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radio. There was a weather report playing.
    A weather report.
    Tim did lock gazes with Javier, then. It was disconcerting with the eye patch—how was it that in the week they’d been chatting online, Javier had never thought to mention the eye patch ? Still, the fact that someone else in that truck realized how screwed up everything had become…that was a great comfort. More of a relief than Tim would have ever anticipated. He nodded, once, then clenched his jaw and fixed his eyes on the road again.
    The line of cars he was in slipped past a dark traffic signal, the fourth one they’d passed. Perpendicular traffic was stopped. Those drivers gesticulated wildly as they laid on their horns, but Tim couldn’t risk letting one in. If he let one in, others would follow right on their bumpers, and pretty soon he’d be the one stuck on Lafayette, and the drivers behind him would pour out of their cars and tear the truck apart.
    When the line lurched to a stop that didn’t immediately begin sprinting forward again, Tim wondered if maybe someone had grown tired of waiting to cross, and had panicked and made a break for a too-small gap in traffic. But soon it started again, and Tim saw, to his surprised relief, that the traffic light on Lafayette and Grand was still working—though the drivers who wanted to turn left looked like they were pretty short on luck.
    Just a few more blocks and they’d be home free. Tim had never had four people in his Soho efficiency walkup at once. The day was turning out to be full of surprises.  
    A man stepped into the street, just as he thought that. A swarthy man of indeterminate ethnicity, about as wide as the truck itself, wearing a FUBU jersey, a sideways baseball cap, and a look on his face that said he’d gladly kick Tim’s ass.
    “You got to pay the toll,” he called.
    “Nice fuggin neighborhood,” said Randy.
    Tim knew better than to open the window, but he yelled back, “Move it, or I’ll drive.”
    The thug in the baseball cap eased forward—did he realize the extent of what was happening up in Greenwich Village? How could he, with the cell towers overloaded, the subways jammed and the radio playing weather reports? Tim put a foot on both the gas and the brakes and lurched forward to show he meant business—and four more guys with baseball bats peeled out from between the parked cars and converged on the truck.
    “You got to pay the toll,” the thug said, with mock patience.
    “What toll?” Tim yelled.
    The thug looked to his pals on either side—damn it, one of them had a gun—and said, “A hun’ret dollar.”
    Tim fumbled out his wallet. “I have twenty. I’ll give you twenty.” He had twenty-three, though he didn’t suspect the three would sway the guy one way or the other. Besides, he figured he should leave himself at least that much leverage.
    The main thug cocked his head toward one of the guys holding a baseball bat, and bam , the left headlight was history. “A hun’ret dollar.”
    “Does anyone have some money?” Tim called, although he couldn’t say if a hundred dollars really would call off the wolves, or if they were likely to be dragged from the vehicle and beaten to death whether they paid it or not.
    “He’s got it.” Marianne shoved Javier aside and threw herself into the cab, against the center console. She jammed her hand into Randy’s pocket, pulled out some Tic Tacs which she threw aside, stuck her hand in the other and came up with a crisp, new bill. She pressed it into Tim’s hand and said, “Pay the man. I’ve gotta pee.”
    “Hey—” Randy said.
    Well…at least it wasn’t his own money. Tim rolled down the window two inches and stuck the hundred through. The thug with the gun took it, smiling around the stump of a cigarillo. “A’ight,” he called to the big guy with the baseball bat, who backed off a few steps, then stood aside with a smug “after you” gesture.
    Tim’s heart pounded in his throat as he rolled past