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through his lip, reason enough to take himself off the road till the old feelings run their course.
    A quarter of a mile later he does a law-abiding exit onto an auxiliary road that connects a stretch of strip plazas and stand-apart businesses. After he’s rolled to a sensible stop next to a furniture store, he jumps out of the El Camino like it might be tainted with leftover rage and sees right away that the stick-on “Superior Home Maintenance” sign that was meant to make him look believable in Glen Abbey is upside down. That must be what the bullyboys were laughing at, a discovery that doesn’t bring any real relief because now he has to wonder if the people of Old Quarry Court laughed behind their window curtains at the very same thing. Now he has to wonder if he made himself a standout instead of a blend-in.
    He peels off the sign, slides it behind the bench seat and turns his attention to a nearby combination motel and restaurant called The Speedwell. He locks the El Camino and walks the short distance to the restaurant entrance, where a sign says cocktails are served.
    The bar here is nothing like the one at the pub in the West Village; it’s a whole lot smaller, quieter, without any fake features to make you think you’re in another country or century, and at four-thirty in the afternoon, empty except for a nontalkative bartender and a lone drinker reading a real estate guide.
    Hoop downs a shot and a beer a lot faster than is sensible. But maybe he’s done with being sensible. And patient. He places a twenty on the bar and orders another setup. After one more, he takes a look at the menu, and in the spirit of the recklessness gripping him, asks for the chopped chicken liver platter that comes with marble rye, capers, cornichons, and scallions; all of it stuff he’s never had before.
    He sits at a table for the food part of his intemperance. He can’t hear the TV as well as when he was seated at the bar, but he can hear it well enough to know that the international entertainer they’re talking about on the five-thirty newsbreak is not one that concerns him.
    The only part of his meal he doesn’t care for is the little shriveled berry-like things that look like animal droppings and don’t add that much to the taste. He scrapes them aside and finishes everything else on the platter—including the fancy lettuce leaves that cupped the chicken liver. This earns him another drink—just the whiskey this time—then a couple more at the bar, where he starts thinking about the drive back to the North Bergen motel.
    He can make the drive—he’s held a car to the road with more liquor in him than he has now—but the way his luck’s been going lately, what if some other drunked-up driver hits him? Then what’s he going to do? If he did have a run-in with the cops, how would he explain the money in the gym bag, the Bowie knife in the tool case and other stuff—like those little waxpaper envelopes the headache powder comes in that are so easy to mistake for something else?
    Now he’s scared himself so bad he can’t even risk sleeping it off in the El Camino—not even if he moves it to a less noticeable spot. And now he needs another drink if he’s ever going to hatch a plan.
    Two more whiskeys later, when he thinks he has figured out what to do, he sees that the place has filled up while he was dithering. If he happens to make a jackassed-fool of himself by staggering when he leaves, he’ll have spectators. And if any of them should happen to laugh, they could get more than bargained for.
    He settles the food and drink bill and makes it to the lobby of the motel without staggering. There’s some gloat involved when he rents a room for the night even though he has other paid-for lodgings.
    In the parking lot, he’s not quite so surefooted on the approach to the El Camino to fetch the gym bag and tool case. On the way back to the motor lodge he steadies himself on other parked cars and a light pole till he