Black and white with a cherry on top.

Melanie's first and still-favorite riddle sprang to Todd Dunbar's mind as the squad car pulled the weary Olds to the shoulder of a highway somewhere north of Toledo and I-90, the turnpike they'd left early to save a few bucks. Joy's idea, and a clever one if you didn't count the extra fuel cost in cruising a highway to nowhere.

The "cherry" flashed red and blue on the dome of the marked Crown Vic that had pulled behind them on the road's saggy shoulder.

"Uh oh," Joy murmured from the seat next to him.

Yeah. Uh oh. The too-late warning got passed around in the backseat, first taken up by ten-year-old Melanie, then echoed by her five-year-old sister, Crissie, and finally picked up by four-year-old Todd Junior, or simply Little Todd.

"Quiet," Todd told all of them as he pawed through glove box litter for the car's title or registration or whatever the hell paperwork he had to prove the pile of junk was his.

Like anyone else would claim it.

He found a plastic packet of official-looking documents under layers of fast food napkins, crumpled packs of cigarettes and creased maps of states through which he couldn't recall traveling.

The mess bothered him, as if the cop would consider neatness when doling out punishment for whatever violation he'd witnessed. Maybe nothing more than the general condition of the beater itself. It wouldn't be the first time they'd been pulled over for that in the last eight months.

Todd sneaked quick peaks out the rearview while the rest of the family gawked in open curiosity at the flashing vehicle behind them. Men were raised as boys to look bored rather than guilty or excited when caught in the sights of the law, even when innocent. Women and girls craned their necks every time they saw a fucking strobe light.

'What's he doing?" Joy demanded in her high, tight voice.

If they were a band of outlaws, she'd be the one copping a plea even before they got read their rights.

Todd drew a cigarette from the one crumpled pack that still held a few and held it between grim lips while he depressed the car's lighter. His first instinct had been to hold off. Nothing to be gained by pissing off a non-smoking cop, but the wait was making him crazy.

"He's running the tag," he said, knowing his brief response would only draw more questions.

He was right. They came, like a hard rain, from wife and daughters alike.

"Easy," Todd muttered, trying to stem the chatter while wrestling once again for an explanation.

So many possibilities, beginning with the muffler that had finally burned through the wire coat hanger he'd used to prop it in place a state or two ago. It had been, for the last ten or fifteen miles, sparking pavement like a butane lighter. Or maybe it was the stickers on his West Virginia plates. Todd couldn't remember if he'd renewed them on time, but he suspected the worst. When you don't have cash for such luxuries as car insurance, tires and sticker renewal, you fly under the radar screen as much as possible.

He glanced once more out the mirror, but three bobbing heads in need of washing obstructed his view. Dunbar sighed. Pack of hill rats from West Virginia: in some places, reason enough to get pulled over.

"I told you we should have paid that ticket," Joy said with a strained urgency that suggested she'd admit to anything if they'd let her walk.

"No one here cares about Parkersburg parking tickets," he said between clenched teeth.

"Afternoon, folks. See your license, please?"

Todd jumped at the cop's sudden appearance in his open side window. One of the girls yelped, a sharp sound like a hiccup. The lighter popped up from the dashboard mount to indicate its red-hot availability, but Todd ignored it. He brushed the cigarette from his lips and let it fall to his lap while he rooted around in his back pocket for his paper-thin wallet.

All this time to kill, and he'd forgotten to dig out his license. He hoped it was current. Another expense you set aside when it's that or a bag of groceries. As he riffled through his wallet, he knew that the officer looking over his shoulder could read the family's bleak condition in the emptiness of its credit card pockets and the flimsiness of the billfold compartment. That is, if he hadn't already detected destitution in the migrant meanness of the car and family. Todd found and pulled free the laminated card and hurriedly stuffed the wallet in his pants.

As he handed over the license, he caught his first glimpse of the man standing there. His face was round and smooth and young, the expression on it unexpectedly open.

"Thanks," he said.

