I waved to thank him. Criminal etiquette: He was within his rights to rob me, and we both knew he'd done me a favor by not throwing my stuff over the tracks. It was the only break I'd gotten so far on Mechanic Street.

I wobbled toward the F-150. As I pa.s.sed Motorenwerk I stared in the plate-gla.s.s office window. Ollie was gone. In the garage, the redheaded kid was lowering the Mercedes SUV. He looked at me from the corner of his eye, pretended not to see me. I decided that when I came back, I'd start with the kid-creepy or not, he was the weak link.

And I would come back.

As I neared my truck I saw they'd slashed all four tires and busted out the side and rear windows. "Windshield's good," I said out loud. "My lucky day."

I opened the door, brushed safety gla.s.s from the bench seat, climbed in, and fired it while I thought. There were a dozen people I could call for a lift, but any of them would have to p.i.s.s away their day coming up.

I sighed. Tander Phigg. He lived nearby and deserved to see his day p.i.s.sed away after what he'd sucked me into.

I called. Voice mail. Like anybody in hock, Phigg was screening his calls. I needed to leave a message that would bring him quick. "Good news on your car," I said. "Get over here to Motorenwerk before Ollie changes his mind." Click.

By the time Phigg rattled up in a s.h.i.tbox '92 Sentra, I'd talked the redheaded kid into helping me. His name was Josh Whipple. He wouldn't look me in the eye. I didn't ask him who'd cold-c.o.c.ked me. Gain trust now, ask questions later. We used two floor jacks to trundle my truck to a lift. That way I didn't have to pay for a flatbed to haul it to a tire shop.

Phigg popped from his car with hope on his face. As he looked at me, my truck, and the back corner where his Mercedes sat covered, the hope faded. "I got your message," he said. "Good news on my car?"

I rolled him a tire, faced him full, waited for him to spot the lump on my head. He stopped the tire with his foot. "Put the tire in your car," I said. "Looks like we can fit two in the trunk and two in the backseat. What's with the s.h.i.tbox? Thought you were driving a Jag."

"It's a loaner. Jag's in the shop. What about my Mercedes?"

I stepped toward him and pointed at the lump.

"What happened?" he said.

I jerked a thumb at Josh, who was lugging tires to Phigg's car. "Somebody who works for this kid's boss clocked me." I did a double take as I said it: Even with all the air gone, those tire-and-wheel units had to weigh sixty pounds apiece, and Josh had one tucked under each arm like beach towels.

Phigg fingered his collar. "So you haven't, ah, liberated my Mercedes?"

"I told Ollie you wanted it back," I said. "He laughed in my face. Then somebody creamed me. We're going to buy me new tires now. While we wait you can tell me the truth."

Ten minutes later, we sat with our backs against the shaded side of an Exxon. I'd bought us each a Gatorade. Red for him, yellow for me. I'd also bought a bag of ice. I pressed it to my head and said, "Cost you almost seven hundred with the mount-and-balance and the disposal fee."

"Me?" Head-whip.

"You sent me in there with a bulls.h.i.t story. You didn't tell me Ollie's some kind of hard case. You've heard stories about me, about what I do for people. You thought I was going to walk in and kick the snot out of Ollie, then drive your car out of there whether he liked it or not. I got that about right?"

A semi blatted past on Route 31, downshifting for the speed zone ahead, full load of tree trunks on its flatbed. I smelled pine and diesel.

When the noise died Phigg said, "About right, yes. But ... you do kick the s.h.i.t out of people. The stories are true. I've seen the aftermath. All the Barnburners have."

Well, he was right about that. "Point is, my fresh tires are on you," I said. "New gla.s.s, too."

"I don't have it." Real quiet.

I sipped. "Say again?"

"I don't have any money," he said. "I'm broke, Conway."

"Finally." I looked at him for the first time since I'd sat. "It's obvious you don't have a pot to p.i.s.s in or a window to throw it out. I can't help you unless you tell me what's really going on."

"I'm broke." I barely heard him over the air compressor inside. Phigg's face was pale, his eyes flat as he stared at his s.h.i.tbox Sentra that wasn't a loaner after all.

"You drinking?" I said.

"h.e.l.l no."

"Cocaine? Prescription drugs?"

"No!"

I wondered what else could burn through the kind of money everybody thought Tander Phigg had. Needed to get him talking.

"Your dad made paper, do I have that right?" I said. "Did okay for himself."

"Phigg Paper Products, Inc. Biggest employer in Fitchburg for thirty years."

"Left you in good shape?"

