The car’s interior reeked of almost archeological skank, old greasy food wrappers gumming the floor, malt liquor cans cluttering the wheel wells, ashtrays brimming with stale butts. The air-conditioner stuttered and coughed, exhaling a mildewy coolness, while the three bodies added an additional tang of gamey sweat—not just Middleton but Marcus and Traci, his would-be muggers. He’d learned their names from the nonstop badgering back and forth, relentless recriminations salted with snapshot details from their shattered biographies—their fumbling needs, their aching wants, their pitiless crank habits, promises to amend, curses in reply, testaments fired back and forth in a fierce vulgar slang that Middleton could barely decipher. Meanwhile, the car bumped and rattled north toward Baltimore, a lone headlight pointing the way along I-495’s rain-wet asphalt. A brief summer storm had come and gone, turning the night air cottony thick and hot, against which the dying air-conditioner merely chattered. Middleton’s sport jacket clung to his shoulders and arms like a second skin, and he wiped his face with his free hand, the other damply gripping the Beretta.

Finally, if only to ward off his nausea, he broke into the front-seat argument with, “Turn on the radio,” nudging Marcus’s shoulder with the pistol.

The youth turned just slightly. His cheek was mottled with small white sores. “Hey, me and Traci got things to discuss here.”

Middleton lodged the tip of the pistol’s barrel into Marcus’s neck. “I said turn on the radio. I can’t think.”

“Don’t jump the rail there, Mr. Gray.” This was Traci, at the wheel, eyeing him over her shoulder. “You kidnap us, threaten us, we doin’ all you ask. Be cool now. Don’t play. Not with that gun.”

They’d been calling him that since he’d climbed in the car: Mr. Gray. At first he’d thought it referred to his rumpled appearance, which was only worsening with the strain, the need for sleep. But he’d caught an edge of racial mockery in it too. Wasn’t it Cab Calloway, in his Hepcat’s Dictionary, who’d referred to white people as grays? But that was so very long ago, before these two were born. Christ, before even Middleton himself was born . . .

“I’m not playing,” he said.

“All I mean—”

“Turn on the damn radio!”

Marcus’s hand shot toward the dash and punched the On button. Middleton recoiled at the instant blast of menace, a lilting growl of bragging bullshit warring with a jackhammer bass track and droning synthesized mush, all inflicted at ear-splitting volume.

“Change the station.”

“Whoa, mack, you got a serious pushy streak.”

“Change the station. Now!”

Marcus huffed but obliged, fiddling through crackling sheets of white noise, punctuated by sudden twangy cries, garbled Bible-drunk voices . . .

Traci said, “You need to put a chill on, Mr. Gray. Break it back, let the little shit slide.”