"No," I say.
"You haven't seen what's in it."
"I don't need to."
He holds it up anyway. There is a laser guided measuring device, a set of titanium coated drill bits, something with a digital display that I cannot immediately identify, and what appears to be a very expensive portable weather station still in the box.
"The weather station monitors micro climate conditions," he says. "It could help with irrigation scheduling."
"We look at the sky, Beckett."
"The sky doesn't give you humidity gradients."
"Harvey," I call toward the back room. "Do ranchers need humidity gradients?"
A pause. Then Harvey's voice, flat and certain. "No."
Beckett looks at the weather station. Looks at me. Places it carefully back on the shelf.
He keeps the drill bits, which is a battle I decide isn't worth having.
Harvey returns with the rest of the order and stacks it on the counter with the economical movements of a man who has done this ten thousand times. He rings it up without ceremony, adds the drill bits without comment, and slides the total across.
Beckett pays in cash.
Harvey respects practical behavior more than wealth ever has. Money talks less around here than whether a person acts like they belong.
Harvey looks at the cash. Looks at Beckett. Something shifts in his expression that isn't quite approval but is close to it. He counts the bills, makes change, and tucks it into the register.
"You need anything else," Harvey says, "we're open six days a week. Closed Sundays."
It is, I realize, the most words Harvey has voluntarily offered anyone in recent memory.
Beckett has apparently passed some kind of test that nobody told him he was taking.
We stop at Magnolia Diner for lunch because it's noon and I'm hungry and Jolene will know something is wrong if I drive past without stopping.
Then I'll have to explain myself later which is always more trouble than simply stopping.
The diner is busy the way it's always busy at noon on a Thursday.
Every booth along the window is full and the counter has exactly two empty stools and the smell coming out of the kitchen is the specific combination of grilled cheese and something with garlic that means Jolene is in a good mood and cooking accordingly.
Jolene herself spots us the second we walk in.
She is fifty-eight years old, sharp as a tack, and misses absolutely nothing that happens within fifty feet of her.
She has fed me lunch approximately four hundred times and she has the particular maternal energy of a woman who considers feeding people an act of love and will not be argued with about it.
She looks at me. Then at Beckett. Then back at me with an expression I recognize immediately. She mouths, Wow!
I slide into the nearest booth before she can say whatever she's thinking.
Beckett sits across from me and picks up the menu, which is a single laminated page that hasn't changed in eleven years. He reads it with the same focused attention he gives everything, like the choice between the chicken fried steak and the pulled pork sandwich requires genuine analysis.
"What's good?" he asks.
"Everything."
