No stops on the way?”

“No. Nonstop.”

“Down Ninety?”

“Yeah. He’ll keep going straight through. He can do twenty hours with enough Red Bull.”

“I can get you to Erie.”

“That’ll help.”

“Climb on board.” My one-legged Harley rider ships his crutch into a special hanger and slings his bad leg over the saddle. “There’s a helmet in the pannier, and a headset. Put it on and we’ll be able to talk.”

I find both, a turtle-shell helmet that scarcely looks like it would protect me, and only if I fell directly on my head, and the headset. I stow my duffel in the pannier, fishing out my sunglasses first. I slide onto the seat behind him, careful not to kick him.

Using his one good leg, my new friend backs the Harley out of the space, then carefully removes the handicapped placard from the handlebars and places it in his jacket pocket. “I’m Mitch.” His voice in my ear startles me.

I bring the mouthpiece up. “Justine Meade.” As I’m about to embrace this stranger for the better part of the day, I offer him my hand.

He takes my hand in his leather-gloved mitt, an oyster in a black shell, then brings my hands around his middle. “Hang on tight. We’ll catch that son of a bitch.”

* * *

Mack doesn’t know how long they have been going. He only knows that it is time for dinner. His dinner. His kibble, which he can see in its plastic bag on the floor of the side of the cab where Justine should be, is tantalizingly out of reach. It would be nice to have a lap of water. His Shetland sheepdog ancestors knew about privation as they rounded up sheep on the rocky hillside, but he’s a domestic house dog and quite used to routine. Dinner at six. Water all day long. If he were any other dog, he might take himself down from the bunk and go help himself, ripping into the flimsy plastic with sharp teeth. But Mack is not just any other dog. He is a well-trained dog. One of his first lessons was in don’touch. Stare at that kibble in the bowl all you want, but don’touch it until given the word. Don’touch the garbage pail, despite its temptations. Justine once left a package of cold cuts on the kitchen table, an easy reach from his back legs, but he disdained touching it, although he spent the day staring at it in futile hope that it would fall off the table and become fair game. Justine hadn’t said don’touch, but he’d never reach for anything on a table anyway.

Artie keeps staring at his cell. Mack knows that it’s called cell because Justine has taught him to fetch it when she’s in one room and the cell is singing in another. Artie’s cell doesn’t sing; it makes a sound like a miniature truck horn: blat blat blat; blat blat blat. Artie thumbs it quiet. He doesn’t speak to it. But each time it honks, Artie looks at it.