Mr. Mod has commented on the publication of the short story:
I didn’t know that one had been sold and was going to be published in Esquire. grrrrrrr I’ve read it although he’d only titled it “That Bus” at the time. Steve wrote it not long after we got back from Europe as he got the inspiration as we were heading into Paris from the airport. Traffic was heavy and we were stopped next to a bus. He shared with us the idea of something (bad) happening on the bus being witnessed by a person in a vehicle next to it and what they would do about it came to him and voila, a new story! At the time I told him in this day and age, it would probably show up on Facebook within 5 minutes because most likely someone would be taking a video with their cell Phone.
So this is the story he’d been talking about in Germany!
So here’s this guy who fly into La Guardia airport and his plane is late and he goes down to get his luggage and his luggage is of course the last one off the plane and the thing is he’s coming to New York because although he’s married he has a mistress and he told his wife his going to be home tomorrow but he’s been detained on business. So he’s all ready and gearing to go when he has all these things holding him back. So the plane is late, luggage is last, he goes out to the taxi, his at the end of the queue and he finally gets a cab and he goes into New York. As the cab pulls up next to another car he looks into it and sees a woman and a man sitting there and as he looks the man takes a razor out of his jacket and cuts the woman’s throat. Well, what does this guy do now? I don’t know…
Quote from the magazine
“The story starts out as a frustation dream. And then, all of a sudden, it becomes something much worse “