Milt Blake was happy to shoot the shit all night long. What was the alternative? Watching the bugs going mad for the lights over the pumps? The TV? The TV that had to play promo crap round and round on a loop. That would surely drive him Old Man Jenkins.

Milt always worked the graveyard shift at the gas station store. Didn’t care much for the daytime rush. People just flying through, barely having time for a howdy doody. This time of night, he could meet some mighty interesting folk, like the guy he was talking to right now. British guy. The way they spoke was awful sophisticated-sounding. The guy paid cash for his gas. Old school. He seemed like he’d had a hog wild day and just needed to catch his breath.

“Damn right the AC in here is topflight,” Milt was agreeing. “Whenever the D’s havin’ a hotter-than-hell spell, I like seeing the relief on folks’ shiny faces.”

Spencer wasn’t paying much attention, but the good ole boy working the till was helping time pass.

“And if you don’t mind my sayin’, I saw you taking a few pulls on that flask of yours, sir, and I just about came right out and said you may as well come into the cool and drink ’cause I seen you anyhow.”

Milt laughed at the other man’s discomfiture. “What you really gotta ask is if you taking a swig is hurtin’ anyone. It’d be a sin if your drinking brought a blight to a good person’s life. That’s a lesson I learned too late.”

“How so?”

“Ruined my marriage. I never went with another lady as long as I said ‘I do,’ but the bottle was a mistress the whole time we was together.”

Spencer said nothing. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, but it let itself be heard nonetheless.

“If you don’t mind my sayin’ also,” said Milt after a while, “you seem like you have a whole heap of shit on your mind.”

Spencer didn’t mind for some reason. The man had an easygoing, nonjudgmental affability and a worldliness to him. Spencer felt like telling him about his loss that day, how tired he felt most times.

Milt took off his blue company baseball cap and pushed back his mop of longish white-and-gray hair. He had a thick moustache and eyes that crinkled right up at the corners, giving him the air of a Badlands sheriff. He pointed at his name badge. “Milt, by the way.”

“Spencer.”

“Good to meet you, Spencer. You live here?”

“Yeah.”

“You seem at home . . . just not at peace.”

A Chevy Suburban pulled up by a pump. The store door opened with a friendly ding-a-ling and an obese guy in khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt waddled in, paid, and waddled back out to start pumping forty-five gallons.

“What happened with your wife, Milt?”