I said, “Why’d you bum a cigarette from her when you already had a pack?”

“She don’t mind.”

“The hell I don’t.”

Felix’s pack of cigarettes was smashed and the first two cigarettes he pulled out were broken in half. He tossed the first away.

“Gimme that,” Pearl said. She snatched the second cigarette, which was little more than a stub with strands of tobacco hanging out. He offered her a light and then extracted a third cigarette and lit it for himself. Almost simultaneously they inhaled, sucking smoke so far down into their lungs I thought they’d hyperventilate. I experienced a brief flash of what it felt like to light up in times of stress, but I don’t think I actually whimpered aloud.

“You two are nuts,” I said. “Cigarettes are expensive and they’re bad for you.”

Pearl scowled. “What’s it to you? Clearly, you never smoked a day in your life.”

“I did, too. I smoked for two years before I gave it up.”

“Then you ought to be more compassionate.”

“I’m not the warm fuzzy type. I thought that’s why we got along so well.”

She smiled, exposing her four bottom teeth with wide gaps between. “Lord help me. I think I’m getting attached to you.”

“God forbid.”

She took a final drag from her cigarette and crushed the butt underfoot. “Whoo! Better. Whyn’t we take a look at what we got here?”

“By all means,” I said.

I grabbed my shoulder bag from the backseat and dug through the contents for my penlight, which I flicked on. I closed the car door and walked around to the rear, where the three of us convened. I popped open the trunk and removed the backpack. I handed it off to her, then reached for the duffel and set it on the pavement between us.

Pearl flipped the backpack upside down. The frame was constructed of hollow lengths of aluminum tubing, each of the four ends capped with a rubber shoe. Pearl removed one and turned the frame right side up again. She gave it a couple of shakes and I heard the tinkle of metal on pavement. I shone the light down on the long flat key that had fallen out of the frame. She leaned over with effort and picked it up. I held out my hand and she placed it in my palm. I studied it in the beam of my penlight.

The key to Dace’s safe deposit box had notches of varying depths along one side. I turned it over. No bank name, no address, and no box number. “This is blank.”

Pearl said, “Of course it is. You find that, they don’t want you to walk in and claim stuff that ain’t yours.”