He loved the bugs, but the heat was killing him. He couldn't breathe. His lungs felt as if they were packed with sponges. He had the doors and the big side window open as far as they would go, but never a breeze came in.

Elvis was the night manager at the E-Z Way, a fat young man given to tent-size sweatpants and novelty T-shirts. Tonight's had a tiger-striped cartoon cat, with the caption "I Love a Little Pussy." He'd dripped ketchup on the shirt while eating a hot dog, and five red splotches crossed the Pussy like bloody fingerprints. Elvis mopped his face with a rag he kept in the soda cooler. Reruns of The Mary Tyler Moore Show flickered on the portable TV bolted into one corner of the ceiling, but it was so hot that he'd lost the story line. Beige moths the size of penny-candy wrappers battered themselves against Mary's face.

The E-Z Way, the only all-night store in town, squatted beside the A amp;M Railroad tracks. Both whites from the east side and blacks from the west – anyone looking for milk or beer or cigarettes – patronized the place. "We get 'em all, sooner or later," Elvis liked to say.

At 11:04 Darrell Clark was Elvis's only customer. He stood in the back of the store, peering through the glass of an upright cooler. A dozen varieties of ice cream and sherbet were racked inside: vanilla, Dutch chocolate, strawberry, butter brickie, raspberry surprise, chocolate rocky road. Each name and each color photo evoked a memory of taste. Butter brickie and jamocha were out. Vanilla was good, but too. vanilla.

Darrell was dressed in Wal-Mart shorts and a brown short-sleeved polo shirt. The shirt was too small and fit his growing body like a second skin. His hair was close-cropped over his high forehead.