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  If he made it till then. He'd used up what strength he'd had, just pulling it together long enough to talk to the kid and make plans. Plus, pitching down the building's stairs-he'd known going up there had been a bad idea, but the dream's shifting memory had pulled him on-had left him more fucked up than before. His vision was going; when there had been light enough to see, the doubling and the blurring had gotten worse, much worse. All the well-established indicators of the blood seeping inside his skull. He'd had only a brief glimpse of Doot's face before it had diffused into something like a pink cloud with a voice attached to it.

  The pain had become something he could handle-or he couldn't handle; he had no choice about it. It made him think of something a cop had told him once, about how phony movies were where somebody gets the crap beat out of him, then the next day is up and doing shit, like he's Dirty Harry or something. Man, you get hit in the gut hard enough, next day you don't even want to live. He didn't have a choice about that, either. If he wanted to look up Aitch and Charlie again…

  His arm worried him, though, the one he couldn't move. With his good hand, he gathered the blanket tighter around himself; underneath it, he tried again to clench his right fist. He couldn't even feel it. Plus the leg on that side was starting to numb out as well; it had flopped and dragged behind him when the kid had carried him out to the verandah. Nerve damage, probably from one of the blows to his spine, or another symptom resulting from the swelling of the brain tissue. Either way, it was getting worse.

  The last thing Mike had the kid do, before he'd gotten on his little motorbike and taken off, was to help him stand up at the edge of the verandah, over to the side and away from the stairs. With his good hand, he'd been able to get the fly of his trousers open. His piss had been red with blood, leaving his bladder and kidneys aching. It made a dark puddle soaking into the ground.

  So where was the kid now? Doot and his motorbike. Doot doot doot. Mike raised his head, trying to hear anything that might be coming down the road, out past the lane that ran through the weeds in front of the building. Nothing. Complete night had wrapped around the hills; overhead, the stars blurred and danced as he looked up at them.

  "Come on…" He murmured the words deep in his throat. You stupid little shit. Get your ass back here. He hunched down, feeling the night's cold penetrating the blanket.

  Another light moved, closer to him, in the darkness around the building-red, instead of the cold blue-white of the stars up above. He squinted, trying to make out what it was. He managed to focus well enough that the red light condensed into two points. Like eyes-the eyes of an animal regarding him, silent and watchful. And there were others, pairs of the red sparks, creeping down out of the hills. They stopped at a certain distance, as though an invisible line were drawn there, several yards away.

  "Shit." This was all he needed. Fucking coyotes, or something even worse. He hoped they were just coyotes. Was he far enough out in the sticks for there to be wolves around? How far east, he wondered, had Aitch and Charlie driven before they'd dumped him off? Start getting close to the Idaho border, and there were forests and mountain lakes that got socked in good and tight during the winter, real "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" stuff. All kinds of shit out there, including wolves.

  These were coyotes. He was sure of it, he wanted to be sure. Not much more than skinny dogs, clever and cowardly. The smell of the blood, probably from the piss he'd taken off the edge of the verandah, had brought them slinking around, soon as it had turned dark. Now they were hanging back, waiting to see if he were dead or alive. Essentially chickenshit; the ones down south, in California. had to be completely desperate from hunger to come out and snatch a toy poodle from beside a Beverly Hills swimming pool.

  "Beat it!" His shout croaked out of his throat. "Come on, get out of here!" The red eyes-there seemed to be about six or seven pairs in the dark now-didn't move from the positions they had taken. And the fuckers looked too big to be coyotes. He leaned forward, sweeping his hand across the verandah, trying to find something to throw.

  He came up with a piece of wood, a pointed fragment a couple of feet long that had been knocked loose from the boards over the door. Straightening back up, he whipped the piece around by the end and let it fly. The effort sent him sprawling forward; he caught his balance with his good hand, the palm sliding in the layers of dust.

  Moonlight caught the wood as it flew; he looked up in time to see one of the pairs of eyes shift aside, in an unhurried fluid motion, as the piece hit the ground.

