Stanley Glass didn’t ask questions. He sometimes wondered if it had something to do with his childhood—maybe with the Catholic school nuns swatting his hands with thick rulers when he failed to answer their questions, or maybe with his parents, who incessantly told him to be quiet, to stay in his room, to stay out of trouble, to stay out of sight. At other times he wondered if it had something to do with joining the military afterward, with the cruelty of his drill sergeant or the beating he endured after failing to answer a command.

Maybe.

It didn’t really matter now. Now he was loved. Now he was feared. And all because he did exactly as he was told.

“Are you ready, sir?”

“Not quite,” Stanley said, scanning the board on the wall. His phone buzzed. A text message. He ignored it. There were more important things at hand. Burner? Matcha? Performance? Which boost should he add? His phone buzzed again. He pulled it out of his pocket. “Sorry,” he said to the register girl. He read the text:

no word from ben.
must B trouble.
go 2 house.
full clean.

Full clean. It had been months since he’d done a full clean. Luckily, all his gear was in the trunk of his Volvo station wagon. Gloves. Bags. Saws. He couldn’t think of anything he was lacking.

“Sir? Please. We’ve got lots of people waiting.”

Actually, there was one thing he lacked.

“Sir?”

Surely he had time to wait for a Jamba Juice. He’d been standing in line for twenty minutes already, not an uncommon occurrence for the busy location.

“Sir? I’m sorry, but the line is out the door, and I really need your order.”

Stanley scowled and left his place in line. He was right in front of the register. So close. But he had to go to the job immediately. Time wasted meant a botched job, and that was something he couldn’t chance.

He walked out the front door and saw a man taking the paper off the top of his straw. “’Scuse me,” Stanley said. “What flavor did you get?”

“Razzmatazz,” the man said, clearly pleased. He opened his mouth and aimed for the straw.

“And what boost did you get?” Stanley asked.

The man stopped an inch from the straw. “Um. Let’s see . . . it’s getting late, which means she wouldn’t have put anything in that would keep me up all night. I’m a regular here, you see . . . they know exactly what I like.”

“So like a Vita Boost or something?”

“Probably.”

Stanley smiled. Perfect.