would lose themselves in a city, maybe Houston or Dallas. Or maybe head for Colorado or Montana. Everything they owned was in the trunk or on the backseat of the car, tape-wrapped or held together with twine. On top of all the boxes in the backseat was her J-200 sunburst Gibson.

The cell phone chimed on the seat. She opened it and placed the receiver against her ear. “Where are you?” she said.

“At the lot. We got us a Toyota with a hundred grand on it. The tires are good, and it doesn’t have any oil smoke coming out of it. You got your paycheck?”

“I’m almost at the diner.” She paused. Up ahead, the Trans Am was pulling in to the nightclub. A square of light from the truck stop slid off the face and shoulder of the man in the passenger seat. “Did any of those guys at the church have an orange or red beard?”

“No,” Pete said. “Wait a minute. I’m not sure. One guy in the dark had a beard. Why?”

“Some guys just pulled in to the beer joint. The driver is wearing a hat like the Mad Hatter’s.” Her tires began crunching across the gravel in the parking lot. “They’re staring at me. Think, Pete. Did you see a guy with an orange beard?”

“Get away from them.”

“I have to get paid. We don’t have any money,” she said, her irritability and frustration rising.

“Screw the money. Junior can mail it to us. We’ll make out.”

“On what?” she said. When there was no answer, she glanced at the cell phone’s screen. She had lost service.

Just ahead of her, the man driving the car with lopsided headlights parked by the entrance to the diner and went inside. He was thin and of medium height and wore an old suit coat, even though it was summer.

She parked next to his car, a beat-up Nissan, and turned off the engine. The men in the Trans Am had gotten out and were stretching and yawning in front of the nightclub. It had been a dance hall in the 1940s, and colored lights from inside shone through a window cut in the shape of a champagne glass over the entranceway. A tattered canvas canopy extended out from the door over a series of limestone slabs, on either side of which were two huge ceramic pots planted with Spanish daggers. A lone palm tree, as dark and motionless as a cutout, was silhouetted against a pink and green neon cowgirl holding a guitar, one booted foot raised. In the distance, behind the club, was a geological fault where the land seemed to collapse and dissolve into darkness, flat and enormous and breathtaking, as if an inland sea had evaporated overnight and left its depths as beveled and smooth as damp clay.

If Pete had not taken a job from men no one in his right mind would trust. If Pete had only had faith in what the two of them could do together if they tried.

The man with the orange beard wore a denim shirt scissored off at the armpits. His upper arms were meaty and sunburned, and one arm had a blue anchor tattooed inside a circle of red and blue stars. He twisted the cap off a beer bottle and toasted Vikki with it before he drank. He removed the bottle from his mouth and lifted up his shirt with two fingers and blotted his lips. “Little breezy in that car of yours, isn’t it?” he said.

“I’ve got your license number. I’m going to leave it inside with my boss,” she said.

“You got no problem with me,” he replied, smiling.

She headed for the front door of the diner, an empty coffee thermos hooked through one finger.

“Come have a drink with us,” he said at her back.

Junior was behind the cash register when she came in, his face as lined and woebegone as a prune, his sideburns razor-etched and flared on his cheeks. He was talking to the driver of the Nissan. “My delivery man didn’t come today, so I’m down on my milk. Sorry, but I cain’t sell you none.”

“Where’s the next store?” the driver of the Nissan said. His hair was scalped on the sides and long and combed straight back on top.

“Back in town,” Junior said.

“It’s closed. It’s after eleven.”

“Why didn’t you buy it before closing time?”

“We had a carton in the ice chest at the Super 8. But it must have spoiled. Mister, my baby girl is three months old. What