Luckily, no noise comes until the ladder hits its full extension, and it can drop no further. It stops eight feet short of the ground. The sudden jerk throws the men into a pile of various refuse, none of it smelling too good. The crash is loud. They immediately recover and inspect their surroundings. There doesn’t appear to be anyone at either end of the alley. They kick up into a sprint, further into the darker shadows of the large buildings.

There’s a rustle ahead. They hear it before they see anything. Then there’s the strike of a match and a disembodied hand covering the flame. It lights up a face as it draws nearer. The face is familiar, but it is taken up mostly by a fat cigar. There are others; three pairs of eyes lit in the ritualistic firelight of a sunken tomb. They all look over as one. Three menacing faces once again, but this time in a different combination of disgust and fury.

A glow from nowhere catches one side of a shiny, bald head. The driver recognizes the short figure -flanked by two sentries who are gigantic by comparison- as the pink-suited man. His face seems a lot sicklier in the diminished light of a back alley, but his cigar is perched as proudly as ever. A deep ember marks his sense of triumph. It must be pretty easy when he can pay off as much muscle as it takes to work his way up –up?- to sixth or seventh man of the city.

The group stares down into the alley. They’ve seen something, or heard the clatter from before. The man in pink leads the charge, confident that his lackeys will follow. They do, and their massive gait causes them to lurch, as if every step is going to follow through and wind up with their foot planted through the ground.

The driver still can’t be sure if they’ve actually been spotted or just suspected. The hitchhiker presses his back against a wall. His arms and fingers are outstretched in the dark, feeling along the sooty bricks until coming to cold metal: a door. He presses in and it gives. He pushes more, with his ass, and the door swings inward. There is a creek and a thud. He’s in.