  The watching eyes stayed where they were. Maybe I should've kept it. The sharp point would have at least given him a weapon to defend himself with, if the animals grew bold enough to sidle up onto the verandah. If they determined, however their minds worked, that he was weak enough to make easy prey…

  They gazed back at him, unmoving and patient. Where was that stupid kid? Mike glanced from the corner of his eye toward the distant road, then quickly back to the animals out in the dark. A couple of them had shifted, padding silently to new positions, to crouch down and watch. Even that small movement of his eyes brought on the blurring, the red sparks hazing out of focus.

  "You fuckers…" Blinded, he sensed that the coyotes had edged closer. "Sonsabitches…" That brought a laugh rasping in his throat. Of course; what else would they be? A salt taste welled up on his tongue, and he spat it but.

  A sputtering mechanical note sounded in the distance. He turned his head and saw another blurred point, yellowish white instead of red. The motorbike's beam swept around toward him as the rider slowed for the turn off the road, onto the lane.

  The patient creatures melted back into the hills' darkness. He had a glimpse, for only a fraction of a second, of one of them, the loping, sharp-muzzled figure disappearing into its own shadow running before it. Then they were gone.

  The motorbike came to a halt in front of the building, its engine wheezing to silence. Mike could just see the kid Doot climbing off it.

  ***

  Up ahead, Doot saw the pickup trucks and a few spavined old Chevys and Fords parked around the front of the hamburger place. Most of the guys were lounging against the fenders, shooting the breeze with each other. Their girlfriends-only a couple of those-looked bored. A few guffawing bursts of laughter floated across on the still night air.

  He'd pulled the bike over to the side of the road, about fifty yards away from the noise and the lights. Nobody over there had turned around from talking and caught sight of him.

  "How you doing?" Doot looked over his shoulder. "You okay?"

  The guy looked like hell. His face was just a few inches away, the guy's chest pressed close to Doot's spine. That had been the only way to get him out here, this far away from the old clinic building; the guy hadn't strength enough to stay upright on the seat behind Doot. He'd had to take the bungee cord off the bike's carrier rack and loop it around the man's frame, then fasten the hooks together in front of his own chest. To conceal the cord, he'd draped his denim jacket over the guy's shoulders, fastening the top button to keep it in place. That way, anybody who might have seen them on the road would've just thought Doot had a passenger holding on tight behind him. He'd brought along a knit watch cap of his dad's and had pulled it on over the bandages around the guy's head to make him look even more normal and less like some escapee from a hospital ward.

  Breathing through his mouth, eyes closed, the guy didn't answer him. Underneath the bruises, the face was drained white as the edge of the bandages peeking out from the cap.

  Maybe the vibration from the bike's engine had busted loose whatever was hurt inside the guy. Plus the road from the old clinic building wasn't in any great shape. Doot had tried to avoid the biggest holes and ruts, but even so, there had still been plenty of good hard jolts coming up the bike's frame. The last couple of miles, the guy's head had lain against his shoulder, jiggling with each bounce in the road. The idea had come into Doot's own head that the guy was dead, that the trip had killed him off a
nd he was actually scooting down the road with a corpse tied to himself. Arms and legs flopping loose, and blood running out of its nose and mouth. That notion had spooked him so much that he'd goosed the bike to its fastest speed, trying to get here as quickly as possible.

  "Hey, mister." He reached across himself and pushed the guy's shoulder. "Hey, we're here. Come on."

  The man's head tilted back, and the eyes came open. Their focus wobbled to some point drifting yards beyond Doot.

  "Phone…" The word whispered out of the man's cracked lips. "Where's the… where's the phone…"

  "It's up ahead a little ways." Doot took his hand from the bars and pointed.

