“Night or day it’s all one in those damn 24-hour joints,” Billy said one slow evening a few days before he was killed. “That’s the hell of it, man; they’re air-conditioned, open all night, soft music playin, an you don’t know what day it is after a while, or if it’s winter or summer. Time dies in a place like that, you feel pulled loose from it, like dreaming, dig, you don’t even know if you’re hungry. Like comin out of a movie, dig, and it’s bright sunlight out and you’re blinkin away and people are walkin around on business and you wonder what the hell world you fell into.