Todd watched the cop study the license for a minute or more, moving his lips while reading the bare-bone details of Todd Dunbar's life. The cop stopped once or twice to peer into the backseat as if he held in his hand a family history that could be verified with a glance.

"Mr. Dunbar," he said tentatively, like he was trying out the name for effect. He straightened up, popping his back and grimacing. This one wasn't nearly as trim or muscled as many of the young cops with whom the Dunbars had become acquainted of late.

He bent again and brought his soft face level with the window. "A ways from Parkersburg, huh?"

Todd nodded. "A ways."

He knew what the cop was getting at, but it wasn't any of his goddamn business why he'd brought his family down from the hills. This was still America, wasn't it?

"We're looking for work," Joy blurted in the stubborn silence following her husband's scant response. "We were in Akron-in Ohio-'cuz I got a cousin back home who's friends with a man who said he was working for this polymer company there that was hiring. But we got there and they wouldn't even take our application, so we're heading to Detroit. I got a brother-in-law who knew a guy..."

By the time even Joy realized she'd missed her train of thought, Todd had his gaze fixed on a billboard fifty yards up the road. It was faded and pockmarked with small caliber bullet holes outlined in rust. It said there'd be an ice cream stand at the next mile, but Dunbar doubted it. Things changed. You couldn't stop it.

"Detroit," the cop said. "Guess you folks are unfamiliar with the area or you would have taken the turnpike to 280 and caught I-75. This way, you pass through every forgotten little town in southeastern Michigan. And there's a lot of them."

"We never been there. To Detroit," Joy said. "We were looking for a shortcut to save money on tolls, so we got off the interstate before Toledo and headed north. One highway led to another." She shrugged, wisely letting the rest go.

"Rough, being out of work," the cop said.

Todd gripped the wheel, said nothing.

"So you got a lead or something in Detroit, eh?" the cop asked him encouragingly. Just two old friends bullshitting.

"Yeah, we-"

"Not really," Joy broke in. "But it's a big city with lots of factories and warehouses, and we'll do just about anything, so-"

"Uh oh." The cop's tone of alarm and his troubled look as he propped his arms on the window silenced Joy. "I don't want to jinx you folks or anything, but you're doing it the hard way. You can't imagine the number of people trekking out of Detroit while you-all head in. You know about the auto industry, right? Not so healthy. Used to be, folks in the city headed for Vegas or down South for work. Sun Belt, so they say. But nowadays, hell." The cop shrugged. "Where they should be going, I guess, is India or China. You'll make five dollars a day, but at least you got a job."

The cop finished with a hard chuckle at the cruel irony.

Todd could hear his wife sucking in air and knew he'd later have to justify his desperate decision to try the so-called Motor City. A decision he'd made without a whole lot of confidence in the first place, but what else was there?

A van rumbled past, braking so hard at the sight of the blue and red dome lights that it shimmied slightly.

They all seemed to be waiting for Todd to say something. To somehow justify his employment-seeking strategy.

"We're not broke or anything," he replied carefully, parsing the word in his mind. "We're fine till we find something."

Todd knew the stereotype: the small town cop who'd bust you for vagrancy if you didn't have cash to flash. Hell, probably no less accurate than the one about the West Virginia migrant family in desperate need of work.

Thirty-seven dollars, most of it borrowed from his folks: that's how fine they were.

"What's it you do?"

Todd took longer than Joy to figure a response.

"My husband drives a front-end coal loader for contour strip mining," Joy answered for him. She sounded so proud, puffing up his grimy job description like he ran Caterpillar itself.

"Mmm," the cop said. "Not much call for strip mining in Detroit."

Asshole, Todd said, but wisely only to himself.

"Todd can do anything," Joy said, pushing the claim too hard. "So can I."

The car got quiet. Even the kids stopped fidgeting in back, though Todd could have used the distraction.

At least three generations of Dunbar men had worked a shaft in the mountains before it got played out and closed by the EPA. Todd, who'd been the first of his family to graduate from high school, now remembered in embarrassment the family celebration that had followed that feeble accomplishment. A high school diploma and two bucks got you a cup of coffee. Long as you weren't looking for espresso.

