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you handle it from here? I need to go home and bleed internally.”
    She peered around the bar. Other than Jimmy and his new girlfriends, we had Claude and Wilma in the corner, and the remaining two construction guys were back at the pool table, staring sightlessly at the cue ball even though it had stopped rolling. “Yeah, it’s quite a crowd, but I think I’ll be okay.”
    â€œGood night, sis.”
    â€œSee ya, hero.”
    Milt’s fifteen-year-old tow truck wanted to keep sleeping, but the dual batteries methodically cranked the engine until it finally rumbled like a grouchy lion. I scraped away the ice from the windshield and eased out into the night.
    It was just past twelve. Time for a physics lesson.
    Out of habit I hit the repo switch as soon as I was close—dousing lights, instruments, and anything else that glowed—with one click. Milt had invented it and called it “stealth mode,” but I was pretty sure I was still visible to Russian radar. It was simply a kill switch for everything emitting light so that I could sneak up on people in the tow truck, which meant there were no brake lights as I parked about fifteen yards from Einstein’s house, sliding into a dark place under the trees where my truck would be impossible to spot on such a black night. The precipitation had let up but a light patter of meltwater falling from the branches smothered my footfalls as I approached his place.
    I paused at the bottom of the driveway and reviewed my plan: (a) go up to his truck; (b) take it. A thin blade of flexible steel, notched on one end—the slim jim—would gain me access to the cab. The dent puller was a claw with a thickly threaded screw on one end. Turn the screw and the claw would pull the ignition switch right out of the steering column. Once the switch was dangling there like a loose eyeball, I’d stick a screwdriver into the contact points, twist, and the truck would hopefully start faster than mine had.
    New vehicles no longer used the steering column switch, but Einstein’s Chevy was one of the last trucks built during an era when manufacturers were more considerate of car thieves and repo men.
    When the engine was running I’d have to do some back and forth before I could clear the cement steps, and backing around the abrupt elbow in the driveway would be more than a little difficult, but I was betting Einstein’s Friday night had ended with him drinking all of the brothers and sisters of the beer he’d been holding in his hand when we had our productive little chat, and that he would snooze through the whole thing.
    So why was I hesitating?
    Being a repo man requires what Milt calls “nerves of stupidity”: I usually handled danger by not thinking about it. And I wasn’t thinking about it now. Einstein didn’t scare me, his threat to “shoot me legal” didn’t scare me, and his goose didn’t scare me. I wasn’t picturing him with a gun. I wasn’t picturing anything, but my heart was pounding and my hands shook when I tried to read my watch in the black night.
    What if the dream was some sort of foreshadowing? You dream about your death and then you die trying to steal a Chevy truck out of some Einstein’s driveway.
    I didn’t like this. Something was wrong—I could feel it, even if I couldn’t see anything. Then I thought about Becky needing a thousand dollars to keep the Black Bear open. I’d get $250 for this repo. I had to have it.
    So okay. Still shaking a little with anxiety, I crept up the driveway, slipping a little in the wet slush. There was the truck, jammed in right where it had been earlier. A half-inch of snow covered the windshield; hopefully it wouldn’t leave a film when I wiped it off.
    I took another two steps forward and nearly shouted when three large outdoor spotlights flashed on, bathing me in harsh white light. Cursing, blinded, I scrambled away and