Chapter 17: The Night Before

Hank's POV

Gus gave me two names on Friday, written on the back of a feed-store receipt.

He didn't say what they were for.

He said, "They were on the road with me," and then he sat down on his porch step and looked at his boots.

I took the receipt and went.

My daughter was at the kitchen table when I stopped home for my jacket, with a jar of water and a set of small brushes Bree had given her.

"Hold still," she said.

"I'm in a hurry."

"Dad. Hold still."

She took my left hand and turned it over.

She was nine, and she painted with her tongue between her teeth, and she had very strong opinions about shaking.

"What is it?" I asked.

"A star. Bree says that's how you start. A star's just five lines that agree with each other."

I looked at my hand.

It was a lopsided gold star in the middle of my palm.

"What's it for?"

"Luck," she said, as though I were being slow. "You're going to talk to bad men. Bree said, and then I said, he needs a star."

"Bree said I was going to talk to bad men?"

"She said you were doing something hard. It's the same."

I closed my hand over the star, and it was still wet.

"Go to Grandma's at six," I said.

"I know."

"Don't wait up."

"Dad. Go."

The first name on the receipt ran a tire shop on the east side of town.

He was in his sixties, with a gray ponytail down his back and black oil in every crease of his hands.

He was putting a tire on a rim when I walked in, and he looked at the Medic 4 patch on my jacket, and he put the iron down.