It had been past noon when he first pulled into the parking lot and over the course of the subsequent hours the shadows of the tower and the door and the fence had shifted across the asphalt under a flat white sun that descended all day through a wash of pale clouds, its movement marked by the incongruous soundtrack of the Van Halen cassette that reversed again and again in the dashboard deck. Now Diamond Dave was singing, Might as well jump! for the tenth or eleventh time. Go ahead and jump! The melody spelled out by a synthesizer. He had been thinking of that night in front of Grady’s all day and he thought about it again now as he dozed, mumbling to himself softly as had long been his habit, his head lolling against the cracked vinyl of the seat. How lucky they had been at first. The Quik-Stop had been empty, the cashier out back smoking a cigarette. Rick simply tapped the square green key on the register and when the drawer rolled out he grabbed the cash and the two of them returned to the car and drove away.
