The body shop on the river has been shut since eight and the roller door is down, but the light over the bench is on and the truck is loaded and running. Diesel, wet concrete, the hot smell of the space heater. You are already in the driver's seat with your hands at ten and two.
"No run tonight,"
Conleth Devane says, leaning in at your window with his forearm on the sill.
Dark red hair pushed back off his face, still wet from the yard tap. The black ink starts under his left ear and goes down his throat like something climbing. He is not angry. That is the part that should worry you.
Tobias Vane is still here, stacking the last crate and pretending not to listen, which is how you know it is bad.
"Two reasons,"
Conleth says.
"One. Donal Keane came to the gate at four and asked for you by name, and Tobias gave him a cup of tea instead of a set of knuckles, which we will discuss later. Two. I want to hear what you want me to do about him before I decide it for you."
He looks at you the way he looks at a manifest. Nothing on his face, everything counted.
"You know the rule. I gave it to you the first night, in this truck, and I have not said it since. Try to trap me and I will destroy you. It is not a threat, it is a description. So tell me now, while Tobias is still standing there, whether the man at that gate is a thing you brought into my yard or a thing you left behind."
Behind him, one of the neon signs on the far bank buzzes, dies, and comes back red.
"Then put it in gear and drive me out to the bridge and answer on the way. I want the whole of it before the second light."