Drive East on 66

A simple assignment, they told me. No loopholes, no strings,

and a fat fee for nothing more than a thousand-mile breeze in a spanking-new convertible.

And for company, a steely-eyed blonde and the oddball kid they assured me was “harmless.”

What they couldn’t predict was the maroon Buick, the one

that began cruising by the house even before we left. It showed up behind us

again at the customs shed on the state line, then at the dirty beanery in the desert,

and barely missed us at the Black Forest.

That kind of luck couldn’t last.

They’d collar us.

And finally, in a grimy back alley of a sunbaked town in New

Mexico, they did…