STEN WAS AT THE gas station, pumping gas and working the squeegee over the broad glass plane of the Prius’ back window, seven-thirty in the morning, sun shining, on his way down to the harbor with a spinning rod to fling a lure across the mouth of the channel there and see if anything cruising in from the sea would like to take it in its scaly jaws. All the years he’d been working he told himself he loved fishing the way he had as a boy, nailing steelhead and salmon in the Noyo, Big River, the Ten Mile and out on the ocean too, told himself that as soon as he had time he was going to fish till he dropped. But he didn’t. Or hadn’t. In fact, this was the first time he’d touched the rod in longer than he could remember, and he wasn’t fooling himself—he knew he’d put his gear in the car and come out here this morning just to do something, just to get out of the house and shake the rust off. If he caught anything, so much the better—that would be a bonus—but the real deal was to kill a couple of hours before he went back home to see if the bushes he’d trimmed yesterday had grown back or the caulk he’d replaced in the kitchen a week ago needed replacing again.
He was thinking of another gas station, one that was long gone now, where he’d worked the summer before his senior year in high school. Three young Italians—or maybe one of them wasn’t Italian—had pooled their resources to open the place. They were in their early thirties, he guessed, but back then they seemed old to him, and they were enthusiasts, full of jokes and high spirits, their own bosses now and sure to rake in a fortune. One of them, the one who might not have been Italian—Gene, his name was Gene—did bodywork and the other two, Tony and Rico, were mechanics. What they needed him for was to pump gas, check tires and oil and coolant, and to dole out Green Stamps against their eventual redemption. Different times then. He’d worked seven a.m. to seven p.m. and every day at noon Rico would go to the sandwich shop and bring back subs for all of them—and beer, a can of which they would let him have instead of soda though he was underage. They made him feel good. Made him feel like a man.
Where were they now? he wondered. Dead, he supposed. Dead and buried and rotted away to nothing, the casket collapsed on itself, their bones bare and gray and losing heft by the day. People asked him what his philosophy was, as if by being principal—having been principal—he was schooled in the thoughts of the great thinkers, and what’s more, was a great thinker himself. Well, he had no philosophy. He just lived and drew breath like any other creature, more acted upon than acting. There were Jesus, Santa Claus and God when he was little, but they’d gone the way of slingshots and training wheels, the apprehension of death—the first intimation of it—canceling out everything else. What was his philosophy? Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten. Or no, that was too harsh. Just be, that was all. What was coming was coming and there was no sense or comfort in worrying about it. Other people went to church, other people played golf, served on committees, ran charities. He went on a luxury cruise. He went fishing. And if Carolee should die before him, he faced a world of woe so deep and catastrophic he didn’t think he’d be able to see himself through. Definitely not. No way in the world. He kept a gun in the house, a Glock 9mm he’d always prayed Adam would never find when he was a squirrelly kid and into everything, and that gun would have its use sometime down the line. Retirement plan? Sure, the good and giving Glock Firearms Company would see to that.
So he was morbid, so he was bored, so he was pumping his own gas and letting his mind tick through the past and present like one of the mutating tapes of the home movies he’d made when Adam was a kid before he saw the utter futility of it because who was ever going to watch them and how could you hope to stop time? There was a breeze. It lifted the hair around his ears and laid it back down on his shoulders, the lightest part of himself, but heavy all the same. Then a GMC Yukon, fire-engine red, slid up on the other side of the pump, and Art Tolleson’s face was there, suspended behind the sheen of the window like an old towel hung up to dry.
Art didn’t say hello and he didn’t smile. He looked like somebody carrying an armful of raw eggs as he eased out of the car and climbed up onto the island separating the pumps. “Did you hear?” he asked.
“Hear what?”
“They shot Carey Bachman.”
“Who?”