The bus station was crowded with old women who sat with newspapers on the benches out front and drank coffee from paper cups while young men in saggy jeans strutted along the sidewalk with cell phones pressed to their heads. Homeless men wandered up the street toward the Sisters of Mercy with all their belongings packed inside sleeping bags. The air was full of exhaust fumes and the smell of fried chicken from a diner on the corner. Alex sat on a bench plastered with an advertisement for personal injury attorneys and waited for Dolly. It was time to follow through with his end of the deal. She had saved him for a special job.

            Greyhound buses left for St. Louis, Nashville, Oklahoma City. Single mothers led chil...

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