  The hamburger place down the road had started existence as an A & W Root Beer franchise. A long time ago, maybe back in the fifties, it had gone bust and been reincarnated as Arnie's Place, then gone bust again, and now it was Big Lou's Burgers. It was probably going to go under again; nobody came around except the high school kids, and they didn't spend enough to keep the place going. Lou and his little fat Mexican wife didn't even bother to try chasing them away anymore; if the kids weren't around, the place looked so abandoned that anybody coming down the county highway might not have been able to tell that it was open for business.

  Lou and his wife kept opening up the place every day, because there was nothing else to do except go on marching toward bankruptcy. The kids from the high school hung around because there wasn't shit else to do in what passed for a town out here. Like flies hanging around a last melon left in a field, the rind split open by the sun. It didn't have to be sweet, it just had to be there.

  The phone booth was around the side, at the edge of the parking lot. The pickup trucks and the old beaters were out front, where the lights were. Night bugs orbited the fixtures.

  Doot had debated with himself about bringing the guy here or taking him home. But the house was clear on the other side of town, another couple of miles away; the guy looked like he was barely hanging on, as it was. He didn't want to push it.

  The guy squinted, trying to follow Doot's pointing finger. He took a deep breath, forcing himself upright. "Okay." He nodded stiffly, as though his spine had welded into a solid piece. "Take me… on over there."

  None of the teenagers at the front of the hamburger place noticed them pulling up beside the booth. Inside, Lou was scraping crud off the grill with a metal spatula. Doot unhooked the bungee cord, holding onto the ends to keep the guy from toppling off the seat. He hopped off, and helped the guy stand up.

  In the phone booth, the guy slumped back against the glass. Doot held his arm above the elbow, keeping him upright.

  The guy dug his good hand into his jeans pocket, then pulled it out empty. "Shit…" Even that little effort had his breath coming in shallow gasps. The slitted eyes turned toward Doot. "You got any money? Coins, I mean…"

  "Yeah, I think so." Doot searched his own front pockets and came up with a quarter and two nickels. He told the man what he had.

  The other shook his head. "That's… not enough. It's long distance… where I'm calling. Need more than that. You got… any folding money…"

  "Couple dollars." The man started to slip, back scraping the glass, and Doot strained to pull his weight back up. "That's about it."

  The man nodded. "Go get change…"

  He propped the man, head lolling back, into the booth's corner. Then he turned and sprinted toward the front of the hamburger place.

  "Hey, Doot! What's happenin'?" Stevie Garza called out to Doot as he came up to the counter window; he'd slowed down to a quick walk, trying not to attract attention. Garza, perched on the fender of his father's Ford Ranger, had spotted him coming around the building's side. "Where ya been keepin' yourself?"

  Doot leaned his palms against the chipped edges of the Formica counter. Inside, Big Lou was still scowling at the heat-blackened grill. Doot rapped on the glass with his knuckles.

  "Yeah, yeah," Lou called over, without looking around. "Keep your pants on."

  An alcohol-laden breath hit Doot. Garza had draped his arm around Doot's shoulders. A Bacardi pint bottle dangled from Garza's hand, and his loopy smile pressed close to Doot's face. "Look what / got."

  Doot knew it wasn't Bacardi. Garza had been carrying around that one bottle so long that the label had started to fray white around the edges. He made something from raisins and sugar and yeast, in a gallon jug that he hid up in the rafters of his parents' garage, and then poured it into the bottle with a plastic funnel. It smelled like vomit.

  "Yeah, that's great. Lucky you." Doot slipped out from the other's embrace. Support gone, Garza stumbled a few steps away, barely regaining his balance. He looked up, mouth dropped open, eyes filled with sudden puzzlement.

  "What d'ya want?" On the other side of the glass, Lou took a pencil from behind his ear.

  "I need change." Doot pushed the dollar bills across the counter and over the metal track of the little window. "Quarters and dimes."

  "You get change at a bank. This ain't a bank."

  One of Garza's buddies, a little less drunk, was pulling him back over to the Ranger; Doot saw them out of the corner of his eye. "Uh, just a Coke, then. Small one."

  Lou looked disgusted and waddled over to the dispenser. A few seconds later, he turned and slammed the cup down on the counter.

