Taking the Highway

BELLA TRATTORIA, THE LATEST place to power lunch, felt exactly like the last few places Andre’s older brother had dragged him to. Soft music, high ceilings, everything white and black and chrome. The cuisine changed, but the flavor remained the same. Georgio’s, Café Merlot, Hatashi—once the places to be—had been replaced by Bella Trattoria, just as surely as Bella Trattoria would be replaced as soon as someone more alpha was seen there. Oliver, and the rest of the city council, would scent it on the wind, and the herd would move.

The hostess matched the décor—white blouse, black suit, and chrome earrings. Her eyes flicked over him, obviously liking what she saw. She apologized for the rain outside and offered to take his drip-hat. “How many will be dining today?”

“Two.” His implant chirped for attention and with a grimace of apology to the hostess he held up his datapad so he wouldn’t look like he was talking to himself. He moved aside and fielded the call from Jordan Elway, his contact in the technical services division.

“Hey, Elway.”

“I heard Captain Evans nailed you.”

“You heard wrong, my techno-philanthropist. You heard wrong. Things are coming up ro—”

“How much trouble am I in?”

“Elway, Elway! Do you think I’d give you up?”

Elway snorted. “Then how did you explain getting those files?”

“I told her I used an Illudium Q36 and created a new passcode with her name on it.”

Silence from the other end.

“Elway? You still there, buddy?”

“I thought you never listened to a thing I say.”

“I listen. I just don’t understand you half the time.”

“Now you want me to—”

“Okay! Gotta go. I’ll be in touch.” He folded away the pad. “Sorry about that.”

The earlier warmth he’d seen from the hostess was gone. She pulled two menus of embossed silver on cream paper. “Our non-tech section is full, but if you’d care for a table in the tech section, I can seat you as soon as the rest of your party arrives.”

Andre peered around the hostess into the restaurant and saw several empty tables, most of them set for single diners. Nobody had to eat alone when they could bring their virtual friends with them. But was it truly worse than the tables of two and four and six? The bigger the group, the more blips, egrams and phone calls it took to pick a restaurant. Then they used GPS to find the place, and when they finally sat down, they reveled in the incredible tangibility of it all, patting themselves on the back for keeping it real.

He focused on the hostess. “We’ll wait for non-tech.”

Then he heard it. Through the closed windows, over the sound of the rain, came the unmistakable roar of an internal combustion engine. He snatched up his drip hat and ducked back outside. He ran into the lot, where his brother was nosing the Dodge Challenger into a double-wide parking spot near the front door. Andre rapped on the driver’s side. “What the hell are you doing?”

Oliver cracked the window. “Parking.”

“You drove it? In the rain?”

“Easiest way to transport a car is to drive it, kid.”

Andre’s hand dove into his pocket and closed into a fist over the key he kept there. He watched beads of water trail over the Challenger’s hand-rubbed finish, pooling in the lines of the creased hood. Mud and other road grime covered the tires and had splashed onto the rims. “You could have brought it to me tomorrow. My date isn’t until—”

“I’m bringing it to Greenfield Village. The classic car show?” Oliver straightened his arms and put on an announcer’s voice. “‘The September Spectacular: Steel and Speed.’ I told you about this.” He eased himself out of the driver’s seat, tested the rain with his palm, and put on his drip hat.

Andre gripped the top edge of the car door, preventing Oliver from closing it. “What about Brittany?”

“Brittany? Is that the seventy-nine? I thought her name was Emma.”

“No, Emma is the seventy-nine. You gave Brittany a solid ninety-three percent.”

Oliver lifted his palms. “I can’t keep them all straight.”

“The point is, you know I have a date.” Or would, if he had the car.

Oliver shrugged. “Believe it or not, my little brother’s romantic conquests aren’t my first consideration when I schedule car shows.”

“You just don’t want me driving it. I’m surprised I get to sit in it.”

“Want to get in?” Oliver gestured to the passenger side. “Be my guest. I’ll drive you around the block. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

He shouldered Oliver out of the way and climbed into the driver’s seat, which was already pre-warmed from Oliver’s backside. Andre shut the door behind him, silencing his brother and the rest of the world.

