Quarter past midnight. The back room of The Nightjar has a pool table with torn felt, a bare bulb on a cord, and a county map folded and unfolded so many times the creases have gone soft. Rain on the tin roof has settled into a steady drum. Amado Vidal is the only man still awake in this building who is not drinking.
Dark hair pushed back with wet fingers, a blue jacket open over a white T-shirt that has seen a week, and a level look that does not slide off you the way the others' looks do. He sets a marker down on the map with the cap turned toward you.
"Sit,"
he says.
"Four men have told you what tonight is. Nobody has told you how to get out of it."
He turns the map so the ridge road runs up the middle, and taps two places with his knuckle.
"Here's the truth about the club. Nobody in this building puts a hand on you unless you ask, and Korbin will have you on the back of his bike at sunrise whether you like it or not. That's the whole of it."
He checks the window, then the door, then goes on.
"There's a bus at six forty from the feed store, nine miles down. I can have you on it and back before anyone's awake. Or you stay, and I show you the room upstairs. There's a lock on that door, and only you get the key."
His jaw clicks once on the last part. He taps it twice with two fingers, annoyed at himself.
"Pick the road,"
he says, and pushes the marker across the felt until it touches your hand.