"Nice car," said the cop as though sensing Todd's humiliation and working his fingers into the open wound.

It sure felt like sarcasm, but the uniformed officer peering in at him looked way too earnest. He was the Pillsbury Doughboy, but with a nine millimeter on his padded hip.

He took a step back, straightened and arched his back, spread his small pink hands to take in the Olds. "You take care of them, you'll be driving these Detroit beasts long after your Japanese SUV's been towed to the junkyard. How many miles?"

Todd stared up at him.

"On the odometer."

He glanced down. His hand found the discarded cigarette in his lap and he palmed it like a magician. "Uh, one-eighty-six, five...almost," he answered after scanning the frightfully long string of numbers. Numbers he'd trained his eye not to see.

The cop let out a burst of high laughter. "Wow. That's a lot even for one of these road warriors."

Not to Todd. Generations of Dunbar men had held their rides together for decades with duct tape and prayer.

"That kind of mileage, the problems start adding up quickly." The young cop's twinkly eyes seemed to take in every inch of the vehicle's ragged interior, including its five ragged occupants. "You don't put any money into a car like this, the brake shoes burn up, tires go bald, muffler droops, bulbs and lights blink out. Wiring troubles. Lots of things. And I'd say-" he added extra wattage to his grin-"you're riding on all of the above."

Todd felt a lump of panic growing deep and malignant in his belly. It wasn't just the toll-road savings that had put him on the back roads. He hadn't told Joy, but he'd also wanted to avoid just this kind of attention.

He licked his lips to wet the humid silence.

"Truth is," he said, seething at the need to plead his case before this plump badge, "it's been a little hard lately scraping together the cash for repairs."

"No shit," said the baby-faced cop. "Pardon the language, kids," he added dipping his head toward the backseat where the three sat in awestruck silence. It wasn't even close to being the first time they'd heard that word, but never before uttered to their dad by a man with a gun on his hip. "But that's exactly the point. Without a good job...well, I've got a steady paycheck and there's still stuff I need done on my car. Money's tight for everyone, even folks with regular work, so I don't blame you folks for the condition of this car."

For some reason, that lump in Dunbar's belly just kept growing.

"What if you did have a job? You, Mr. Dunbar. Or the both of you. However you'd want to work it."

The cop twitched his head like a sparrow as he tried deciding whether to settle his gaze on driver or front seat passenger.

"You saying you know who's hiring?" Todd hoped his doubt wasn't as apparent to the police officer as it was to his own ears.

The cop chuckled. "Stranger things, my friend. Stranger things. You got the whole family in here?" He dipped his head again to the backseat.

When Joy assured him that he was indeed looking at one entire branch of the Dunbar clan, he said, "Weird thing about Babylon, Michigan, it's probably the nation's best-kept secret. Almost a boomtown, but I'll deny it if word gets out. Last thing we want is to end up like Detroit...congested and dirty and crime-ridden. Know what I'm saying?"

No, Todd hadn't the slightest idea. He had a hard time imagining anywhere around here to be so bustling it had to be kept under wraps.

The air shuddered as an 18-wheeler slammed past. Crissie gasped, which made Melanie giggle, and Little Todd felt suddenly free to broadcast his bathroom needs.

Todd looked up to find the young cop with his face positioned in the driver's window frame as though patiently awaiting a response, but Todd didn't remember the question or even if one had been asked. He didn't need any of this. He was twenty-eight freaking years old, with three good kids who could seriously get on his nerves at times, and a wife who was four years older and hadn't lost the water weight from her last pregnancy. Or the two before it, for that matter. He had thirty-seven borrowed dollars and a dying car.

There were men his age still in school, their biggest decisions being which bar to head off to when exams were taken. These other men, they could look forward to wearing suits and working in air-conditioned offices for fat paychecks and different women every night. Women who spoke good and worked out and had nice teeth and didn't- "Of course, we don't have any front-end coal-loading jobs in Babylon, but if you're not quite so picky..."