He ran his hands over the steering wheel, feeling the ridges on its underside. His Raven and the Challenger were both made by Dodge, but the Raven was all rolling soft surfaces, the comm system a series of dancing lights, a modern look that added up to exactly nothing. The Challenger, however, oozed style. The analog speedometer showed speed in miles, the fuel gauge was simply a single hand that dipped lower as gasoline was consumed, and everything from the windshield wipers to the navigation system had its own button, most of them with cunning pictures showing their function. There were no optimizers, no stabilizers, and certainly no Overdrive sensors. You didn’t ride in a machine like this, you drove it. His one year old Raven, with its smooth suspension and dashboard lights, felt ethereal, as if it were floating above the road. Not this car. The Challenger met the pavement with the physicality of a rampaging bull.

The rain was coming down heavier now, and Andre looked up through the moon roof. No, not rain. Oliver was drumming his fingers on top of the car. “Are we going to eat or not?” he called through the window.

Andre opened the door. “I don’t like leaving the Challenger here.”

“Outside of a restaurant with a cop in it?” Oliver flung his arm toward Bella Trattoria. “We’ll get a table up front. You can keep an eye on it the whole time.”

Andre closed his hand over the key in his pocket, running his thumb over the alarm buttons, staring at the matching buttons on the dash. Oliver had installed two alarms and a tracker. They could abandon it in the oh-zone at midnight and nothing would happen to it. He knew the Challenger was safe, but that didn’t mean he wanted to walk away and leave it.

Several people had gathered at Bella Trattoria’s window, staring and pointing. Why shouldn’t they? It wasn’t every day that you saw a screaming red 2008 Dodge Challenger in perfect condition. Oliver played to the crowd, throwing a smile over his shoulder, then using overly-expansive gestures to coax Andre out.

And that was the problem, right there. Oliver wanted everyone in the restaurant to know whose car this was. The longer Andre sat in it, the more people might assume that the brothers shared the Challenger, or even worse, that it belonged to the younger LaCroix.

He got out of the car and slammed the door. “I hope you and your mechanical date enjoy your lunch.” He turned and walked away.

“What? Come on. Don’t.” A pause while Oliver locked the car, then footsteps behind him. “Andre, you’re being an a*shole. Come back.”

Across the street was an Aqua Taco franchise. Andre stormed through the door without holding it for Oliver and shed his hat. Unlike Bella Trattoria, Aqua Taco had bright lights, upbeat music, and video monitors in the corners. The monitors showed the noon news shows, local feed—weather, sports, puppy stories—a comfortable background hum. More importantly, it had windows into the parking lot. He could still see the Challenger across the street.

He marched to the counter and ordered a halibut taco plate, extra spicy, and iced tea.

“I’ll have the same.” Oliver reached from behind and slid his multicard through the cashier slot before Andre could stop him. They waited in silence for their order, which Oliver took possession of and carried toward a table. Andre would have preferred a booth near the window, but Oliver marched to a four-top right in the center of the room. He planted the tray in the middle of the table and used an empty chair for his drip hat. “You’re welcome for the tacos.”

“Big spender.” Andre sat in the chair opposite and put his hat on top of Oliver’s. He added lemon to his tea and bit into a taco. The mild fish mellowed the sting from the hot sauce. The second bite was just as satisfying as the first.

“Nice suit,” Oliver said. “Brooks Brothers?”

“Markson.”

Oliver picked at his coleslaw with a plastic fork. “Maybe if you spent less on clothes and books and girlfriends—”

“Maybe if you spent more on clothes and books, you’d actually keep a girlfriend.” Or a wife.

Oliver put his elbows on the table, claiming territory. “It takes more than clothes to keep a girlfriend.”

Andre brought his eyes above Oliver’s head, looking at the video monitor in the corner, but only for a moment. Just enough to piss Oliver off. “You’re right. It takes a lot more than clothes. It might even take a classic car.”

“Why do you have to be like that?” Oliver asked. “Every time I even think about driving the Challenger—”

“You didn’t even ask me.”

“So now I’m asking. Do you mind if I show Dad’s car?”

Andre raised his eyebrows. “You mean our car?”

“I’m showing the Challenger in the September Spectacular at Greenfield Village. Is that all right with you?”

“A whole month?”

“More like two weeks.”

“Two weeks?”

“It’s under a pavilion. There is security. It will be fine. You can check on the car when you come to my fundraiser at the Village this weekend.”

“Oh, hell no,” Andre said. “The last fundraiser I attended for you was a disaster.”

“The one at my house? I raised half a million bucks at that dinner.”

“Good for you.”

