"Only way she gets any ice cream is if she pay for it."

c.o.ker turned around.

"How about if I pay for it?"

"I don't care who pays. You, the little wh.o.r.e, Lady Luck, or Jesus Christ. As long as I get the money."

"That's fine." c.o.ker smiled.

"You'll find your money on the road, a.s.shole."

"What?"

"The jackpot. The money I shot out of the slot machine.

It's all yours."

"You're crazy."

"Maybe. But I'm gonna buy me a s.h.i.tload of ice cream, and this little lady's gonna eat it."

c.o.ker set the girl down at the side of the road, peeling off his shirt and rolling it into a pillow for her head. Then he walked over to the truck and opened the refrigerated compartment.

"No Eskimo Pies," Anshutes said.

"Let's get that straight."

"I'm getting what I paid for," c.o.ker said.

Anshutes shook his head. What a moron. Ponying up fistfuls of silver dollars, just so some little Vegas wh.o.r.e could lick a Push Up. If that was the way c.o.ker wanted it, that was fine. In the meantime, Anshutes would make himself some money, and Lady Luck wouldn't have jack to do with it. h.e.l.l, for once hard work wouldn't have jack to do with it, either. For once, all Anshutes had to do to make some money was bend over and pick it up.

Silver dollars gleamed in the moonlight. Anshutes put down the shotgun. Not that he was taking any chances--he made sure that the weapon was within reach as he got down to work, filling his pockets with coins.

Behind him, he heard the sound of the refrigerator compartment door slamming closed. c.o.ker. Jesus, what an idiot. Believing that some Vegas s.l.u.t was Lady Luck. Personified.

Anshutes had told the kid a thousand times that luck was an illusion.

Now he realized that he could have explained it a million times, and he still wouldn't have made a dent. The kid might as well be deaf. He just wouldn't listen-Anshutes listened. He heard everything.

The sound of silver dollars jingling in his pocket, like the sound of happiness.

But wait .. . there was another sound, too.

A quiet hum, hardly audible.

The sound of an electric engine accelerating.

Anshutes turned around fast, dropping coins on the roadway. The ice cream truck was coming fast. The shotgun was right there on the double yellow line. He made a grab for it.

Before he touched the gun, the ice cream truck's b.u.mper cracked his skull like a hard-boiled egg.

Kim felt better now.

A couple of Eskimo Pies could do that for a girl.

"Want another?" the guy asked.

"Sure," Kim said.

"I could probably eat a whole box."

"I guess it's like they say: a walk in the desert does wonders for the appet.i.te."

The guy smiled and walked over to the ice cream truck. She watched him. He was kind of cute. Not as cute as Johnny Ringo, of course, but Johnny definitely had his down side.

She sat in the dirt and finished her third pie. You had to eat the suckers fast or else they'd melt right in your hand. It was funny--she'd left Vegas worse than flat broke, owing Johnny twenty grand, and now she had three hundred bucks worth of ice cream in her belly. Things were looking up. She kind of felt like a safe deposit box on legs. Kind of a funny feeling. Kind of like she didn't know whether she should laugh or cry.

The guy handed her another Eskimo Pie.

"Thanks--" she said, and she said it with a blank that he was sure to fill in.

"c.o.ker," he said.

"My first name's Dennis, but I don't like it much."

"It's a nice name," Kim said. Which was a lie, but there was no sense hurting the poor guy's feelings.

"Thanks, Dennis."

"My pleasure. You've had a h.e.l.l of a hard time."

She smiled. Yeah. That was one way of putting it.

"So you're heading for Vegas," she said.

c.o.ker nodded.

"Me and my buddy .. . well, we ended up with this truckload of ice cream. We wanted a place where we could sell it without much trouble from the law."

"Vegas is definitely the place."

"You lived there a while?"

She smiled. She guess you could call what she'd done in Vegas living.

If you were imaginative enough.

"Kim?" he prodded.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," she said. Man, it was tough. She should have been happy .. .

because the guy had saved her life. She should have been sad .. .

because Johnny Ringo had tried to kill her. But she couldn't seem to hold onto any one emotion.

She had to get a grip.

"You ever been to Vegas?" she asked.

"No," the guy said.

"Going there was my partner's idea."