I pull the battered thermos from my coat and toss it to him underhand. He catches it against his chest with a grunt.
“Careful,” he says. “You trying to cave in my ribs?”
“If I wanted your ribs broken, they would be broken.”
“That’s what I like about you, Kauss. Always sweet-talking the elderly.”
“You are not elderly. You are irritating.”
“Same thing if you live long enough.” Al unscrews the thermos and sniffs. “Is this coffee or engine runoff?”
“Yes.”
He drinks anyway, grimaces, and drinks again. “Damn. That’ll put hair on places hair gave up on years ago.”
Several people sleep near the heater coil under blankets, scavenged thermal foil, and old coats. I recognize every shape. Doreen with the cybernetic ankle that jams in cold weather. Renn, who lost his warehouse job when his union chapter collapsed. Old Juno, who speaks to nobody before noon and keeps a knife under her pillow. Two brothers from some shipping crew that stranded them here after a payroll dispute. They are not my people, I tell myself. I do not have people.
I still know where each of them sleeps.
Al watches me over the thermos rim. “You went topside.”
“I patrol.”
“You skulk. There’s a difference.”
“I patrol quietly.”
“You skulk with vocabulary.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “You saw her again, didn’t you?”
My shoulders go tight before I decide they will not. Al sees it anyway because the old bastard misses nothing useful and everything convenient.
“I saw many people.”
“Blonde bakery girl.”
I say nothing.
Al grins, showing uneven teeth. “That’s a yes.”
“You invent meaning from silence.”
“Son, silence is half of what people say. The other half is lies.”
“I am not your son.”
“No, you’re too tall and too ugly.” Al takes another drink. “But you did see her.”
I turn toward the west passage. “There was no trouble near her shop.”
“Didn’t ask if there was trouble.”
“You imply too much.”
“I imply because you stomp around like a haunted siege tower every night, but lately your haunted siege tower path just happens to swing past Sweet Tooth Bakery three times before dawn.”
“It is near several vulnerable intersections.”
“Uh-huh.”
