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he’d done. He liked the car and was happy building it, but there was something about having somebody else like it that made him feel proud.
    The gas suddenly squirted back out of the hole as the cut-off on the pump worked. Apparently the filler tube was too narrow. He’d have to watch that in the future.
    He paid and checked the oil again. It was still up and there didn’t seem to be any oil leaks or steam from the antifreeze, so he clamped the hood down with the side hooks and started the car.
    He looked both ways, jerked the clutch a little getting out into traffic, and accelerated until he got to the highway entrance, then downshifted and headed up the ramp onto I-40 heading west.
    He was in traffic, moving west at sixty miles an hour, before he realized three basic problems.
    First, it was getting dark and he had never really checked the headlights to see how they lined up.
    Second, it was starting to rain. There were huge, gray clouds piling up and drops of water hitting the windshield.
    Third, the car didn’t have a top.
    Somehow he always thought of riding in the sun. Didn’t think of it raining when he wanted to drive, only at night when he was ready to stop.
    He had the plastic sheet but he couldn’t stop out here in the open, and even while he was thinking of it the rain was increasing.
    Large drops were spattering across the windshield now and he turned the wipers on. There were three small wipers and he couldn’t help smiling as they kicked in. They looked silly. But they worked.
    He would have to hole up, take the next exit and pull the plastic out and wait for it to clear.
    It was a mile and a half to the next exit and by the time he turned off the highway he was soaked.
    He steered the Cat off the highway, down the exit ramp, and pulled over to the side at the bottom near some trees.
    It took just a moment to pull the plastic out from behind the seat and spread it over the car, with him underneath, the water slithering off to the side. He left the engine running and flicked the switch for the heater. It was small, a little one-speed motor, but he felt warm air blowing onto his feet and thought it would help dry him off.
    Dry or not, it was warm and he had not slept properly for over a week, just catching a doze when he could, and now with the heater blowing and filling the car with warm air, and the rain pattering on the plastic and the darkness coming down he could not keep his eyes open.
    They closed gently and sleep started to take him, would have taken him except that on the passenger side of the Cat there was a rustling sound and a round face with a beard poked under the plastic.
    Â 
“The quality of mercy is not strain’d;
    It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.
    It is twice bless’d.
    It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”
    Â 
    And Terry opened his eyes for his first view of Waylon Jackson.

7
    â€œW HAT . . . WHO ?” Terry was only half awake.
    â€œShakespeare wrote that. It’s about rain. I need mercy and a dry place to sit so I thought it was appropriate. Do you mind?”
    Waylon slid in beneath the plastic, hunkering down. He left a backpack outside but brought in a guitar case—which barely fit down between his knees—and smiled over at Terry. “Cozy, isn’t it?”
    â€œI . . . didn’t plan on company.”
    â€œAhh, yes. A loner. I thought so. Me, too. But still, sometimes we have to work together or we fall apart, right?”
    The guy is whacked,
Terry thought.
Completely nuts. He’s probably a serial killer. I’m sitting under a piece of plastic in the rain with a serial killer.
    But in some way he didn’t feel afraid or threatened. The man looked friendly, crouched down, his face lighted by the glow from the instrument panel—Terry noticed that the light on the fuel indicator was flickering and he reached under the dash almost without