The avenues at night become long straight tunnels, shaped by hangnoose bursts of orange sodium lamps. For twenty eight blocks the four-lane shrinks to its dim drawbridge conclusion.
An early-seventies Plymouth idles in the slow lane, on the fringe of a used car lot. The driver leans out of the window, elbow pointed, watching the signal before him as if the color sequence were a code of specific interest.
The sky is a huge black sun, heat blotting the heavens. Below, off the streets, movement is covert, minimal. Shadows blend into shadows of deeper distinction.
Green yellow red. And so on.
He's been driving for hours, entirely within the city limits. If nothing's happening here, he must be missing something elsewhere. Thirty-two mph advisories dangle at regular intervals. The implication: any other rate impedes travel. The actuality: a rate of precisely thirty-two mph effects the same. Experiments confirm this.
Mac eyes the lots for new arrivals. So far there's only two postoffice surplus Jeeps with bad paint jobs and a lopsided MG Midget.
Yellow red. The Holiday Grille to his right. It has been some time, maybe years, since he has eaten there, and like a shock-therapy patient, something fuzzy and dark and unremembered hovers about the location. He knows this: there are patrons here who wear suits.
On past. He narrates his progress: "Louisville, going on seventh, sixth, fifth, whoops—red light at fifth." The most he makes at a time is three blocks, before the lights—again.
At the corner of a finance company parking lot, sudden low frequencies. Boom-boom-bssshh. In the left lane a low-rider Monte Carlo pulls up. Mac looks over earnestly at the face looking back. The window on the passenger side scrolls jerkily. The Fury's windows are wide open.
He watches. White teeth in a dark unlit face. Mac smiles back, the edges of recognition gnawing at him. Someone he knows? Who? What can Mac call him?
The face laughs at another face, which belongs to the driver. "Hey," Mac calls, pleased by the interchange, its very existence.
"Ahh . . . yeah. Right." The passenger grins; the driver chortles.
"How's it going there?"
Laughter.
He tries again. "Aint much going on tonight, is it. Seen some cars at Lazarre's Point earlier, but they headed out. Probly going to Moon Lake."
The answer: a grey pistol held out rigid between the Monte Carlo and the Fury. Then a shot. For the immediate Mac cannot hear anything. The white teeth still flashing. Mac knows he felt a breeze, like a fly. The Monte Carlo blasts through the red, down four blocks and across the drawbridge.
Green. Mac leaves the car in park, makes it to the Finance lot, retches on concrete. For a while he coughs and spits, then squats with hands on knees. Red. Green. No other cars come by, on any of the four lanes. The Fury's still idling. He gets up, clomps back to the driver's seat. There is no evidence that anything ever happened. No glass, no hole, no blood. Mac settles in. Red again.
Green. Finally go. "Hudson, Stubbs. Coming up, Roselawn." His voice a little quivery now, not unlike baseball announcers after a ninth inning turnaround.
Sixth street ends. Perpendicular opens Forsythe Avenue, with its median of ancient dark trees. Across the way, a city park. Cars are weeknight sparse, no mysterious interior goings-on. The swimming pool, lights off; the handball court, swingsets, slides and mini-golf course. The infamous restrooms.
He knew more about stuff like that now.
Past the Park, all the way out past Deborah Drive and then crossing Forsythe again to the Bypass, down fast food row and beneath the interstate to motel row and then right on Winnsboro Road, left on Burg Jones, around the zoo, up Jackson to St John, right on Desiard, left on Lamy Lane, cutting through the new neighborhood to Forsythe again. After taking Oliver road, back toward the crux of the city, there's a television broadcasting service and the old shopping mall. At times he has seen local newscast celebrities drive the few blocks along here on break for meals.
He drives on. Once again passing used car lots, following Louisville. There are more filling stations, then shopping centers and a lumber yard. Houses.
Then he pulls over, stops. As though remembering for the first time. He looks down the tunnel of Louisville. Maybe twenty minutes has passed since he was here. Was that a Monte Carlo down there near sixth?
It feels like a reduction in the physical space of the world—the allowable world. He's never not driven past something, even cop cars, lights going, spooky sirens howling. Never been afraid of wrecks, fires, floods, of ogling the unfortunate and oozing hit-and-run pedestrian. But he can't go down there now. A few things have happened for sure, but nobody has ever actually shot at him before, as far as he can piece together.
He remains idling by the Sho-bar, its dirt surface parking lot eroded, potholes like the havens small animals make for themselves when it is time to die.