“Everyone thought you planned that plunge into the pool.”

“I ruined my leather jacket.”

“So show up in a bathing suit this time, I’ll raise even more.”

“Isn’t that sinking fairly low? Even for you?”

“I’m kidding,” Oliver said. “You’ll be safe at Greenfield Village. There’s no pool there. People barely bathed back then, much less went swimming.”

The video in the corner showed local weather. Rain for the rest of the day and into the night. Andre bit into his second taco while waiting for the weekend forecast.

Oliver snapped his fingers in front of Andre’s face. He blinked.

“I’m over here, kid.”

“I heard every word you said. Greenfield Village. Probably cost you a fortune. And stop calling me ‘kid.’“

“I only rented part of it. We get the central green for six hours.”

Andre grunted and took a bite of taco. We get the central green, as if he’d already agreed to come. He was never sure if Oliver wanted him to show up at these things as a brother, a cop, or a fourth. Maybe all three. And what was the new fascination with Greenfield Village? Every politician claimed to love the place, as if the fastest path to authenticity was to turn back the clock to 1890. They were even holding pre-parties there for all the bigwigs coming in for the economic summit.

Andre put down his taco and wiped his hands. He stared at Oliver across the table. “Wait a minute. I get it. You’re trying to bask in the glow from the summit. You want to look like the candidate who brought businesses to Detroit.”

“Of course that’s what I want. That’s what we all want. Detroit is only Detroit because people believe in it.”

“People believe in money,” Andre said.

“That’s what I’m saying. They’re coming to us. The economic summit is here—”

“Because ‘Detroit is the economic summit.’ I remember the speech.”

“Wrote that one myself.” Oliver took a bite of coleslaw. “And I happen to like Greenfield Village. I like fourths, too. I’ve got a few on the payroll, but I could use a few more. I could use you.”

Because you get me for free. Andre pushed his plate aside and sipped his tea. “Why can’t Nikhil pretty up your party?” As Oliver’s son, Nikhil would have no choice but to attend. Plus, he qualified as a fourth. Barely.

Oliver leaned back in his chair and sighed. “I’m trying to help you, kid. I’ve invited people who are important to know. People who could be beneficial to your career.”

“Like who, the police commissioner?”

“No, just the mayor.”

Andre spit a chip of ice back into his glass. “The mayor isn’t coming to a city councilman’s fundraiser.”

Oliver lifted his own glass. “Someone from her office,” he said into his tea.

“How stupid are you? The mayor’s office will send an intern looking for free beer. Maybe I’d better make an appearance to class up your—” He stopped when a flash on the video monitor caught his eye. Smoke. Flame. Cars.

Oliver was watching the other monitor, over Andre’s head. He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “Holy shit, is that on the highway?” Patrons hushed each other as everyone listened for the audio.

The smiling spinner was gone from the screen, replaced by a scene of tangled, burning metal and jagged splinters of plastic. The camera shook. It was probably a hand-held job, the first to spot the scene and start uploading. The shaking and panning blurred the background, and Andre couldn’t see where it was or what was going on. A bomb? Footage from yet another overseas war? And what was with all the cars? The camera paused for the split second and he recognized the unmistakable outline of the 555 art gallery. Whatever was happening, it was happening less than ten kilometers from here. He grabbed for his datapad, hoping to get a better picture than this amateur reporting.

The audio blared into the room, a voiceover narrating the now-looping footage. “. . . failure in the Overdrive system on Interstate 96 at West Grand, in an area covering eight square kilometers.”

Oliver turned back to Andre, his eyes wide, and then he was scrambling in his pocket for his pad.

Audio screamed from the phone in Andre’s head. [ATTENTION! ATTENTION! ALL NEARBY UNITS REPORT IN FOR REROUTING.] He clicked in a response, giving his current location and waited for the department AI to figure out where to send him.

Oliver waved at the monitors. “I gotta—”

“Yeah.”

Oliver laid a hand on Andre’s shoulder and steered him toward the door. “Let’s go.”

On the street outside Aqua Taco, pedestrians, bikes, and cars flowed in disturbingly normal patterns. Andre still didn’t know where he was going—he doubted the traffic router could see anything in that mess—but wherever it was, he’d need his car. He shot down the sidewalk toward Bella Trattoria, belatedly realizing he’d left his hat at the restaurant and was now getting soaked. The chatter in his head was starting to jumble together with cross-talk, but still no official instructions.

