Rafik gave him the rundown. It was a one-bedroom apartment. There were five of them. Two of them had girlfriends. One girlfriend came only on weekends. The other, Rafik’s girlfriend, was rich. She was a receptionist at her father’s company, taking a year off from college. She drove a BMW. It was a convertible. So the bedroom was Rafik’s, since he had her with him every night. The kitchen had a bed but only on weekends, for the guy with the weekend girlfriend. That left the living room. Two guys slept on a pullout sofa and another on the second sofa. So Aziz got the chair. Everyone was Algerian. But only Rafik was from Arzew. The rest were from Oran or Algiers. Two of them had known Rafik in Germany. One had known him in Paris. One had known him in Tunisia. One had just met him in Boston.

They all took to Aziz. There were beers and stories told. No one could pass up a chance to hear about a stowaway. Except for Rafik, they had all come on visas and then stayed. They flew here with their own passports, checked baggage, and wallets thick with calling cards. Before Aziz, Rafik had been the only stowaway they had known. Rafik’s status among them rested in part on his stowaway story—that and the fact that he had won and kept Heather, the rich American girl. Rafik was taller than the others. He was muscled and lifted weights. He had taken up cycling; his titanium racer was there in the corner of the living room, a gift from Heather’s father. Aziz was so tired and drunk by dawn, he fell asleep on the floor near one of its skinny tires.

It was quiet when Aziz awoke. No one was in sight. At work, he guessed. “We’ll be able to get you a job at Heather’s father’s company,” Rafik had told Aziz, on the drive to the apartment from the mosque. “But don’t tell the others, because I haven’t done the same for them. They work every day for nothing. But you are like family. My mother, your mother—like babies in the same cradle! I will tell her father, and he will do it. My word is precious with him.”

In his long acquaintanceship with Rafik, Aziz had learned that three-quarters of what Rafik told him was false. So he did not count on any job with Heather’s father. Nor did he expect to see a BMW parked out front. When the BMW did materialize outside the apartment as they drove up, Aziz was momentarily amazed. But the truth of it would be revealed in time. Heather had been in the bedroom with the door closed when he arrived and never emerged to join them. This could very likely be a neighbor’s car. With Rafik, there was always a pull in the sweater.