“I spent fifty-five years looking at a stone with nothing under it,” I said.

Carl went silent, his mouth falling open a little before he turned his eyes back to the highway.

“Brenda just jammed register one on a fleet card,” he said after a long pause.

“Then you’d better go show her how to clear it,” I said.

Carl turned his clipboard over in his hands, hesitated and then headed back to the front glass doors.

I picked up the heavy wooden scrub brush, dunked it in the bucket of gray soapy water and bent down to scour the black grease off the concrete edge.