The rap of her boot heels echoing off the concrete walls was the only sound as she walked down the long line of cars, looking for where she'd parked. She'd been sure this was the row—13-D—but where was her car? She shifted her bags to her left hand where the black leather glove would keep the handles from biting into her and looked back over her shoulder through her blonde hair. Perhaps she'd walked past it? But there was no red Peugeot.

She stopped. The yellowish green fluorescent lights bothered her eyes. The floor was damp—wet in places with puddles of black water—and the peeling concrete walls were crumbling in places. This underground garage was a dump, decrepit and depressing and disorienting too. It stunk of gasoline and diesel fumes and wet cement and mold, and in her good gray wool skirt and white blouse and black leather coat and gloves she felt out of place. Her boots were already muddied and possibly ruined. Maybe 13-D was where she'd parked before? 13 something. Maybe 13-B?

A car engine started somewhere in the distance but with the echoes in the cavernous place it was impossible to tell where. The garage went on forever. She wasn't even sure where the exit was now, so she walked till she found a pass through and then turned right, the pace of her footsteps picking up. No cars passed her. The place seemed utterly deserted, though she could hear an occasional bang or slam in the distance.

At last, a wall. A pedestrian walkway. She skipped up on it and walked through to 13-C. Down the row—nothing, no red Peugeot. She returned to the sidewalk and pressed on and came to another blank wall with a door in it. It said "Aisles 20-A through 22-D" and had an arrow pointing down. This was absurd.

She stopped now and looked around in confusion. She put down her packages and pulled on her right glove, the one she'd taken off so she could get her car keys when she thought she knew where her car was. She had her cell phone. Would it work down here? And who would she call? The police? What would she say? I'm lost in the underground parking and I can't find my car?

She felt fear, and then anger. She remembered when she'd left the car there'd been a bunch of men in overalls sitting inside a barrier of yellow safety tape casually eating their lunches and reading newspapers like they had nothing better to do. They'd looked at up at her approvingly as she'd passed and she'd heard their comments and low laughs Where were they now? Where was that barrier of yellow safety tape? Where was anyone?

Moving towards the pass through again, she spotted a flashing light, a yellow light, sweeping over the concrete walls—a wrecker or some safety vehicle, maybe one of those golf carts the garage staff rode in. She ran to intercept it, her packages bumping against her knees.

It was a big step van, the kind usually used for deliveries, painted official city blue, with a yellow dome light flashing on its roof, barely low enough to clear the concrete lintels of the concrete garage supports.

"Thank God!" she breathed, waving her arm to flag it down.

The van stopped opposite her and she peered inside. The passenger door had been removed and replaced by an outward-facing tool cabinet. She looked over the top at the driver, though his face was in shadow.

"Listen, can you help me? I'm lost! I can't find my car! Can you just drive me around till I find it? It's around here somewhere."

For a moment he said nothing and she looked at his big hand on the steering wheel, the muscles in his forearm where his sleeve was rolled up, a smudge of grease on his wrist.

"Can't," he said. "Against the rules."

He shifted into gear and the truck started forward. She grabbed hold of the doorway.

"Please!" The desperation in her voice startled her. "No one will know. I'll pay you. I'm really lost!"

Again the silence. She ducked her head slightly, trying to see his face in the shadows.

"Okay. You'll have to get in the back though, and stay out of sight."

"Thanks! Yes, of course!" She ran to the back of the truck and pulled the door open, stepped up into the interior and pulled it closed behind her. The inside was hung with quilted moving blankets and bungee cords hung from the ceiling. There were tools boxes behind the front seat and cans of paint and other maintenance equipment.

Ellen bent down and walked up behind the driver. The engine was right in the center of the truck, making a big hump next to his seat, and she leaned over it, staring out the windshield as he drove.

"It's a red Peugeot 607. A two thousand five. It shouldn't be hard to find. I really appreciate this."

The van rolled slowly along, and she noticed that the section numbers seemed to make no sense. 13-D, 14-C, 13-E, 14-F. The driver wheeled the truck around several turns then killed the yellow light, turned down a spiral ramp and entered a lower level that was darker and more deserted.

"I really think it was up on the other level," she said.