I eased to a stop, hit the gas again. On such a frigid morning, there was no point in opening the doors if no-one was climbing in. I could see her in the rearview mirror, my only passenger, when I glanced up from the road. She had an Unlimited Ride pass, and for the past three hours she'd just been sitting there, staring out into the grey and white day. It occured to me, as a white Mustang sloshed by, that she might be dead. Ronny had found a dead homeless guy on his bus a couple years ago, and three hours was a long time for a sweet little lady like her to ride a city bus. Dark brown hair,
small mouth, shadowed eyes staring out the window. The mirror didn't show me much.

At the next stop I looked at the time; I had a few minutes. I put on the parking brake and unclipped my seatbelt, lifted my large mass from the vinyl driver's seat. I walked up the aisle. "Lady?" I said. "Ma'am?" She lifted her head, looked at me with two big brown eyes. "You alright, ma'am?"

"Fine," she said, frosty as the snow outside. I took another step as I nodded and stopped. For three hours she'd been sitting there, staring out the window, stark naked. I tried to remember what she'd been wearing when I picked her up, and couldn't. Anything? She must have had a jacket, it was twenty-four degrees out. She must've...

I went back to my seat, stopped looking at her in the rearview. I was running late now, and she was no longer a mystery. Just another crazy, and there were plenty of those.