"There you go. Best in Eureka County."
"Looks great."
Curtis looked at the coffee mug. It was still nearly full. Tom saw him see it.
"You want a fresh cup with that?" Curtis said. "That one's gotta be cold by now."
"I'm good with water. Thanks."
"It's free," Curtis said. The smile had gotten a little thinner. "Seems a shame to waste it."
"I'll get to it," Tom said, and picked up his fork, and cut into the steak, and ate a bite, and chewed it slowly. It was surprisingly good. That struck him as one of the stranger things that had happened all day.
Curtis lingered by the booth. Outside, the door of the gray pickup opened, and Darrell got out and stood beside the truck with his phone in his hand, looking toward the diner. He looked at his phone, and then at the diner again, and then he started walking across the lot. Not toward the bike, this time. Toward the door.
Tom kept eating. He could feel his pulse in his throat.
The bell over the door jingled. Darrell came in, bringing the heat with him, and stood just inside the doorway for a moment letting his eyes adjust. Up close he looked older than Tom had thought, with deep lines around his eyes and a small white scar through one eyebrow. He nodded at Curtis. He looked at Tom, a long, flat, measuring look, and then at the mug on the table.
"Hot one out there," he said to nobody.
"Sure is," said Tom.
Darrell went to the counter and sat down on a stool, two stools from the end, where he could see Tom's booth in the long mirror behind the counter. "Coke," he said to Wren. She got him one. Her hands were steady now, Tom noticed. Steadier than his. She set the can down in front of Darrell and went back to rolling silverware, and did not look at anyone.
The clock above the register said two forty-four.
Tom ate. Curtis wiped down the counter that did not need wiping. Darrell drank his Coke. The radio played a song about a train. Nobody said anything. The silence stretched out over the diner like a wire pulled tight, and Tom understood that they had figured out, or were in the process of figuring out, that something was wrong. A man who rides all day through the Nevada heat does not let a free cup of coffee go cold in front of him. Not unless he knows.
"You know," Curtis said, after a while, in a voice so friendly it made the back of Tom's neck prickle, "I'm starting to think our coffee ain't good enough for you."
"Coffee's fine," Tom said. "I'm just not much of a coffee guy in the afternoon."
"Funny. You said you'd kill for it when you came in. Wren told me."
At the far end of the counter, Wren's hands stopped moving.