He could feel her hot breath and hear her grunt and something hit him at the base of the skull so hard bile rose bitter in his mouth and he fell beneath their combined weight.

The driveway was little blue granite pebbles. He lay on it studying them as though they contained some great knowledge, could he but decipher it. There was a roaring in his ears, there was an unbearable weight on him, lights flickered on and off at random.

Billy, Claire called. He hit the woman in her stomach with his elbow as hard as he could and felt her slacken. He shook her off and got up. He grabbed the motorcycle in a haze of half delirium, he had the motorcycle halfway up the ramp when the screen door slapped again and a middleaged man with a torn gray undershirt came out with a doublebarreled shotgun unbreached. He was unshaven, bald, hirsute chest and arms, a looping belly like a half inflated inner tube about his waist. He was fumbling waxed red cylinders into it. He dropped one and felt wildly about for it.

By the time Edgewater heard the gun barrel slap up he’d rolled the cycle off the ramp and straddled it and kickstarted it and he was already rolling when the concussion came like a slap to the head. He went through shredded greenery that spun like windy green snow, skidding blindly onto the street then across it and through a hedge before he could get the motorcycle under control and out onto the street again, leaning into the wind, houses kaleidoscoping past on either side like the walls of a gaudy tunnel he was catapulted through.

The street rolled in and out of the rearview mirror then the white Ford appeared and followed at a sedate pace. Edgewater slowed and turned the motorcycle into the parking lot of a liquor store and she turned in beside it. The Harley idled like some fierce beast that wasn’t even breathing hard.

Hard feelings my ass, Edgewater said.

Do you believe this? He shot the shit out of that tree, did you see that?

I rode through it, Edgewater said.

Ahh baby you got it all in your hair, she said, brushing it away with a hand.

What’d she hit me with, anyway?

I don’t know. I didn’t see anything.

She had to hit me with something.

Claire shook her head. I’m just glad it’s over.

They had to manhandle the cycle onto the trailer because she hadn’t thought it wise to stop for the boards. Edgewater lashed it upright to a support with the rope she’d brought.

That’s twice I’ve wrestled this heavy son of a bitch up here, he said. My first time and my last.

You’re in a good mood, she said, grinning, getting into the car.

I’m not real fond of getting shot at, Edgewater said.

She eased the car out into the street and headed north, glancing in the rearview mirror to check was the cycle secure. You’ll feel better tonight, she said. We’ll get you a sport coat somewhere and go out to a really good restaurant. Italian maybe, we’ll get a nice bottle of wine. Okay?

Okay, Edgewater said.

He stared out at the streets. Businesses were fleeing past the car like buoys in treacherous waters. Pawnshops, bars. A multitude of liquor stores that must sell one to the other.

Who needs this shit? he asked no one. I don’t.

The prospective motorcycle buyer lived in a town called Leighton east of Memphis. They drove toward it past tract houses and apartment complexes and onto a flat countryside of housetrailers and farmland beset by tractors that Edgewater watched move silent down cottonfields that seemed endless.

He turned to study her against the slipsliding landscape. There was a faint blue bruise at the corner of her right eye and a scratch on her cheek but with the wind blowing her hair and the silk scarf strung out in the breeze she looked rakish and well satisfied with herself. In the brief time he’d known her she seemed always to be playing some role. Seldom the same one twice. Just the star of whatever movie today was. He’d had the impulse to glance about and see were cinecameras whirring away, a makeup man with his potions at the ready.

Then as he watched her profile seemed to alter.