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keys. One for him too.”
    The boy set his cloth aside and dug down in his jeans, which were so tight he had to suck in his breath before he could get a hand in his pocket. One key was attached to a huge metal washer, the other to a wooden disc. “Don’t forget to give them back,” the boy said.
    “Sure thing,” Jake told him.
    We went around to the restrooms, where the doors were chained and padlocked, and he opened up the Ladies’ and shoved me in. I was uncertain what was going on. Was this the end of the road? Was he planning to leave for good now? Till he said, “Don’t go away,” and shut the door on me. I heard the key turning, then his footsteps growing fainter. For a long time after he was gone the chain went on swinging against the door like a handful of marbles being thrown down, over and over again.
    Well, of course I was glad to see the inside of a bathroom. I peed ten gallons, washed my hands, looked at my face in the speckled mirror. My hair was a little stringy but other than that I seemed the same as usual. Evidently these things don’t show on a person the way you’d think they would.
    But then I glanced up and saw how dim and tiny the ceiling was, hung with cobwebs—oh, this was a closed-in space, all right. One little window high up the cinderblock wall, chicken wire and milky glass, slanted partway open. I climbed onto the toilet seat. Standing on tiptoe, I could press my face to the window and see what little there was to see: a strip of blackness and the gleaming roofs of a few cars left overnight for repairs. Not a single human being, no one to get me out of there. Anybody would have been welcome, even Jake Simms. I was ready to rattle the windowpane like a prison grate and call his name. But then I saw him. He turned out to be a bent shape by one of the parked cars; he straightened and started toward me. I hopped down and slung my purse over my shoulder. When he opened the door I was just standing there, calm as you please. I didn’t give a sign how nervous I had been.
    “Over this way,” he said.
    He led me into the dark, toward the clump of cars I’d seen from the window. One car was long, humped—I didn’t get a good look at it. On the passenger side the front door handle and the back door handle were looped through with a chain and padlocked. We edged between cars to get to the driver’s side. Jake opened the door and pushed me onto the seat. “Slide over,” he said.
    I looked at him.
    “Don’t try no funny stuff, I got it locked with the men’s room chain.”
    I slid over. Cars are closed-in spaces too, even without locked doors, and this one could smother a person, I thought, with its fuzzy, dusty-smelling seat covers and slit-eyed windows. There were no headrests. A pair of giant fur dominoes hung from the rear-view mirror. “What kind of car
is
this?” I asked.
    “Beggars can’t be choosers,” said Jake. “None of them others had their keys left in.”
    He settled into the driver’s seat and inched the door shut, so it barely clicked when it latched. Then he let his breath out and sat still a minute. “Question is, does it work,” he told me.
    I heard the rustle of nylon, a key turning. The engine came on with a grudging sound. Jake slipped into reverse, and I saw the car ahead of us sliding away. Since I’m not a driver myself, I went on facing forward. So it came as a shock when
wham!
—we hit something. I spun around but I couldn’t see what it was. A mailbox, it sounded like. Something clattery. “Oh, hell,” Jake said, and shifted gears and roared into the street. But even that didn’t bring anybody out after us. At least, I was still looking backward and I didn’t notice anyone.
    “See, I didn’t want to brake,” Jake said. “Didn’t want the brake lights lit.”
    But now that we were out of there and into the ordinary,evening-time traffic, he switched on the headlights and settled back. I couldn’t believe it. Was that
it?
Simple as that?