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My gas gauge pinged. We drove back to the place where we had eaten and parked under the overhang where the fuel pumps were. Leonard got out and began putting gas in the truck. The rain pounded on the overhang. The water splashed all around us. It was pretty dark for the time of day. I glanced at Leonard standing by the pump working the gas nozzle. He gave me a weak salute. I shot him the finger. He shot me the finger back. I never said we were mature.
    I looked back at Gadget.
    “How’d you get that name, Gadget?” I said. “I used to know, but I forgot.”
    She was slow with the answer. “I liked fixing things when I was a girl. I had a knack … Look, Grandpa shouldn’t have asked you to do this. This isn’t good for me or anyone. Other day, when he hit Tanedrue with the cane—”
    “Hold up,” I said. “How many times did he hit him? I just got to know.”
    “A lot. He did it quick. I thought Tanedrue was going to shoot him. I begged him not to.”
    “Your boyfriend sounds like aces. Goddamn, I bet you’re proud.”
    “You got to take me back, Leonard—”
    “I’m Hap.”
    “Whatever. Or let me out here, and I can call someone.”
    “We’re someone.”
    “I mean someone Tanedrue knows. I can’t call him. Cell phones don’t work out there, and that’s all they got. Cell phones. They like it that way. Hell, I don’t even have a phone. Just let me have yours, so I can call someone in town they know, and then you can go on. I see them, I can tell them something, whatever you want, make it some kind of misunderstanding, and I can say you apologized—”
    “Not likely,” I said.
    “You don’t want to get into this any deeper and drag me down too. You do, and hell will be coming.”
    “Too late,” I said. “Did you really like it out there, Gadget?”
    Again, hesitation. “I don’t know.”
    “That means no,” I said.
    “I loved Tanedrue.”
    “Loved?”
    “Love. I love him.”
    “You want to go back because you’re using. That’s it, isn’t it?”
    “No.”
    “I think it is.”
    “I said it isn’t.”
    “It isn’t Tanedrue you want, it’s the monkey.”
    “I just like it. I’m not hooked.”
    “That’s what they all say.”
    She held her stomach.
    I said, “You hungry?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Let’s start with the idea that you are.”
    “Sometimes, I try to eat, I throw up.”
    “That’s the drugs, or …”
    “I’m not pregnant. I been careful about that.”
    “So, you do have some common sense. Damn, girl. You don’t have to do this, live like trash.”
    “You a social worker?”
    “No. Unlike social workers, I really care.”
    She took a long time to respond again. That was okay. I was getting used to it.
    “Tanedrue, he said he was gonna quit dealing, soon as he got us a nest egg.”
    “A rotten egg.”
    “He meant it. He loves me.”
    “You are young, aren’t you?”
    “You don’t know everything.”
    “I don’t know anything. Older I get, less I think I know. But I know this, and I’m going to be crude to make my point. What Tanedrue has is a dumb bitch he can screw and lie to and feed drugs to, and when he’s through with you, when you get so fucked up you can’t tell the difference between a fat mouse and a full-grown elephant, he’ll get rid of you, kid. You won’t be fresh meat to him no more. You won’t be pretty, and you won’t be nothing but a whining whore with a habit. Maybe just some dumb dead bitch in a ditch somewhere.”
    “I ain’t no whore.”
    “You will be. That’s how it’ll work. He’ll turn you out, baby. So he can make a few more bucks off his horse before it dies. He’ll tell you how you’re doin’ it for the two of you, and it don’t mean nothin’, not really—”
    “Shut up! You don’t know everything.”
    “You said that already, and I even agreed with you.”
    Leonard opened the door, said, “Give me some gas money.”
    “You pay”
    “I haven’t got any money.”
    I gave him some money,