How did I know this shit? This was the task that Klara set me when I started being an Uber guy. ‘Become super interested about all that crosses your path,’ she’d told me. ‘Look around you. Listen to people. Everyone has a story. And in LA almost everybody also has attitude.’

‘You’re not supposed to smoke near a place that sells food.’

The voice belonged to a young woman, early twenties, short leather skirt, cool Ray-Ban sunglasses, a bottle of San Pellegrino in her free hand.

‘Sorry,’ I said, dropping the cigarette on the ground while wondering if a shop selling overpriced chocolate qualified as a place where people ate.

‘Now you’re littering,’ she said.

I reached down and picked up the butt.

‘Are you Angelique?’

‘That’s right. But I don’t want to ride with someone who smokes.’

‘I wasn’t smoking in the car.’

‘But once I’m in the car I’ll smell it on you.’

I glanced at my watch, thinking about the pickup awaiting me in Westwood.

‘If you want to cancel …’

‘Can’t cancel. Got a class. Late as is. But I want you to crank up the air con as high as it can go so I don’t have to smell your bad habit.’

‘No problem,’ I said, getting into the car. She followed, sliding across the back seat. I turned on the ignition. I set the air conditioning to 10. I pulled into Sunset, watching the GPS, looking at the route ahead and the red-lined bottlenecks to come. The 101 South to the I-10 West to the 405 North to Sunset Boulevard. ETA: forty minutes from now. I had forty-one minutes to get to my next pickup and I really didn’t want to lose the second fare. In the rearview I could see my current fare on her iPhone, messaging at crazed speed.

‘What are you looking at?’ she snapped.

‘Just looking behind me.’

‘I saw your eyes move toward me.’

‘You were mistaken.’

‘No, I wasn’t. Keep your eyes off me. Unless you want a complaint against you.’

Her tone was dangerous. And someone with whom a further argument on this subject might turn very wrong for me. Best to say nothing more. Best to use the side mirrors to look behind me. Best to hope that the entire incident would blow over. She wasn’t finished.

‘You know you’ve got an empty Chick-fil-A bag under the seat here?’ she said.

I was about to look at her in my rearview but stopped myself.

‘Had no idea. Must have been an earlier passenger.’

‘You know they’re homophobic shits, Chick-fil-A.’

‘I don’t eat there.’

‘And you didn’t see someone getting in with their redneck fried chicken shit?’