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“Hey, Matt, how’s it going?”
Al’s voice is always jovial, like a friendly uncle who’s happy to hear from you no matter what time it is or what you’re going to need from him.
“It’s going. Busy day at the shop. Got a job for you.”
“Someone need a ride?”
“Yeah, a friend of mine. And I need a favor.”
“Anything.”
“I need to ride along, we need to be on the road now, and I need you to not charge her.”
“A friend, Matty?” His tone, despite the urgency in my voice, implies he thinks otherwise and is highly amused by it.
“Yeah, Al, just a friend.”
I can practically hear his neurons making too many connections.
“Charge it to you?”
“That’s fine.”
“You want me to pick you up? And how far are we going?”
“I’m already on the way.” I keep an eye on the rearview mirror while the phone connects to the truck’s Bluetooth.
“Shouldn’t be too far. Just across town, near Walmart.”
“Aw, that’s not so bad then. We hauling it to your shop?”
“Yep.”
“All right, see you soon, Matty.”
I hear a faint “Say hi to Matt” from Al’s end of the phone, but his response is cut off as I disconnect and try to make my way through the evening traffic as quickly as possible. It isn’t far from my house, less than two miles, but I do have to cross through part of downtown and get across one of our bridges.
My fingers drum erratically against the steering wheel as I inch forward in a line of cars. The bridge has been raised to let a boat through, so traffic is backed up.
By the time I make it to Al’s house, he already has the truck in the street and the engine running. I park at the curb and jump in his hauler.
“So, a friend?” Al wiggles his eyebrows, looking ridiculously like a North Woods Santa Claus, and winks.
“Just a friend. You can tell Annie that too.” Annie is Al’s long-time ‘lady friend,’ as he calls her. They’ve been a couple since high school and began living together shortly after graduation but never got married.
“How long have you known this ‘just a friend’?”
I glance down at my watch and see it's been about nine hours since I was standing behind her at the gas station.
“Since this morning. She had some car trouble on the way to work.”
Al’s amusement fades as he shifts into business mode.
“I knew it was a girl.” He doesn’t gloat, which keeps me from snapping at him. “What do you think is going on?” Al glances at me as we merge back onto the main route that will get us to Lenore the fastest.
“She said she thought she ran out of gas, but the gauge was still reading at half, and her check engine light was on.” I pause. “It could be anything.”
Al mutters something that I don’t quite catch and focuses on getting the rig through the glut of cars out tonight. As I watch his calm hands on the steering wheel, I realize how worked up I am despite knowing someone has already helped Lenore get out of immediate danger.
