ped the man鈥檚 feet and stayed bent over with his hands on his knees, huffing and puffing. He glanced up at me, then unhooked his key ring from his belt and tossed it and it hit the sidewalk right in front of me and I had to do a skip to keep it from hitting my feet. "Move my car up to the trailer," he said.

I looked at the keys, then at him. "What?" I said.

"Do it, or I鈥檒l tell the cops you robbed me." He took his cell phone out of his back pocket.

"Why do you want me to do it?" I said.

"Just because I do," he said.

"Forget you," I said.

"All right," he said and punched a button on the phone, and that鈥檚 when I thought of the seven hundred dollars in my socks and how great it would look on a guy without a coat.

The car was a Cadillac in name only. The last time it looked good Eddie Murphy was funny. I slid under the wheel, but didn鈥檛 close the door so the rooflight would stay on and I could find things. The seat was too far up for me to fit my feet to the pedals, so I reached down to find the lever and my hand hit a bottle under the seat. It was a half-pint of Jack Daniels and all that was empty was the neck. I unscrewed the cap, bent over like I鈥檇 dropped the keys and took a drink, then sat up again. The glove box was missing its door, a cigar with an inch of dead ash was in the ashtray, a single porno playing card was in the passenger seat, a woman who looked like she was waiting for surgery to begin. I turned the card over: seven of clubs. I bent over and took another drink. I was thinking of the last time I saw my father鈥攐ne of these old boats always did that.

I discovered the seat wouldn鈥檛 move, so I managed to get situated with my legs splayed out on either side of the steering wheel. I shut the door, then pulled the car up in front of the trailer and cut the engine and the lights. I stuck the half-pint down the front of my pants. Then I looked in the rearview mirror: Purcell was still at the curb, under a stree

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