  Doot snatched back the two dollars and held them up. "Break 'em both?"

  "Jesus Christ." Lou's face went even sourer. He grabbed the bills and stepped over to the cash register. He slapped the change down, ignoring Doot's outstretched palm.

  "Doot! Hey, Doot!" Garza, propped up against the Ranger again, called out to him as he turned away from the counter. The raisinjack's hilarity had come bubbling up in the other kid again. "We'll see you around, man! We'll see you around…"

  He ignored the slurring, drunken voice, and all the rest of the guys hanging out. Soon as he was around the corner and in the dark, he ran across the empty sector of asphalt.

  The phone booth looked empty. When he was a couple of yards away, he saw the man crumpled at the booth's floor, knees folded tight. He yanked the door open, and the face rolled toward him.

  "Come on." He got a grip under the man's arms and lifted him up. The man was still alive; he could hear the shallow, ragged breathing. "Look-I got the change."

  The eyes opened partway. He raised his good hand and rubbed his face, bright with sweat. His shoulders flopped back against the glass.

  "Fuck." The man tilted his head forward, panting. "I can't even see the sonuvabitch." His hand gestured vaguely toward the pay phone. "You gotta do it for me… I'll tell you the number… you dial…"

  Doot squeezed in closer so he could turn toward the phone. He took the phone from its chrome hook and held it to his ear; with his other hand, he thumbed a quarter into the coin slot.

  "Okay…" The man spoke with his eyes closed. "You gotta dial one first…"

  ***

  She usually didn't get this loaded when she was by herself. She lay on the bed with the sheets all tousled and wadded up underneath her. On the floor was a Scotch bottle, some single malt that tasted the way fertilizer smelled, which had been the only liquor Mike had kept in the apartment. The bottle had fallen over on its side and made a big spot on the carpet. On the pillow beside her head was a plastic baggie, empty except for a couple of tabs and one blue and yellow cap. Her blonde hair trailed over the baggie's open mouth.

  Getting seriously fucked up was for when you were with other people, as far as she was concerned. Not just because of having more fun-a real party, a damage yourself good time-but also because if you went too far, loaded up your bloodstream with more fizzy chemicals than your body could take, there'd be a good chance that somebody would be around to pull you through it. At the least, roll you over on your face so that you wouldn't aspirate your own puke and strangle yourself, drowning on your lunch. Calling the police about a dead body was the absolute most comedown way to end a party.

  Not that she ha
d to worry about puking anything up. She hadn't eaten since she'd come back to the apartment and found the place trashed and Mike gone. Not gone like out to the store, or gone to the hospital to pull down his shift, but gone. Gone like not coming back. Gone like dead.

  That's what the blood on the wall over by the apartment's front door had meant. The place hadn't been trashed as though somebody had been looking for something-she'd checked Mike's stashes and had found them all in place, untouched-but instead, from people fighting and rolling around. Mike had given them a tough time. For a little while, at least. It had probably been those two guys, the mean, smart-mouthed one and his bigger companion, who'd done it. And then they'd ripped up the sofa cushions and done some other shit-she'd found one wall in the kitchen, with a puddle on the floor beneath it, that looked like it'd been pissed on-just for fun. Just to give her a good scare.

  It'd worked, all right. She'd dived right into the stash Mike had kept in a plastic baggie taped to the bottom of the stereo preamp: Mexican boots, stuff he didn't get from his hospital sources because the pharmaceutical companies didn't make them anymore. They'd fuzzed her right out, the way they always did. But when the fear was gone, hammered into oblivion, the new loneliness stayed solid as a rock. Methaqualone, even at shitty boot potency, always made her feel tragic. By now, her face was puffy and damp, like a red sponge, from weeping over Mike. She'd really loved him.

  The radio on the little table beside the bed murmured. It had gone off the station it'd been tuned to-probably one of those fuckers had kicked it or something-and now it emitted more static than voices and music. She hadn't bothered to switch it off. It didn't matter.