The wet black sidewalks gleamed where the streetlamps pooled and particolored neon pulsed in the streets like a gaudy heartbeat.

Tires sloughed softly on wet macadam. An engine slowed, almost pacing him, the engine idled down so that he could hear the lick the full-race cam was hitting, and he thought cop without even turning to look. A soft breeze had risen in these western flatlands and in the street-lamp’s globe of yellow, rain swung slantwise in a silver spray.

Hey.

Boyd turned. A blue and white cruiser was creeping along, driver’s side window down, slab of beefy red face peering out. Jowly as a bulldog. Hard cop’s eyes, like shards of agate splintered off by the blow of a hammer.

Can I help you?

Not in any way I can think of, Boyd said.

Where are you going? Boyd had increased his pace but the cruiser compensated to match him, the cop’s face intent as if he’d commit him to memory should he be called upon to identify this visage from a witness stand or as if he’d compare it to some handbill seen long ago on a post office wall.

Somewheres it’s dry, Boyd said. Am I breaking one of your laws or something?

None that I know of. It’s just that it’s three o’clock in the morning and most folks is in bed asleep. I seen you walking and thought you might have troubles of some kind. Be looking for a doctor or something.

I don’t reckon I need one, Boyd said. He took a deep breath, held it, forced himself to contain his anger. I was visitin some folks out by the levee, he said. Got caught out in the storm and sheltered under a bridge back yonder. I live east of here, in Lewis County, and I figured there might be a Greyhound station here.

There ain’t no bus station as such. They sell tickets out of the Bob-White Cafe and the bus stops there for pickups. But not till seven thirty in the morning.

And there ain’t nothing else open?

There may be somebody hangin around the cab stand. Get in, I’ll drop you off.

Boyd knew the difference between an order and an invitation. He got in. He sat clasping the door handle. Thinks I’ll steal his fuckin town, Boyd thought with sour amusement. As if they had anything he wanted. The cruiser eased through the sleeping streets, Boyd’s eyes cataloging a five-and-dime, a jewelry store, the aforementioned Bob-White Cafe. Closed, closed, closed, please call again. The entire town of Tiptonville, Tennessee, posted off-limits this April morning in 1952. If he pulls up in front of city hall he’s goin to be one surprised son of a bitch, Boyd thought. He won’t know what hit him.

The cop didn’t speak again. He stopped in front of a small rundown storefront where a sign said TAXI and Boyd knew he was meant to get out. He did. He closed the door and the cruiser eased away. The plate-glass front of the cab stand was cracked in myriad fissures mended with duct tape and the entire window bulged slightly outward as if barely containing some internal force.