Todd blinked out of his frat-boy thoughts. He could feel Joy's glaze clinging to him. A car cruised by, honked, and three or four teen boys pumped their arms out open windows in testosterone glee at the fact that, for once, it wasn't them being pulled over.

The elms and oaks bordering the pastures and scrubland falling off to one side of the road drooped their changing leaves to block the sun and turn mid-afternoon to premature evening. He saw a tree with a faded orange 'X' sprayed on it, pointing out the presence or threat of Dutch elm disease. Someone had forgotten, decades ago, to cut it down, but it looked healthy enough to Todd.

"Thanks, but we're moving on," he said, avoiding eye contact with his wife.

At some point she'd lit another cigarette and now the smoke was drifting under his nose and making him itch for one of his own. He wished he hadn't tossed it aside, the one in his lap.

"To Detroit," the cop said, sounding like he still found it hard to believe.

Todd nodded. To Detroit, simply because it was a one-tank distance from their last wasted stop. No hot rumors this time, no inkpen-circled help-wanted ads, no nothing except pure desperation and a stubborn determination to not return to West Virginia without at least a glimmer of hope.

"Yeah, Detroit," Todd muttered.

"Well that's alright," the cop said graciously, as though forgiving a personal affront. "Thought you folks could have used a sure thing, but I was wrong. And for all I know the Ford plant's hiring or you find yourself some construction work. What do I know except what I read? Nothing. I keep hearing bad news, but I haven't actually been there. And it's only a couple hours away. You might be able to get someone from town to run you up there for not much more than gas money."

The hard lump in Todd's stomach moved just slightly.

"What?" Joy asked before he could.

The cop smiled, but said nothing. His eyes found Todd's, and Todd knew he was waiting to be asked the obvious. If he could have avoiding giving the son-of-a-bitch the satisfaction, he would have.

But he dry-swallowed his resentment and said, "Why would we need a ride?"

The cop raised both hands as though in supplication. "Well, because of the condition of this Olds, of course. What is it, a ninety-one? Ninety-two? Jesus, let's face it, Mr. Dunbar, you're driving a road menace and a rattletrap threat to your entire family. I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't insist on you first completing a shopping list of repairs before you hot-tail it out of here. But something tells me you can't exactly whip out that battered wallet of yours and slap the proper change on the counter. Am I wrong?"

Thirty-seven dollars, Todd repeated to himself. That wouldn't quite cover the cost of opening the hood.

"Todd," Joy said softly, like she was just sitting there waiting for him to solve everything.

"Don't you worry, ma'am," said the cop. "I'm just trying to help, here."

Todd felt his fingers tightening on the steering wheel. He stared at the faded sign outside the windshield. It made him hungry for an ice cream stand that must have disappeared years ago, and which he couldn't afford even if it still existed. But it sure would have been nice to be able to take the kids there and watch their eyes light up at the biggest fucking whipped cream-covered banana floats they'd ever seen.

He listened to insects screeching in the weeds outside Joy's rolled-down window, and felt the sweat trickling down his face, tickling his neck, crawling into his shirt. There was something wrong here. Something badly wrong, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

"Tell me again about those jobs in town," his said, voice devoid of emotion.

"What I could do, I could send for a tow truck from Zeebe's. Jim'll take good care of you. Then I'll drop you folks off at a motel with real cheap rates and she won't collect till you cash your first paycheck. In the meanwhile, I'll make a call to a guy owns a small, corrugated packaging shop on Sennett Street, which is where the factories are. What I heard, he's looking to pay maybe twelve, fifteen an hour to start. Not a fortune, but you don't need any experience and he's eager to hire."

The cop leaned further in the window, if that was possible. "There might even be a town job for you, ma'am. Seems I recall one of the city's departments needing someone to answer phones, but I'm not promising. You can answer phones, can't you?"

Joy nodded with such zest that Todd felt the car wobble.