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Horns blew as I rocketed through the light at Marlton, battled potholes, and passed by more strip malls, most of the businesses abandoned.
    I blew through stop signs and intersections, sped by a group of runners who jumped out of the way when they saw my uncompromising pace. The pack scattered and cursed me for ignoring California’s law that proclaimed pedestrians owned the right of way. Then, as I approached Hillcrest, a black SUV rolled through the red light without stopping, broke the law and did what they called a California roll, made a goddamn right turn less than ten yards in front of me, then galumphed well below the speed limit.
    I was going too fast to slow down.
    I hit a dip that snatched the car to the left. That cavernous hole grabbed the front tire and I lost control; I shifted and my foot pressed down on the accelerator.
    My eyes widened while my hands gripped and battled with the steering wheel.
    Sirens punctured the atmosphere as I slammed into the back of the slow-moving SUV.
    Fiberglass met fiberglass as I crashed harder than Black Monday.

2
    The airbag exploded and the impact catapulted me back in time, hurled me into the dark skies and frigid air of the Midwest, back into the land of Butch Jones, Maserati Rick, and the Chambers Brothers. The explosion of lights inside my head faded like stars at sunrise. I battled to regain focus. My face was numb and my nose felt like a middleweight boxer had hit it with a knockout punch.
    Stunned, I fought with the deployed airbag, struggled to get oriented and shove it out of my way. Horns blared. People yelled. Each noise echoed a thousand times. In front of me, over the front end that had folded like tinfoil, beyond the hissing steam from the fluids, was the SUV I had rear-ended.
    It took most of my strength to shove the door open. It took just as much energy to pull myself out of the wreckage. Eyes peered into the rearview mirror of the SUV I had hit. It looked like the driver was a woman. I broke free of my pain and hurried to her window. She was shaken, her eyes wide open. She was shocked, but there was anger too. She had been thrown forward as her neck snapped backward, and her seat belt had locked and held her captive. It was still clamped across her sternum. A powerful violence had attacked her world without a sliver of warning.
    I had taken the fedora with me when I limped away from my car. The brim was tilted down. I’d become Humphrey Bogart, disheveled and wounded, in a dark city trying to hide his injured face.
    I asked, “Are you okay?”
    “I . . . I think so. My . . . oh my God . . . my cappuccino . . . my seats . . . my clothes . . .”
    A venti-size Starbucks cup had ended up on the passenger seat; most of the contents were on the leather seats and across her pin-striped suit. She grimaced like the cappuccino had burned like acid. She reached for her seat belt, tugged it over and over and was unable to get it to unlock, that simple movement making her cringe with pain. She moved in slow motion, as if her life were underwater.
    Horns screamed in a dozen octaves and the kindhearted yelled for us to move the SUV.
    Her BMW X5 was damaged, the bumper knocked askew, but the damage wasn’t enough to debilitate her vehicle. Mine was dead. Steam rose from the front end of an American-made car that was mangled. Every exit we had planned had been by car, not by foot. Everything was upside-down and I’d fallen into a worst-case scenario. Eddie Coyle had said that there was always a way out. People were on the sidewalk, but not many. A pregnant teenage girl was pushing a baby carriage. She kept going. A few old people did the same.
    Police were all over town and that wrecked vehicle would be on the most-wanted list in a matter of seconds. I needed that car moved and I couldn’t do it myself. I limped toward a handful of Latinos, speaking in Spanish. I told them I’d pay them to push the car. They were all day laborers, more than likely heading to the