"I'm not arguing law with you on a gas station lot," Halvorsen said.
"Good," Hall said. "Then let me buy my gas and go."
He turned half a shoulder toward the pump, not enough to be a dismissal, just enough to test whether the officer would allow even that small, ordinary motion. Halvorsen shifted with him, mirroring the step, keeping himself between Hall and the sedan's door without appearing to think about it. It was trained movement, and it was also revealing. He was not guarding the store. He was guarding the exit.
"You'll buy gas when we're done," Halvorsen said.
"We could be done now."
"ID."
Hall looked at the pump screen, still dark, waiting for a card that had not been inserted. He had chosen pump four three weeks earlier for its sight lines, and he knew them the way other men knew their own driveways. From here he could see the front bays of Keystone Storage, the side gate, and the narrow service road that ran behind it. He could also see, without turning his head, that Halvorsen's cruiser had sealed the only lane a sedan could use without mounting a curb.
"Let me ask you something," Hall said. "How long have you been watching me?"
"I haven't."
"You knew I was watching the storage place."
"I said it looked that way."
"It either looked that way or it didn't. Which is it?"
Halvorsen's mouth tightened. "Don't twist my words."
"I'm using them exactly as you gave them to me."
A car pulled into the far side of the lot, headlights sweeping the wet concrete, and slowed when its driver took in the cruiser and the uniform and the tall man in the black jacket standing too still. The car kept rolling, past the air pump, past the dumpsters, and out the far entrance. Halvorsen watched it go with an expression Hall could not quite name until he realized it was relief. Whatever this was, the officer wanted no witnesses drifting close.
"Break-ins," Hall said. "You mentioned break-ins. When?"
"What?"
"The break-ins at the storage place. Or here. When was the last one?"
"That's police business."
"You're using it as your reason. If there's been a string of them, I'd think you'd want a witness to cooperate. I might have seen something."
"You are the something."
Hall smiled faintly, without warmth. "Then describe me to yourself, Officer. A man at a pump, in daylight, under a canopy full of cameras. If I were stealing, I'd be doing a poor job of it."
"People get bold."
"People get desperate," Hall said. "That's different."
Something in Halvorsen's stance changed, a fraction of weight moving from one foot to the other. Hall had pushed, gently, and found a place that gave. He did not push again. He let the rain fill the space between them, let the officer hear his own breathing, let the seconds do the work that questions could not.
"Look," Halvorsen said at last, and tried for a reasonable tone that sat badly on him. "This is simple. You show me a license, I run it, you're clean, you go. Two minutes. Why are you making two minutes into a federal case?"
"Because you haven't told me what you're running it for," Hall said. "Because you blocked my car before you spoke to me. Because a man who only wanted two minutes wouldn't need to threaten me to get them."
"I haven't threatened you."
"You said, last time you ask nice."
"That's not a threat. That's a warning."
"About what, exactly?"
Halvorsen looked away, toward the road, toward the storage bays, toward anywhere that was not Hall's face. When he looked back, the reasonable tone was gone.
"We've had complaints," he said.
"From who?"
"From the business."
"Which business? This one, or that one?" Hall inclined his head, first at the FuelMart, then across the road.
"Both. Neither. It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me. A complaint has a name attached, usually. Or at least a time."
"You're not entitled to that."
"I'm entitled to know why I'm being held on a lot in the rain."
"You know what your problem is?" Halvorsen said.
"I suspect you're going to tell me."
"You think questions make you untouchable. They don't. Out here, I decide when we're done."
Hall nodded toward the pump. "Out here," he said, "I was buying gas. That's still all I want to do. The moment you can name a crime, I'll listen differently. Until then, your reasons keep getting smaller, Officer. First it was break-ins. Then it was a complaint. Now it's because you say so."
Halvorsen said nothing. The rain said it for him, steady on the canopy, and in the silence his reasons lay on the wet concrete between them, thin as the puddles forming around their boots. Neither man moved toward the pump's dark, patient, waiting screen again.
Chapter 8: Hands on the Car