Phigg half laughed. "Money to burn," he said. "But good shape?" He tried to shrug and laugh again, but his breath hitched. He put up a hand as if to scratch his forehead-he didn't want me to see him cry.

The Exxon guy leaned out the door, hollered my tires were all set.

I paid with the credit card the Mexican hadn't stolen.

Phigg and I were quiet as we loaded tires in his s.h.i.tbox, drove back to Motorenwerk, and unloaded.

As Phigg got set to drive off I stepped to his window. "Let's meet at eight tomorrow, that diner again. You can tell me what's going on, we'll try this Ollie again."

"Sure." He rattled away, pale, staring straight ahead.

Five minutes later my F-150 was down on its fresh rubber. While Josh torqued the wheels I said, "Where's your Shop-Vac?"

"I vacuumed the gla.s.s out of your interior already."

I looked. He had. "Thanks." I stepped to the right side of the truck, away from the office. Josh was finishing the right front wheel. He straightened. I said, "What are you doing here?"

"Working." He looked me in the eye, and my shoulder blades tensed again.

"You know what I mean," I said. "What are you doing here? You're fast, you're good, you're ASE certified. You could be pulling sixty an hour at any dealership. Something stinks about this place. Best case, Ollie's set to go belly-up. I think it's worse than that. I think there's some crooked s.h.i.t going on. You may think you're not part of it, but you are."

"Why are you even talking to me, after what happened in the office?" Josh said. "Why aren't you either talking to the cops or hightailing it home?"

"I'll answer your questions when you answer mine."

He held my eyes. For a few seconds he looked like a nervous kid, and I thought he might tip and talk to me.

"Yoo-hoo!" The voice came from the office. We turned. A mom, maybe thirty, cute, two little kids hiding behind her jeans. She said, "I'm here to pick up my car? The black Mercedes?"

Josh said, "Right with you, ma'am," and walked away fast.

s.h.i.t. Almost had him. I would have to come back later.

I climbed into my truck, backed out, and drove to the mouth of Mechanic Street. Phigg had turned left here. A right would take me south, homebound.

I took a left. Why not? Phigg wasn't telling me everything. Thanks to him I had a gashed head and a big-a.s.s credit-card bill coming. I help Barnburners, no questions asked. But not all Barnburners are created equal.

When they saw I was showing up at every meeting and working hard, Barnburners filled me in on the group's backstory. It was launched by outcast bikers, post-WWII GIs who were into vendettas as much as sobriety. They called themselves the Barnstormers because AA National refused to sanction them, and without the sanction they lacked a regular meeting place. For fifteen years they met every Wednesday in people's homes, fields, warehouses, barns.

Over time, the rowdy regulars aged and the Barnstormers matured, but the core remained a group of hard cases with an Old Testament credo. Barnstormers believed in an eye for an eye, and they never turned the other cheek.

One mid-sixties Wednesday, during a meeting at a dairy farm, some joker flipped his cigarette b.u.t.t the wrong way and burned the host's barn to a cinder. Twist: The host was the town fire chief. Once they realized the barn was a goner and n.o.body was hurt, everybody (including the chief) laughed their a.s.ses off, and the Barnstormers instantly renamed themselves the Barnburners.

Time pa.s.sed. AA National sanctioned the group. Saint Anne's became the regular meeting spot. But the take-no-s.h.i.t mentality hung on, boiling down to a kernel called the meeting-after-the-meeting.

It took me six months to earn my way in. I hit Saint Anne's every Wednesday. Got there early, set up chairs, made coffee, doled out raffle tickets. Spoke a couple times a week, driving to Ashland, Upton, Clinton, Hudson with a carload of Barnburners to tell my story. Got my first steady job in five years, working the muck pit at a Jiffy Lube.

The commitment I showed was half the picture. But you needed skills to get into the meeting-after-the-meeting. As I got to know the old-timers, they realized I had skills. Skills I'd picked up in rail yards, alleys, county jails.

One Wednesday, as I finished stowing the little banners we hang on the walls next to the picture of the pope-ONE DAY AT A TIME; LET GO, LET G.o.d; like that-Butch Feeley said, "Conway."

I turned. Butch had never spoken to me. I didn't think he even knew my name.

"Why don't you stick around?" Butch said, softly kicking the chair next to his.

I was in.

No shoulder-claps, no "welcome to the group," no initiation. I was just there, one of them. Pretty soon I learned why.

