And for all of this ghastly workmanship, Weisel had overcharged Fred Tolliver by nine thousand dollars. That was the second mistake.

Fred Tolliver called William Weisel. His tone was soft and almost apologetic. Fred Tolliver was a gentle man, not given to fits of pique or demonstrations of anger. He politely asked Weisel to return and set matters to rights. William Weisel laughed at Fred Tolliver and told him that he had lived up to the letter of the original contract, that he would do nothing. That was the third mistake.

Putatively, what Weisel said was true. Building inspectors had been greased and the job had been signed off: legal according to the building codes. Legally, William Weisel was in the clear; no suit could be brought. Ethically it was a different matter. But even threats of revocation of license could not touch him.

Nonetheless, Fred Tolliver had a rotten guest bathroom, filled with leaks and seamed walls that were already cracking and bubbles in the vinyl flooring from what was certainly a break in the hot water line and pipes that clanked when the faucets were turned on, if they could be turned on.

Fred Tolliver asked for repairs more than once.

After a while, William Weisel’s wife, Belle, who often acted as his secretary, to save a few bucks when they didn’t want to hire a Kelly Girl, would not put through the calls.

Fred Tolliver told her, softly and politely, “Please convey to Mr. Weisel—” and he pronounced it why-zell, “—my feelings of annoyance. Please advise him that I won’t stand for it. This is an awful thing he’s done to me. It’s not fair, it’s not right.”

She was chewing gum. She examined her nails. She had heard this all before: married to Weisel for eleven years: all of this, many times. “Lissen, Mistuh Tollivuh, whaddaya want me to do about it. I can’t do nothing about it, y’know. lonly work here. I c’n tell ‘ill, that’s ail I c’n do, is tell ‘ill you called again.”

“But you’re his wife! You can see how he’s robbed me!”

“Lissen, Mistuh Tollivuh, I don’t haveta lissen to this!”

It was the cavalier tone, the utterly uncaring tone: impertinent, rude, dismissing him as if he were a crank, a weirdo, as if he weren’t asking only for what was due him. It was like a goad to an already maddened bull.

“This isn’t fair!”

“I’ll tell ‘ill, I’ll tell ‘ill. Jeezus, I’m hanging up now.”

‘‘I’ll get even! I will! There has to be justice—”

She dropped the receiver into its rest heavily, cracking her gum with annoyance, looking ceilingward like one massively put upon. She didn’t even bother to convey the message to her husband.

And that was the biggest mistake of all.

The electrons dance. The emotions sing. Four billion, resonating like insects. The hive mind of the masses. The emotional gestalt. The charge builds and builds, surging down the line seeking a focus. The weakest link through which to discharge itself. Why this focus and not that? Chance, proximity, the tiniest fracture for leakage. You, I, him, her. Everyman, Anyman; the crap shoot selection is whatever man or woman born of man and woman whose rage at that moment is that potent.

Everyman: Fred Tolliver. Unknowing confluence.

He pulled up at the pump that dispensed supreme, and let the Rolls idle for a moment before shutting it off. When the attendant leaned in at the window, Weisel smiled around his pipe and said, “Morning, Gene. Fill it up with extra.”

“Sorry, Mr. Weisel,” Gene said, looking a little sad, “but I can’t sell you any gas.”

“Why the hell not? You out?”

“No, sir; just got our tanks topped off last night. Still can’t sell you any.”

“Why the hell not? /”

“Fred Tolliver doesn’t want me to.”

Weisel stared for a long moment. He couldn’t have heard correctly. He’d been gassing up at this station for eleven years. He didn’t even know they knew that creep Tolliver. “Don’t be an asshole, Gene. Fill the damned tank!”

“I’m sorry, sir. No gas for you.”

“What the hell is Tolliver to you? A relative or something?”

“No, sir. I never met him. Wouldn’t know him if he drove in right now.”

“Then what… what the hell… I—I—”

But nothing he could say would get Gene to pump one liter of gas into the Rolls.

Nor would the attendants at the next six stations down the avenue. When the Rolls ran out, a mile from his office, Weisel almost had time to pull to the curb. Not quite. He ran dry in the middle of Ventura Boulevard and tried to turn toward the curb, but though traffic had been light around him just a moment before, somehow it was now packing itself bumper-to-bumper. He turned his head wildly this way and that, dumbfounded at how many cars had suddenly pulled onto the boulevard around him. He could not get out of the crunch. It wouldn’t have mattered. Improbably, for this non-business area, for the first time in his memory, there were no empty parking spaces at the curb.

Cursing foully, he put it in neutral, rolled down the window so he could hold the steering wheel from outside, and got out of the silent Rolls. He slammed the door, cursing Fred Tolliver’s every breath, and stepped away from the car. He heard the hideous rending of irreplaceable fabric. His five hundred dollar cashmere suit jacket had been caught in the jamb.

A large piece of lovely fabric, soft as a doe’s eye, wondrously ecru-closer-to-beige-than-fawn-colored, tailor-made for him in Paris, his most favorite jacket hung like slaughtered meat from the door. He whimpered; an involuntary sob of pain.

Then: “What the hell is going on!” he snarled, loud enough for pedestrians to hear. It was not a question, it was an imprecation. There was no answer; none was required; but there was the sound of thunder far off across the San Fernando Valley. Los Angeles was in the grip of a two-year drought, but there was a menacing buildup of soot-gray clouds over the San Bernardinos.

He reached in through the window, tried to turn the wheel toward the curb, but with the engine off the power steering prevented easy movement. But he strained and strained… and something went snap! in his groin. Incredible pain shot down both legs and he bent double, clutching himself. Flashbulbs went off behind his eyes. He stumbled around in small circles, holding himself awkwardly. Many groans. Much anguish. He leaned against the Rolls, and the pain began to subside; but he had broken something down there. After a few minutes he was able to stand semierect. His shirt was drenched with sweat. His deodorant was wearing off. Cars were swerving around the Rolls, honking incessantly, drivers swearing at him. He had to get the Rolls out of the middle of the street.

Still clutching his crotch with one hand, jacket hanging from him in tatters, beginning to smell very bad, William Weisel put his shoulder to the car, grabbed the steering wheel and strained once again; the wheel went around slowly. He readjusted himself, excruciating pain pulsing through his pelvis, put his shoulder against the window post and tried to push the behemoth. He thought of compacts and tiny sports cars. The Rolls moved a fraction of an inch, then slid back.

Sweat trickled into his eyes, making them sting. He huffed and lunged and applied as much pressure as the pain would permit. The car would not move.

He gave up. He needed help. Help!

Standing in the street behind the car, clutching his groin, jacket flapping around him, smelling like something ready for disposal, he signaled wildly for assistance with his free hand. But no one would stop. Thunder rolled around the Valley, and Weisel saw what looked like a pitchfork of lightning off across the flats where Van Nuys, Panorama City and North Hollywood lay gasping for water.