We ran out of gas ten miles from town. Three miles short of what I expected.

I tried to sound surprised. “I’ll be damned,” I muttered. “Out of gas.”

She was asleep though, and she didn’t hear me. I considered waking her up to repeat my carefully practiced lie so that a conscious person could appreciate it, but I decided I was okay with plying my deceit only to the moonless sky and the desert and the dashboard and the radio. And anybody else who might be out there.

I unfolded myself from the car and lit a smoke, and I examined the black canopy overhead. No stars tonight. Just as I was told.

I exhaled blue smoke, but it was too dark to see it.

I spent the next half hour trying not to think about her. Stringy blond hair. Thin. Big teeth, like Eleanor Roosevelt. Unbeautiful. Skin so white it was almost translucent. She’d been a pretty good fuck, as most ugly girls were. It’s the one part of this job I like.

They would find her interesting.

I sighed sadly and I looked up in the sky for lights.