“We’ve got a spring,” I said.

“Like I’m saying,” Lawrence said.

“What do you mean by a blast zone?” I asked.

“What does it sound like I mean?” Jay said. “Damn, we knew you was white trash, but are you stupid, too?”

I let it go, instead paid attention to the fault line I felt, the tremor. The pipeline was my own spine.

“What makes you so sure it’s going through my place?” I asked.

“Common sense,” Marie said. “They’re sending this stuff all the way down South, down to ports in Louisiana to sell overseas.”

“But how do you know the exact route?” I asked.

“We don’t,” Lawrence said. “They don’t let just anyone see that. No way. They don’t want people to know where they’re putting this shit. Not until it’s a done deal and it’s too late for anyone to do anything about it.”

Marie watched me. “But you, working in that control room,” she said. “You probably got a password or something. You could probably find out a lot of stuff.”

Before dawn, Shane pulled up with coffee and doughnuts. Walking out to his SUV, I almost ran into Marie. She pushed past. “Special friend of the boss, huh?” she said over her shoulder. “Must be nice.”

“It’s not what you think,” I said. But maybe it was.

I bent down to Shane’s window. I thanked him for the coffee, he said no problem, I thanked him for the doughnuts, he said my pleasure, I thanked him for the ride, he said of course, I told him I wouldn’t be needing a ride anymore, he didn’t say anything. I said, “I can ride with the crew. You gave me the keys, remember?”

“Did you ask them?” he said. “They like to keep to themselves, you know.”

“It just makes sense,” I said.

“What happened to your face?” he asked. I left him sitting there.

When I knocked on the truck window, Marie cracked it. When I asked for a ride, she didn’t say no, she didn’t say yes, she just held open the truck door, and leaned forward so I could wedge myself back into the cab. Lawrence passed me the thermos, but Marie said, “Don’t give away all our coffee, asshole.”

“It’s all right, I got my own,” I said.

“Doughnuts, too,” Marie said. “That Shane. What a gentleman.”

“I’m over it,” I said.

“I bet you are,” she said. Jay turned the radio up, and we rode to work listening to Springsteen, the only boss Jay said he could stand.