Store modernization.
Equipment financing.”
Mr. Collins stared.
“We haven't heard anything.”
“You weren't supposed to yet.”
Frank added:
“Final review was tonight.”
Mr. Collins looked at him.
“You came here to inspect us?”
Frank shook his head.
“To remember.”
Mr. Collins frowned.
Frank continued:
“I was supposed to meet them at the office twenty miles from here.”
He nodded toward Rachel and the others.
“I canceled the car.”
Rachel corrected him.
“You ignored the car.”
“Same thing.”
He looked at the pickup.
“I wanted to drive my brother's truck.”
Jake asked:
“Why?”
Frank looked at the wet pavement.
“Because I had been making decisions about stations like this one from conference rooms for too long.”
Rachel said nothing.
Frank continued:
“I wanted to stop somewhere without warning.”
“Buy fuel.”
“Go inside.”
“Watch.”
Mr. Collins' expression hardened again.
“So it was a test.”
Frank shook his head.
“No.”
“You deliberately came here without telling anyone who you were.”
“Yes.”
“And watched what happened.”
“Yes.”
“That is a test.”
Frank thought.
“No.”
“What is it then?”
Frank looked at Jake.
“A test hopes you perform well.”
He turned back to Collins.
“I wanted the truth.”
Silence.
Frank continued:
“And I got it.”
Mr. Collins looked down.
Rachel spoke:
“Mr. Collins, did you really fire him?”
Mr. Collins nodded.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He ignored me.”
“Was the money his?”
“Yes.”
“Did he steal fuel?”
“No.”
“Give away company property?”
“No.”
“Create a safety issue?”
“No.”
She waited.
Mr. Collins exhaled.
“He challenged my authority.”
Frank nodded.
“There.”
Mr. Collins looked irritated.
“It's easy for you to stand here and judge me.”
Frank didn't react.
“You have money.”
“Resources.”
“A daughter who can send three cars in seven minutes.”
Mr. Collins continued:
“I have one station.”
“One bad refrigeration repair can wipe out a month.”
“One employee starts giving money to every stranded person, and pretty soon every sad story becomes my problem.”
Jake looked at the ground.
Frank listened.
Mr. Collins kept going.
“You know how many people ask for free gas?”
“How many fake emergencies?”
“How many stolen cards?”
“How many chargebacks?”
Frank nodded.
“A lot.”
Mr. Collins looked surprised.
“You know?”
“I still read reports.”
Rachel smiled faintly.
Frank continued:
“And I know fraud exists.”
“I know margins are bad.”
“I know small station owners are under pressure.”
He looked around.
“But none of that answers why you fired a seventeen-year-old kid for using his own money.”
Mr. Collins didn't respond.
Frank added:
“You could have warned him.”
“Talked to him.”
“Explained boundaries.”
“Made a policy.”
“You chose humiliation.”
That hit.
Mr. Collins looked at Jake.
The boy was staring toward the road.
Frank said:
“Why?”
Mr. Collins' voice lowered.
“Because he ignored me in front of customers.”
Rachel looked at him.
Frank waited.
Mr. Collins continued:
“And because I was angry.”
Frank nodded.
“That I understand.”
Mr. Collins looked up.
“You do?”
“Yes.”
Frank's voice remained calm.
“I've fired people because I was angry.”
Rachel turned toward him.
“More than once.”
Frank ignored her.
“I've made bad decisions because I didn't want anyone to see me lose control.”
Mr. Collins studied him.
Frank continued:
“Having money didn't make me wiser.”
“It just made my bad decisions more expensive.”
Jake looked at Frank.
That was the first moment he stopped seeing him as a mysterious rich man and started seeing him as an old man who had been wrong before too.
Rachel asked:
“What do you want to do?”
Frank looked toward Jake.
“First, I want his job restored.”
Mr. Collins nodded immediately.
“Done.”
Frank's expression sharpened.
“No.”
The manager froze.
Frank continued:
“You don't restore it because I showed up with people.”
“You restore it because firing him was wrong.”
Mr. Collins looked at Jake.
A long pause.
Then he said:
“Jake.”
The boy looked over.
Mr. Collins swallowed.
“I was wrong to fire you.”
Jake said nothing.
Mr. Collins continued:
“I was embarrassed that you ignored me.”
“And I made it about discipline because that sounded better.”
Jake looked surprised.
Mr. Collins added:
“If you still want the job, it's yours.”
Jake looked at Frank.
Frank shook his head.
“Don't ask me.”
Jake looked back at the manager.
“Do you still mean what you said?”
Mr. Collins frowned.
“What?”
“That employees shouldn't get involved.”
Mr. Collins thought.
“I think there need to be limits.”
Jake nodded.
“Me too.”
“But no.”
The manager sighed.
“I don't mean it the way I did earlier.”
Jake looked at him.
“Then yeah.”
“I want the job.”
Mr. Collins nodded.
“Okay.”
Frank smiled.
“Good.”
Rachel asked:
“And the supply agreement?”
Mr. Collins looked toward Frank.
Frank didn't answer immediately.
He walked toward pump six.
Put one hand on the old cream truck.
Then turned.
“We don't sign anything tonight.”
Mr. Collins' face fell.
Rachel nodded.
Frank continued:
“We audit the station.”
“Not to punish.”
“To understand.”
Mr. Collins asked:
“What happens if you don't like what you find?”
Frank smiled slightly.
“Then we don't do business together.”
“And if you do?”
“Then maybe we build something.”
Jake watched.
Mr. Collins looked exhausted.
“What are you looking for?”
Frank looked around the station.
“Whether what happened here was one bad decision.”
He paused.
“Or the way this place works.”
The audit began the following week.
It was not glamorous.
People asked employees questions.
Reviewed scheduling.
Turnover.
Wages.
Breaks.
Customer complaints.
Equipment.
Safety.
Loss prevention.
Inventory.
Mr. Collins hated it.
Then gradually, he stopped fighting.
The results were complicated.
He wasn't a terrible manager.
Employees were paid on time.
Nobody had been cheated.
Safety standards were generally good.
He had personally driven two workers home during storms.
Once, he loaned money to an employee whose car broke down.
Jake didn't know that.
But there were problems.
Mr. Collins was controlling.
He overreacted when challenged.
Employees were afraid to make even small decisions.
He had written up workers for giving coffee to stranded drivers.
He had forbidden use of a small emergency gas can unless customers prepaid.
Not because he was heartless.
Because losses over the years had trained him to distrust everyone.
Frank read the report.
Then met Collins in the convenience store office.
“Why do you still run this place?”
Mr. Collins looked confused.
“It's mine.”
“That wasn't the question.”
Mr. Collins leaned back.
“Because my wife and I bought it together.”
Frank waited.
“She died six years ago.”
Frank's expression softened.
“I'm sorry.”
“Cancer.”
“She handled the store.”
“I handled fuel and maintenance.”
“When she died, I almost sold.”
“Why didn't you?”
Mr. Collins looked through the office window.
“She loved this place.”
Frank nodded.
“There's always someone.”
Mr. Collins understood.
“Your brother?”
“And my wife.”
Frank looked toward the old truck outside.
Mr. Collins asked:
“What happened to her?”
“Stroke.”
“Four years ago.”
“Sorry.”
Frank nodded.
For a while neither spoke.
Then Mr. Collins said:
“I think after my wife died, I stopped wanting anything unpredictable.”