"Stop here," Schilling instructed.

It was a simple white building with a painted sign that flapped in the afternoon wind. A Negro had already risen from a canvas deck chair, put down his magazine, and was coming over. He wore a starched uniform with the word Bill stitched across it.

"Bill's Car Wash," Max said as he put on the parking brake. "Let's get out; I have to take a leak."

Stiffly, with fatigue, Joseph Schilling opened the car door and stepped onto the asphalt. In getting out he was obliged to crowd past the packages and boxes that filled the back of the car; a pasteboard carton bounced onto the running board and he bent laboriously to catch it. Meanwhile, the Negro had approached Max and was greeting him.

"Right away. Put it right through, sir. Already call' my assistant; he over getting a Coke."

Joseph Schilling, exercising his legs and rubbing his hands, began walking around. The air smelled good; hot as it was it lacked the stuffy closeness of the car. He got out a cigar, clipped off the end, and lit up. He was breathing dark blue smoke here and there when the Negro approached.

"He working on it right now," the Negro said. The Dodge, pushed bodily into the wash, had half-disappeared into the billows of soap and hot water.

"Don't you do it?" Schilling asked. "Oh, I see; you're the engineer."

"I'm in charge. I own the car wash."

The door of the men's room was open; inside, Max was gratefully urinating and muttering.

"How far is San Francisco from here?" Schilling asked the Negro.

"Oh, fifty miles, sir."

"Too far to commute."

"Oh, they commute, some of them. But this no suburb; this a complete town." He indicated the hills. "A lot of retired people, they come here because of the climate. They settle; they stay." He tapped his chest. "Nice dry air."