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nearest Home Depot so they could hustle for work. For five dollars each, one climbed inside and guided the car while two more shoved the scrap metal to the side, pushed it off the streets and into a parking space.
    Now each man was five dollars richer and their fingerprints were all over the car.
    Again I looked around. Sweat streamed down my face. I was less than a minute away from Wells Fargo. I hurried back toward the wrecked SUV and limped up to the driver’s window again. I needed to pull her out and commandeer her SUV, needed to throw her onto the asphalt and speed away before it was too late. Sweat ran down from underneath my fedora, trickled across my forehead to the stubble on my face. I held the iPhone in my aching hand, the earphones dangling to the filthy ground, the echo from the police scanner rising up from the headphones and being swallowed by a multitude of noises. Her eyes focused on my face and followed the trail of sweat to my lips.
    She said, “Your bottom lip is busted. Your nose is bleeding too.”
    I didn’t care about the blood that was staining my white shirt. I needed to rip her out of the SUV now, but when I reached for the door handle, I grimaced with the pain. The airbag had exploded and hurt my arms. She’d been rear-ended, assaulted from the rear, so her airbag didn’t deploy. She was shaken up, but she wasn’t wounded, at least not on the outside.
    She panted, every motion frantic as she dragged both hands through her mountain of hair and said, “I need your insurance information.”
    “Did you call the police?”
    “I was sending a text to . . . someone . . . and . . . and I’m . . . I’m about to call the police.”
    “You don’t need to.” I put an earphone inside my left ear. “I’m calling now.”
    “Oh, okay. This happened so fast. You hit me from behind really hard.”
    She wanted to see the damage, but I shook my head, stopped her from getting out.
    I said, “It’s not safe to get out right here. You should pull over so traffic can get by. Let me get my insurance card and I’ll come back and we can exchange information.”
    She regarded me with apprehensive eyes. Maybe it was the way I had instructed the immigrants to push my car off the street or the way I had handed them money that had made her fears rise. Or it could’ve been the panicked way I had kept my fedora tilted downward as I limped to her SUV. My gut told me that she should have known then. She should’ve locked her doors and sped away sounding her horn.
    But she didn’t.
    She had been rear-ended by a man wearing a classic suit and wingtip shoes.
    I opened the passenger door and saw that she had her red insurance card gripped inside her trembling fingers. She raised her head from sending someone a text message, her lips tight with hostility. Her frown deepened when she didn’t see any insurance card in my hand.
    She shook her head and groaned. “Please, tell me that you have insurance.”
    I knocked fallen books to the side, threw her Starbucks cup out of the door, then climbed in and sat on the wet leather seat. I slammed the door, removed my fedora, let it fall and land at my feet. I reached inside my suit pocket and pulled out the Mexican switchblade. It wasn’t open, but she knew what I was holding. Urgency was engraved in my face and my gentlemanly smile was gone. Her fear came alive. Instant fear. I pushed a button and the six-inch blade popped out like death.
    Her lips parted and said one word: “No.”
    Her cellular was inside her right hand. The panic in her eyes told me that she was about to dial 911. It pained me, but I reached over and gripped the cellular, snatched the phone out of her hand. She yelled and reached for her door handle. The door opened, and she had time to get away, but she couldn’t leave. Her seat belt was still on. Again, she reached to try to undo the buckle, but I intercepted her hand, then I grabbed her body and pulled her back. Terror gripped me and my heartbeat