The Raven sensed the key in his pocket and unlocked itself. He jumped in and already had the car in gear when the passenger door opened and Oliver climbed in beside him. Andre stared at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Oliver held up his datapad. “It’s a mess out there. Can’t take the Challenger into that.”

Andre nodded and drove into the street. The Raven’s police seal made it exempt from the minimum passenger laws, but Andre wasn’t supposed to carry civilians in an on-duty car. Supposed to or not, Oliver was here, and he might be useful. “Get me some information,” Andre said. “News, spins, someone has to know something.”

“Like what?”

“Location! I need exact coordinates.” He upped the volume in his implant and strained to make out anything that would help him find the fastest way to the scene. The service drives would be mobbed, but if he could hit the right cross street, he might be able to find a way onto the highway.

Oliver held up his datapad and said something, but Andre couldn’t make it out. He swore, and instructed his implant to mute everything except official instructions. “What?”

“I said, Overdrive is down in several places.”

“Wrong! It’s just a single node. The system automatically slows everything else down.” He listened to his head. “They’ve red-lighted a bunch of eastbound on-ramps, trying to stop the flow of traffic.” He turned onto Joy Road and immediately regretted it. Cars were slamming on the brakes or turning down alleys to avoid gridlock. Andre jammed the wheel to the right and took the narrow shoulder.

Oliver gripped the door handle. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know! Maybe if you find me a location of some kind—”

[ATTENTION! ATTENTION!] Finally, the damn AI had found him. “Sergeant LaCroix, please report to Eastbound Interstate 96 via Livernois Avenue.”

Andre tapped the dash and told the car where to go. He found an empty alley to make his turn and let the GPS calculate his route. “I got the place,” he told Oliver. “Find out what’s going on.”

“They’re saying it’s a bomb. Terrorists.”

Andre took a corner that splashed an arc of puddle water onto the sidewalk. “God, I hope so.”

Oliver gasped. “Are you crazy? How can you hope for that?”

“What’s the last big highway pileup you can remember?” In his peripheral vision he could see Oliver tapping fingers to thumb, counting.

“There was that thing in Phoenix before Arizona agreed to go Overdrive. But that was . . . six? Seven years ago?”

“Not in Detroit,” Andre said.

The Overdrive system, essentially an overlapping series of AIs, was able to monitor and control any vehicle produced in the last twelve years. Every federally-funded highway was lined with sensors that pinpointed every car’s speed, trajectory, and proximity to other vehicles. The data was communicated to control towers perched on berms and buildings above the highways. A series of lights on the dashboard signaled the driver when the system made an adjustment, overriding manual control. Detroit had been the pilot city, the first with autonomous highways. Building the system brought jobs. Jobs brought confidence. Detroiters marked the return to economic prosperity from the beginning of that program.

Now, they took it for granted. It was funny how quickly drivers had embraced behaving like passengers during commuting time. Andre did it at least once a week, reading behind the wheel, unable to keep from imagining his father’s horror. Papa LaCroix had not been a man who liked to entrust his destiny to others. Cruise control was bad enough. The proximity that the Overdrive system allowed—at speeds approaching 200 KPH—would have sent him scurrying to the surface streets.

The system had originally been designed to keep a following distance of twelve meters between every car, but after only three months of operation, the system’s designers had reduced the margin to only four meters without incident. Everyone got used to it because the safety record was perfect. A mechanical failure of a single car meant that every other vehicle was automatically maneuvered away—signal lights flaring across their dashboards and emergency services notified. Auto accidents were low-speed crashes on surface streets, never on the highways, not with Overdrive in charge.

“Everybody hurtles along nodding out their windows to everyone else,” Andre said. “That’s why I hope this was some kind of deliberate act. If it’s a malfunction, nobody will trust the highways.”

The dashboard told him to take the on-ramp at Livernois. He made the turn and came out onto the service drive, packed with four-passenger vehicles, none of which were getting on the highway, since their cars would not let them pass a red-lighted ramp.

Andre wrenched the wheel to the left, slipped between two stopped cars, and hurled down the on-ramp onto the eerily empty highway. He noted the absence of the Overdrive greeting and realized how quickly he’d become used to it himself.

Oliver looked over his shoulder, craning to see behind them. “I’ve never run a red light before.”

“It loses its thrill.” Andre gritted his teeth and hit the accelerator. Warning lights swept across the dash. Please take manual control. Overdrive malfunction. Please take manual control.

