The wipers on Coach #404 slapped across the curved safety glass with a dull, rubbery scrape.
Thump-drag. Thump-drag.
Marcus “Mac” Cole leaned forward over the massive black steering wheel. The air inside the bus smelled of hot transmission fluid, damp wool, and stale coffee from his thermos. Outside, rain whipped off the dark granite breakwater of Pier 14, driven sideways by a freezing Atlantic gale.
Mac clicked the thumb-release on his prosthetic left forearm. The chrome jaws of the Star-Notch #04 ticket-punch snapped twice in the dim green glow of the instrument panel.
Snick-snick.
Three hours and fifteen minutes until the seven-o’clock whistle, Mac thought. The worst stretch of the run. The dead hours where every drunk has passed out and only the things with bad paper are still walking.
Down at the water’s edge, thirty feet below the stone slipway, the harbor tide didn’t break in white foam. It slapped the pilings with a thick, sluggish sound, like wet grease hitting concrete.
The heavy curdled fog was moving against the wind.
