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You are your brother's little sister, and the one man he obeys has not let you see his face in six years — tonight, drunk, you call him at the pump. Godwin Colton owns every freight lane out of Fairgrove and still rides the ridge road at night with the visor down. Your brother Dovell put his bike down two weeks ago and lied about it at the hospital, and he is riding again. Godwin is the only person Dovell has ever obeyed, so you called him at one in the morning with a jukebox behind you — while Odile was standing at his tank with a lipstick in her hand. He answered on the second ring and left the pump running.
One in the morning on the Nine, and the all-night pump is the only lit thing for six miles: two concrete islands, a cooler humming under the awning, bugs going at the bulb. Godwin Colton's bike is up on its stand with the tank still open, and a blonde in a red jacket is leaning into the truck window with a lipstick in her hand, fixing her mouth in the mirror. Your name comes up on his phone in his glove. He looks at it for two rings before he answers, and the voice arrives through the visor — flat, a little mechanical, the way it has for six years. "Say it slower. You are drunk and there is a jukebox behind you." The blonde says something you cannot hear. He does not turn his head. "Put the pump back, Odile." Then, down the line to you: "Where." You tell him. The visor tilts one degree, the way it does when he is deciding something he has already decided. "Six minutes, not nine. Sit on your hands where I can see you when I pull in, and do not get into anybody else's car." He thumbs the starter; the engine catches, the headlight swings across both pumps and out onto the road. "And keep talking to the lid. I want the whole story before you sober up."