"Girlfriend?"

"Naw, that's over. I dumped her."

"You could hitchhike. Unless you think you're too good."

4 0.

"I done my share of it. But I can't leave my car."

"Well, maybe I can help you out."

"How's that?"

"I got some money."

"I sure would-"

"What the h.e.l.l's going on?" The voice from the back room belonged to the heavy woman standing in the door. She was wearing a man's undershirt, black lace underpants and pink Reeboks.

"You open up, Jolene?"

"No, ma'am, but he-"

"You the one decides when we open? Huh? You setting the hours now?"

The woman crossed to the bar, got right in the girl's face.

"You running the place now?"

"This guy-"

Then the woman turned to w.i.l.l.y Jack. "We're closed."

"That right?" he said.

She reached across the bar and grabbed the beer from in front of him.

"You pay for this?"

"I was going to, but-"

"I gave it to him," the girl said.

"Oh. You open up and you give away beer. My, oh my. I don't know how I ever run this place without you. Yes sir, the day you . . ."

The girl scooted around the woman and across to the front door.

"He's just leaving." Jolene motioned to w.i.l.l.y Jack. "Go on. Get out."

w.i.l.l.y Jack pushed back from the bar, then slid off the stool and headed for the door, but he didn't rush . . . didn't hurry.

4 1.

"You d.a.m.ned right he's leaving. And so are you if you don't shape up."

As he stepped through the door, the girl slammed it behind him.

He could still hear the woman's voice, even when he reached the road. She was yelling about salt.

On his way into town, he pa.s.sed several trailer houses set back on treeless lots, a roadside fruit stand, abandoned, and a burned barn in a field thick with sagebrush. He crossed over railroad tracks that ran beside a boarded-up filling station-the place where the girl was waiting. She was standing on the concrete island beside the pumps.

"You cleaned up that salt real quick, Jolene." He tried to say 'Jolene'

the way the woman had said it.

"I didn't clean it up."

"Then I bet you're gonna get your a.s.s whipped."

"She ain't the boss of me."

"No. I could see that for sure."

She walked to the road and fell in beside him. "Listen. I've got over two hundred dollars I can let you have if you're interested."

He stopped walking then. "I'm interested."

"But you've got to take me with you. Take me to Las Vegas."

"Like h.e.l.l. They'd get me for kidnapping."

"I'm no kid. I'm nineteen."

"And I'm Elvis."

"Well, I'm older than I look."

"What do you mean, take you with me?"

"Let me come with you, help you in Las Vegas."

"Help me with what?"

"With your equipment. Instruments and stuff. I'm strong. I can lift. Speakers . . . amplifiers. h.e.l.l, I can move a piano all by myself."

4 2.

She picked at her shirt as she talked. w.i.l.l.y Jack had the feeling she was about to push up her sleeves and show him her muscles. He knew if she did, he'd laugh and give it all away.

"What are you smiling about?" she asked.

"About how nice it would be to have someone with me. Someone to take care of my costumes . . . sew on sequins, b.u.t.tons, stuff like that."

"Yeah, and I can run errands, take your phone calls-anything."

"Okay. Let's do it."

She smiled then, a smile that crinkled up her eyes and pulled her lips back tight against her teeth-and he saw again that empty s.p.a.ce at the front of her mouth.

"Let's go," he said.

"Well, I can't go right now."

"Why not?"

"I've got to get my money. Some clothes. Take care of a couple of things."

"Well, when can you go?"

"Tonight."

"Tonight? What the h.e.l.l am I supposed to do all day? Stand out here in the sun and jerk off?"

"I don't know. Go to the park. Look around. Just go somewhere.

Then I'll meet you at the high school."

"Where the h.e.l.l's the high school?"

"Right in the middle of town. You'll see it. There ain't that much town."

She waited for some sign of approval from him, but w.i.l.l.y Jack crammed his hands in his pockets and stared past her.

"Okay?" she asked.

4 3.

"I don't seem to have much choice, do I?"

"Now where's your car?"

"On the highway. 'Bout three miles east of here."

"What are you driving?"

"Seventy-two Plymouth. Why?"

"Give me the keys." She held out her hand, trying to act certain she could pull this off.

"The h.e.l.l I will."

"Look. I can get a ride out there . . . take a can of gas. Then I drive it in, fill it up, oil, the works. I pick you up at eight. We're outta here."

"Naw." He shook his head. "I ain't gonna hand my keys over to-"

"You think I'm gonna steal a '72 Plymouth? s.h.i.t. Let's forget it."

She turned around and started back down the road. "Just forget the whole thing."

"Okay," w.i.l.l.y Jack yelled. "Let's do it."

But the girl kept walking away from him. He hurried to catch up with her, then dangled the keys in front of her nose.

"I said, let's do it." His voice had a harder edge to it then.

She plucked the keys out of his hand without missing a step.

"Eight," she said-and then she was gone.

w.i.l.l.y Jack was at the school by seven, hoping the girl might get there early. He'd had all he wanted of Santa Rosa, New Mexico, by then. He had spent an hour at the pool hall watching two fat men play pool like they were spearing fish. When he finally got in the game, he let them win his change so he could sucker them in for a few bucks, but they quit then and left with his money.

In the drugstore, he'd jimmied a gum ball machine for enough 4 4 nickels to buy a Pepsi and a Slow Poke. After that, he had gone to a cafe called Peaches where he drank water and watched cartoons on a twelve-inch black-and-white with a vertical problem.

Finally, he had walked to the high school where he waited and swatted at mosquitoes that left welts on his face and neck.

But Jolene wasn't early; she wasn't even on time. She pulled in at a quarter after nine, driving too fast and without any lights. She missed the school driveway by a foot, jumped the curb and smacked the front b.u.mper against an iron railing that lined the sidewalk.

"Where the f.u.c.k have you been?" he yelled.

"I got tied up."

w.i.l.l.y Jack started for the driver's side of the car.

"Go around," she said. "I'll drive."

"Like h.e.l.l." He jerked the door open and she slid over.

"Did you get the money?"

"Sure."

"How much?"

"Two hundred eighteen," she said.

w.i.l.l.y Jack leaned over to her then as if he were about to whisper, so she bent toward him. But his hand shot out, grabbed the back of her head, twisted a thick hank of hair between his fingers. He yanked her head to his, mashed his face against hers, his nose pressed flat into her cheek.

Then, staring into her eyes, he ground his lips against hers and forced her mouth open with his teeth, his tongue. He pushed between her lips, his tongue ripping into her mouth, pushing, probing until he found what he was after. And when he did, his tongue began to fondle her there, in that empty s.p.a.ce where she had no teeth, stroking the ridge of her gums, sliding across, slipping into and out of that Where the Heart Is 4 5.