The phone had stopped ringing. He brought it close to his face. This was impossible. There was not nearly enough light. He had to open the door. There was a handle but it was sticking. No, that was part of the armrest. Maybe start the car. The keys should be in his pocket. The ring started again. Fuck the keys. His fingers found the handle and the door jutted out. With the light came rain, but not that much. It must be blowing from the north, hitting hardest on the windshield. Finally he could see the buttons. There was the right one: TALK. He pushed TALK.

“Okay, bogeyman.” Ghazi was almost laughing.

“You okay?”

“Me? Yeah. But you. What’s wrong with your phone?”

“Nothing. I could not see it.”

“I gave you a flashlight.”

He had. It was right there on the passenger seat.

“I forgot.”

“Okay, uncle. Okay. Look, I opened some.”

“And?”

“Cigarettes.”

“That—that makes sense.”

“And Batman,” Ghazi said. He was laughing.

“Batman?”

“Lots of little plastic Batmans. Thousands of them.”

“What is a Batman?”

“For kids. Toys.”

“Toys. How is there money in toys?”

“I crushed one with the crowbar, just to make sure. There was nothing. Pure plastic. Solid. I have cigarettes for you. Cartons. You smoke Marlboro?

“Not Rafik Marlboros.”

“Cousin, last half hour I open thirty boxes. Batman. Cigarettes. That’s it.”

Aziz looked at the windshield. The rain was pelting it. Wriggles of the parking lot were all he could see. He realized he had not been watching, not even half watching, during the phone ordeal.

“Ghazi.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I better come up there.”

“Why? Stay there.”

“The rain. Hard to see.”

“A truck? A van? You would see them.”

“I . . . I do not think so.”

“Relax.”

“I will just drive up there. To make sure.”

“But that is when they will be at the entrance. And you—gone.”

“Ghazi. I have a bad feeling.”

Aziz turned for a better look out the driver-side window. There were only a few drops on it. The way the rain was falling, this was the way to keep watch. Ghazi was saying “. . . the thing is . . .” when the Brighton truck’s high beams rose on the speed bump at the entrance. They swept like searchlights in an arc across the parking lot until they rested on the subcompact, exposing Aziz’s narrow face a bleaching white. He was blinded. He ducked.

“Ghazi. The truck. The truck.”

“The truck will not come. It is pouring.”

“It has. Just now. I swear it.”

“At the entrance?”

“Yes. Yes. I am here. It is here.”

“Oh, my cock.”

Aziz peeked and saw the truck lumber past the turn for the driveway that went to the storage units.

“It is not turning,” he said.

“Not turning?”

It was almost at Aziz’s parking space.

“Leave. Leave now,” he told Ghazi.

“How? Get up here. The back entrance. Like we said.”

“Me. Me. He is after me.”

“What?”