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there.”
    Frank glanced back into the house and noticed his blood money jar stood on the counter. It was empty.
    “You took money out of the jar in my kitchen.”
    “Jar?” Ed said all innocent. “What are you talking about?”
    He should pound Ed right here. One-on-one. Take his gun and deal with Jesus. But Tony was out there.
    Ed smiled and moved down the steps and out onto the lawn. “Thinking can get you killed,” he said.
    “When are you going to bring my car back?”
    “Oh, we’ll get it back to you tomorrow at the latest.”
    Right, and there were gold bricks in Frank’s basement. “You’d better have it back. And the money better be on the seat. That car and I are on a journey, Ed. Don’t mess with my journey.”
    Some kids a street over squealed with delight. In the distance someone honked a car’s horn. Then Frank noticed the lawn mower wasn’t running. It hadn’t been running for four or five minutes.
    Frank looked for Tony, and then Señor Zombie cursed from around the corner of the house and shouted for Ed.
    Ed looked at Frank with one of those “what did you do?” looks and then ran toward the corner of the house, his black vest all shiny in the sun. Frank followed. The concrete RV pad on that side of the house ran along a wooden fence between his yard and the next door neighbor’s all the way to another fence at the back. Tall junipers grew along that back fence, shading a two-toned silver and gray Nissan that sat below them.
    Frank and Tony had driven up from the other direction; they’d pulled into the driveway on the other side of the house, and, therefore, had missed seeing the Nissan. The car was chopped low and had windows dark as cola. Jesus stood at the back end, the trunk high and open, showing nothing inside. “Gone,” he said.
    “What do you mean gone ?” Ed asked.
    Jesus pulled back his top lip tight with anger. “Gone,” he said.
    Ed’s eyes narrowed, then his face took on a feral look. “I don’t hear a lawn mower, Frank. I thought Tony was supposed to be mowing the lawn.” He reached into his vest and pulled out his gun.
    At that moment, on the other side of the house, the Nova rumbled to life.
    Both Ed and Jesus looked at each other and then turned and ran toward the sound. Jesus raced through the backyard; Ed took the front.
    But they were too slow. The Nova shot out of the driveway. It bounced out onto the street with a scrape and turned in front of the house with a squeal of rubber. Tony sat in the driver’s seat, both hands at the wheel. In the passenger’s seat was a woman in her early twenties. She had dark hair. She looked Hispanic. She held her hands up in front of her like she was praying, except her wrists were bound together with a long white zip tie.
    Tony floored it. The Nova’s engine roared, and the front of the car lifted a bit as the vehicle accelerated. Tony glanced over, saw Frank, and then he was gone, hurtling past the neighbor’s lot and down the road.
    Not bad acceleration for an old piece of junk. Frank just wished Tony had decided to race in more friendly circumstances.
    Ed shouted over the roof for Jesus to get back to the Nissan, then he came at Frank, gun in hand, murder in his eyes. He stopped maybe four feet away and pointed the barrel right at Frank’s face.
    The hackles raised on the back of Frank’s neck. “Put it down,” he said.
    “You call that boy back here!”
    “My phone’s inside,” Frank lied. “Half the time I don’t carry it with me.”
    “You call him now!” Ed said through clenched teeth.
    In the backyard, the higher-pitched Nissan motor raced. Then Jesus and the Nissan came barreling out in reverse, the motor whining. He slammed on the brakes.
    “You have no idea!” Ed said. “You stupid pile. That boy just bought himself a plot.” Then he ran over to the Nissan, skirted around the back, and slid into the passenger’s side.
    Jesus was cranked around, looking out the back window. He floored it before