She was out the car and gone. I looked down at the money. I began to count it. One hundred and eighty dollars. Crazy. When I was a kid my dad often told me: ‘Fucking someone over is the American way … but not our way.’ That idea lodged in my head and never went away – the idea that you should never take advantage of someone else, especially if someone was being foolishly generous to you. It made me want to run after her and give all the cash back. But then I was hit with another attack of the shakes. When it subsided I shoved the money in my pocket. I stepped out of the car. I fired up a cigarette, the lighter trembling in my hand. After that one-eighty bonus I could take the rest of the evening off. But that would mean going home and having to face Agnieska. Which, after all that had happened, was something I was going to dodge. I reached for my phone. I hit the Uber app, informing the faceless computer that somewhere controls my life behind the wheel that I was ready for my next ride.

Bing.

A pickup in Westwood Village, heading to Santa Monica.

I got into the car. I went back to work.

seven

I WORKED THAT night until 3.47 a.m. I knew the precise moment because Uber twice texted me with the warning that I was getting dangerously near the twelve-hour mark – after which I could not collect any further rides for another twelve hours. But staying in the car right now felt safer than being outside of it. I only headed home when I knew that my wife would be fast asleep. After all that had gone down, facing Agnieska right now … not possible.

Home. A bungalow, constructed in the 1950s, on a back street of similar houses. Off-white brick. Concrete steps. A low wrought-iron fence telling the outside world: Private Property … though truth be told if anyone wanted to break in they could do so with ease … and would then be disappointed with how there was so little to steal.