Half of Paradise by James Lee Burke

a poolroom for no reason. It don’t fit.
    Toussaint looked in the rear-view mirror again. There were two automobiles behind him. He slowed and let them pass. He turned into the main road that led to the highway. The river levee was on his left, and ahead he could see the looming black structure of the Huey Long Bridge. He accelerated to keep up with the traffic. Why don’t he come on, he thought. He’s had plenty of time. I can’t drive no slower without tying up traffic.
    He entered the circle before the bridge and turned out on the highway. He drove on a mile to where the cars had thinned out, and pulled off on the gravel shoulder of the road. He opened the glove compartment, and under a street map of Mobile he found the red reflectors. He walked back down the highway and set them on the shoulder at intervals to warn the oncoming automobiles. He went back and stood by the running board and waited for the other truck.
    A half hour later it came. Toussaint waved the driver down. The truck slowed and pulled off on the shoulder in front of the Negro. The driver opened the door and swung out of the cab as Toussaint walked up.
    “Why did you pull me over?” he said. “You ain’t supposed to stop till you hit Mobile. You should be almost out of the state by now.”
    “I got my markers out. Nobody is going to bother us.”
    “You ain’t supposed to stop.”
    “What have you and Bonham got on?”
    “Mind your business,” the driver said.
    “Why did you wait thirty minutes to follow me?”
    “You ain’t paid to know anything.”
    “You could have carried the whole load. He don’t need another driver.”
    “He splits a shipment so he don’t take a chance on losing it all. The police ain’t going to get us both.”
    “He ain’t the type man to trust a hot load with somebody he don’t know.”
    “Ask him about it.”
    “You’re the man I’m talking to.”
    “Quit if you don’t like it.”
    “I got another hundred dollars coming.”
    “Earn it, then. I ain’t going to stand out here no longer.”
    “What’s Bonham got planned?”
    “Nothing.”
    “You’re shitting me.”
    “I ain’t got to take that from you.”
    “You work for a nigger,” Toussaint said.
    The man tried to hit him, but Toussaint caught his arm in midair with his good hand and held it helpless before him.
    “I’ll break your arm like a stick, white man.”
    “God damn you.”
    Toussaint pushed him away.
    “Get in your truck,” he said. “I’m following you this time. I’m going to be on your bumper all the way to Mobile.”
    The man climbed up in the cab and slammed the door. Toussaint picked up the reflectors from the roadside and got in his truck. He dropped the reflectors on the seat and followed the other truck off the shoulder onto the highway. He kept close behind so no cars could get between them.
    As the road straightened out, the other truck began to widen the distance. Toussaint pressed on the accelerator to keep up. The speedometer neared fifty and the truck in front continued to gain. Toussaint pressed the gas pedal to the floor, but his speed didn’t increase. It’s got a governor on it, he thought. The gas feed is fixed so it can’t do more than fifty. He knows it too. He might have even put it on. They want to make sure I don’t stay with the other truck. He must be making seventy. He’s got a clear stretch ahead of him. I can’t catch him unless he runs into traffic.
    Toussaint watched the taillights grow dimmer. The lead truck went over a rise and disappeared. The glow of the headlights reflected against the night on the other side and then disappeared too. Toussaint approached the rise and shot the truck into second gear to pull the grade. The highway before him was empty when he reached the top. He looked off to the side of the highway. There was a dirt farm road that led between two fields into a wood. He must have turned out his lights and took the side road, Toussaint thought. He couldn’t have