He clicked into his phone implant and gave his new location, telling dispatch that he was approaching the scene. A kilometer ahead, he could see a whole lot of cars going nowhere. At least there were none behind him, although that wouldn’t last long. Within minutes, cars from further back, beyond the shutdown, would catch up. The system would reroute as much traffic as it could, but they couldn’t close the entire length of highway. He caught a glimpse of a helicopter above, but couldn’t tell if it was police or news.

“This is bad,” Oliver said. Andre wondered if he’d determined that by looking at the road or looking at his datapad.

“How many dead? Do they know?”

Oliver poked his pad. “None confirmed. The warning lights came on and most of the people took control. But at those speeds? All they could do was hit the brakes. Lots of injuries, older cars without airweb.” He read some more from his screen. “This knot of cars is like five klicks long and half of these cars plowed into the ones in front of them.”

[ATTENTION! ATTENTION! SERGEANT LACROIX, PLEASE CONFIRM VISUAL.]

Andre touched the spot behind his ear and clicked a single pulse of acknowledgment.

He reconfigured the Raven’s comscreen to record forward video.

“Oh, crap. I was afraid of that.” A human voice had taken over for the AI but did not identify herself. “We have some kids in that mess. Too small for airweb and bounced around pretty hard. How am I going to get an ambulance in there?”

“What about coming from the other side?”

“What?” Oliver said.

Andre shut him up by shaking his head and pointing to his implant with raised eyebrows.

“Worse over there,” the dispatcher said. “They’re between exits and right in the middle of things. I need you to clear a path.”

Andre looked at six lanes of cars, bumpers touching, horns honking. A few passengers were already abandoning their vehicles and walking up the slippery embankment to the service drive. Others were gesturing to those behind them to move out of the way, but everyone was jammed in too tightly to solve the problem without coordinated effort. Kids. Shit. Injured kids . . . “Do I get any help here?”

“I’ll hold traffic from coming at you as long as I can. I’ve closed every Detroit on-ramp. The only thing coming at you is coming from the outburbs.”

Andre tried for some measure of calm. He had a momentary fantasy of cautious suburban drivers noticing the empty highway, seeing the Overdrive warnings, and either slowing down or getting off. But that wasn’t how people drove.

He moved the Raven to the shoulder and got out. The rain came straight down from a windless sky, each drop nailing his head as if drilling itself into his skull.

Oliver slammed his door and stood beside him. “This is the back of the line. What did they send you here for?”

Andre pointed to the middle of the traffic. “We need to get in there. Ambulance. Kids. We need to clear these cars.”

“Right. How?”

“One at a time. We have to turn them around and get them to exit by going up the on-ramp.”

“And risk a head-on crash?” Oliver wiped rain out of his eyes and looked at the highway behind them. “Nobody’s going to do that.”

“Overdrive shut the ramps.” He tapped the trunk of the nearest car. “Talk them into it. Open up space. Don’t let anyone crowd in.”

Andre remembered his first day on the force, the terror of working patrol. It felt like every car was a loaded gun, ready to blow him away. He’d quickly learned what he could change and what he couldn’t and how fast to step aside. Oliver would have to do the same.

He surveyed the backs of cars for a likely opening. The truck lane was going nowhere. No semi had the turning radius to move where they needed to go. At least they were in the far left lane, away from the cars. Things looked bad in the center, but a purple Octave on the far right seemed undamaged, or at least drivable. He pulled Oliver’s arm and steered him toward it while he took the car directly in front of it.

He rapped on the window until the driver cracked it . The heater was on in the car and the driver’s bangs curled up off her forehead. “What?”

He held up his shield. “DPD. Everyone all right in here? Is your car drivable?”

“We’re fine. Can you tell us what’s going on?”

“I don’t know the cause. Right now I need you to back up your vehicle.”

“I can’t!”

Andre took a breath. “When the car behind you moves, I need you to back up, turn your car one hundred eighty degrees, and follow the car behind you. Use the Livernois on-ramp to exit the highway.”

“But that doesn’t—”

“Please, Ma’am, we’re in a hurry.”

She consulted her rearview. “That car isn’t moving.”

Andre popped his head above the car. Oliver was nowhere near the purple Octave. He’d moved two lanes over and was in consultation with the driver of a gray Ford.

Andre ran to Oliver and grabbed his arm. “I told you to start over there.”

