The sound of the applause still rang in Jake’s ears. Sure, Jake knew that his coworkers’ enthusiasm was as mandatory as the attendance, but he’d seen genuine pride in their faces, and the feeling it brought to his gut was the kind that made all the bullshit seem worthwhile. Even though he was the one singled out for credit, he’d made it clear during his impromptu speech that the letter wasn’t about him but the team he’d assembled. It was truer than it was false.

His spirits had been floating so high last night that he took off a half hour early to celebrate with his family.

Ah, well. The best laid plans of mice and men…

Titles aside, the one who really ran the shop was Mae Hooper, Jake’s spherical, seventy-six-year-old office manager, who’d managed to outlive two husbands and three of her five children. The bet was two-to-one among the body men that full-time exposure to Mae’s nagging had simply sucked away her family’s will to live. After twenty-two years at Marcus Ford, though, the woman had forgotten more about the body shop business than Jake would ever learn, and he knew better than to cross her.

Finally, he arrived. By parking his Subaru on the street, alongside the chain-link fence, he left the few spaces out front for customers. Old man Marcus didn’t like seeing what he termed “Jap crap” parked in his lot, anyway.

As Jake climbed out of his car into the fifty-degree morning air, he offered up a little prayer that his wheels would still be waiting for him at the end of the day. In this western corner of Phoenix, a vehicle left out on the street was always vulnerable, but as long as he had it inside before sunset, he thought he’d be okay. Any later, though, and the odds plummeted. Just three weeks ago the Exxon station on the corner had been robbed in broad daylight by three gang-bangers in ski masks. No one was hurt, but the bad guys were still on the loose, and as far as Jake was concerned, any crook brazen enough to point shotguns at people in the middle of the day wouldn’t think twice about boosting a car.