He climbed out holding a greasy red shop rag, looked around the lot twice, and walked toward my door.

I had it open before he could knock.

“Nobody followed me,” Dale said, running his thumb along the hem of his denim jacket.

“I came the back way past the gravel pit.”

“Did you find a car?” I asked him.

“A 1998 Buick LeSabre,” Dale said.

“It belonged to an old lady in Antioch who quit driving last fall.”

I counted forty-five bills out onto the nightstand in three tidy stacks of fifteen.