Oliver shook him off. “The Octave is full of panicked grandmothers. There’s no way they’re leading this train. Whoever goes first has to go fast and everyone has to follow or it stays chaos.” He pointed to the Ford, which was crammed with high-schoolers, the smallest one behind the wheel. This was his leader? “Stuart here loves to drive and knows what to do.”

“This isn’t f*cking driver’s ed!”

“I know.” Oliver tapped the Ford’s roof. “Go, Stuart.”

“Yes, sir.” The Ford peeled backward and turned sharply on its radius to head the wrong way on the highway. Oliver signaled with both hands to the minivan in front of it, as if he were parking a jet. The minivan began to move and was soon following Stuart’s Ford. The next car was undrivable, with a smashed front end, so they left it and helped the cars on either side. People were paying attention now, glad that someone had a plan, and needed few instructions to get into position. Even the granny Octave was able to drive through the rain once it had a clear path to follow. But moving one car at a time was painfully slow.

The dispatcher clicked into his implant. “I’ve got an ambulance five minutes out.”

“What about oncoming traffic?”

“About five minutes after that. If we’re lucky.”

“I need more time. You’ve got to stop traffic completely before Livernois so I can get these people safely off the highway.”

“We’re trying.”

“Any update on those kids?”

“Negative. Nothing new.”

Andre hopped out of the way of an Octave Quartet just in time to avoid getting his toes run over. “What about a copter to pull them?”

“Have you seen where you are? No helicopter can get into a narrow canyon like that. Look, just move cars, okay? Move them.”

“Working on it.” Andre clicked out. He signaled the next car in line and looked for Oliver. He seemed to be shifting twice as many cars as Andre was, with fewer words and less expansive gestures. Oliver didn’t have the charm of a fourth or the authority of a cop. So how was he doing it? Of course, that was the secret of leadership. Oliver had always had the aura of someone with his shit together, and that’s all it took for people to listen to him. Andre wondered if Oliver could move cars alone while he took the Raven back to Livernois. He’d like to keep them from getting slammed with traffic approaching the accident site from the outburbs. But it was useless for one man to try to stop six lanes of oncoming cars. All they could do was move as many cars as they could, and hope that dispatch gave him a head’s up before the onslaught.

Oliver had reached a critical mass of undrivable cars, so he backtracked his steps and worked one lane over, stopping some cars from moving too soon, gesturing others to go ahead.

Andre picked his way further up the line, hoping to find a clear path of unwrecked cars. Over the sound of the pounding rain, he heard the wail of sirens. About time. He took a deeper breath, hoping that the worst was over.

Ahead of him, he saw a young man and woman waving arms above their heads like drowning people. The man frantically signaled Andre while the woman pointed one hand at the car. This must be the family. He was close. So was the ambulance. Three, maybe four cars and they’d have it. He nodded his rain-soaked head emphatically and gestured toward the approaching emergency vehicles, receiving a grateful thumbs-up from a terrified father.

More sirens cut through the storm. Andre knew that sound. Black and whites. At last.

[ATTENTION! ATTENTION!]

Andre clicked in. “Thanks.”

“Ambulances?”

He squinted through the rain to see Oliver directing the first one through. “Almost.”

“I’ve got traffic completely shut down behind you. Move what you can and we’ll send highway patrol for the rest.”

Andre tilted his face to the sky, letting the rain wash over his cheeks. He checked in with the patrolmen and got them started on traffic control. Then he found Oliver, opened his wallet, and removed the keycard to the Raven. “Thanks for everything. You can drive my car off the highway with everybody else. Nobody will notice you’re not me.”

Oliver reached a wet hand to take the key card. “I’ll leave it at Bella Trattoria.”

“Yeah, fine.” Andre took a step toward the next vehicle.

Oliver caught his shoulder. “You owe me.”

Andre flung out his arm to the tangled mess of cars. “Jesus, Oliver, there are kids dying in there.”

“I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about you. Owing me.”

“Could you be any more selfish?”

“Me? Selfish? I just moved all these cars, in the pouring rain, talking to who knows how many pains-in-the-ass, for no reason other than I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“What would be the right place, Oliver? Huh? Would it be the right place if you had a minicam and campaign literature with you?”

“Greenfield Village. Friday night.” Oliver sauntered off with a self-satisfied air that was as galling as it was unsurprising. He turned back and held up the key. “No later than six.”