“What was that?”

He spots a woman’s high-heel shoe laying flat on the third step from the top of the motel’s stairway. It glistens, singularly lit by the persistent lamplight, so that the effect is similar to that of a lone artifact in a museum’s display case. That’s when he remembers: the girl! He chases through the parking lot to the motel’s back end. The hitchhiker probably would have caught her, or at least spied which back alley she ran down, if he hadn’t frozen at the sight of another shadowy figure. This one is hovering to the ledge of the motel’s balcony railing. It’s the driver and there’s something in his hand.

“Which way she go?!” He catches the hitchhiker in the gleam of his .44.

“You gonna shoot her?”

The driver answers with the clear and concise cock of the hammer.

“That-a way, but don’t”
“Somofabitch! You realize if she gets word back to those bikers what we done, we’re finished?” The driver is already at the end of the balcony before he’s finished explaining. He puts one foot down on the stairs and then another. He’s caught and he’s tumbling down. A bang rips the air, physically, while the blink of a flash illuminates the driver: ass coming over head in mid-somersault. He lands with full force on the concrete slab at the bottom. The driver doesn’t dare move, but his gun is still pointed out and above him.

“Quite a spill.”

“Fuck you.”

“I think we got bigger things to worry bout than some biker cooz.”

The driver simultaneously understands and is perplexed at how the hitchhiker could possibly know of his plan: had he said something in his sleep or while he was laid out on Indian crank? Before the driver can search the hitchhiker’s face for a clue –he’s a darkened mess with the lamp hanging overhead anyway- a newspaper is thrown over his numb, sure-to-be-hurting-soon body.