"Rosie f.a.gundes," said Mary Giarusso, glancing at a reporter's notebook. "Brazilian girl, three months sober, sits in back by the long radiator?" Mary had a h.e.l.lacious Boston accent: three months sobah, long radiatah.

"Why's she still sitting in back if she's got three months?" Butch Feeley said. Serious AA for serious people.

"Be that as it may," Mary said. "She waitresses at the Early Bird over on Fay Court. The owner's all right, but the manager knows she's an illegal. He's been helping himself to half her tips right from the get-go, and now he wants to help himself to some b.l.o.w. .j.o.bs, too."

Far as I could tell, I was the only one surprised at how easily this woman, who looked like a retired school princ.i.p.al, said "b.l.o.w. .j.o.bs." Lesson: A lot of things got talked about in this room, and none of them were dainty.

"Manager's name?" Butch said.

"Oswaldo. He's Brazilian too, but legal."

Butch turned to me. "Want to take this one, Conway?"

Every head turned. Every eye locked.

"h.e.l.l yes," I said.

By dinnertime the next day, Rosie had 100 percent of her tips, retroactive. Oswaldo had a busted nose and a dislocated shoulder.

And I had a purpose.

Phigg had a five-minute head start, but there weren't many roads up here. h.e.l.l, there weren't many places for roads to go. Rourke became boonies real quick. I saw the occasional ranch house or trailer, sad little vegetable stands, a state forest to my right. To my left I caught glimpses of the Souhegan River, which paralleled the road.

In ten minutes, I came to a crossroads. Straight would continue northeast, a right would pull me southeast, a left would cut back northwest. On pure gut I took the left. This road was a little wider and a little faster, with occasional slow-vehicle lanes for trucks working their way into the White Mountains.

I was pa.s.sing a semi when I flashed past a Gulf station, so I d.a.m.n near missed Phigg. As I cleared the semi I cut a glance over my right shoulder-and saw, around the side of the Gulf, a red car that might be an old Sentra.

It took me another couple miles to find a safe turnaround, so it was ten minutes before I eased to the shoulder a hundred yards north of the Gulf. It was a s.h.i.tty spot: I couldn't even see most of the gas station's side parking area, and if it was Phigg in there and he pulled my way, he'd spot my truck.

But I didn't want to drive past a second time, and if I pulled any closer, I'd draw attention. So I lit up my hazard lights, left the truck, scrambled uphill to a layer of tall pines that shielded me from the road, and walked toward the Gulf until I nailed a view.

And it was a h.e.l.l of a view.

Phigg's s.h.i.tbox had its tail to me. Phigg sat in the driver's seat, elbows resting on the sill of his open window, talking with somebody in the next car.

That car, a silver Jetta, was backed into a parking s.p.a.ce, making for easy driver-to-driver chat.

Huh.

I sat in pine needles and watched. The sun on the Jetta's windshield made it hard to see the driver, so I focused on Phigg, reading his body language. He seemed tight: He listened more than he talked, made small nods from time to time, checked his rearview mirror a lot.

After five minutes of this, Phigg gave a final big nod and they started their cars. Phigg reached through his window like he wanted a high five or a handshake, but he got nothing and pulled the hand back in.

I gritted my teeth. If Phigg swung north, he'd see my F-150 at the side of the road and any edge I'd just earned would evaporate.

I got lucky: He took a left and drove south.

The Jetta headed north with its window still down, and I got a good look at the driver. A black woman, youngish, with short hair.

Huh.

Ninety minutes later I pulled into Charlene's driveway, my stomach tight. With the truck's windows busted out I hadn't bothered to run the AC, so my shirt was sweat-pasted to my back. I saw n.o.body was home, and my stomach loosened. I tried not to think about why an empty house relaxed me.

It's a Cape Codstyle place in Shrewsbury-not far from Framingham, just east of Worcester. I've dated Charlene Bollinger on and off. We're both divorced. We both have eighteen-year-olds. That turned into a soap opera a while back when my son, Roy, and Charlene's daughter, Jesse, fell in love. For now, Jesse was in Chicago getting help for anorexia. Roy just finished high school out in western Ma.s.sachusetts, where his mother raised him. He didn't want to commit to college until Jesse came back and graduated. Their plan: Go to the same school. True Love Always.

As the G.o.dd.a.m.n world turns.

I keyed my way into the air-conditioned house, took my shirt off, tossed it in the laundry hamper on my way to the kitchen, fixed an ice water, looked at the clock.

I smiled. Just past four. Charlene's other daughter, Sophie, would step off the late bus from middle school any minute. Sophie was going on twelve, smart as a whip, funny, my pal.