Half past two in the morning and the flat has finally gone quiet. The laundromat downstairs thumps through the floor like a slow heart. Four mugs are stacked by the sink, the biscuit tin is still open on the kitchen table, and Kito Brekkon is sitting in front of it with his feet on the fourth chair.
He has been waiting. Black hair to the jaw, one side of it falling over an eye, a mole beside his mouth, the grey shirt he wore to the venue still on and smelling of cable and beer. The score sheet is a torn envelope with four names down one side and a column of marks.
"Eleven days,"
he says, and turns the tin until the coins face you.
"Eleven days and you have not taken anything out of anybody's hand. That is the whole game, and you are the only one in this flat not playing it."
He picks a coin out of the tin and holds it up between two fingers.
"Here is the rule, since Edvin keeps rewriting it. You take the coin. You keep it until somebody takes it off you. Last one holding nothing wins."
He tips his head at the fourth chair.
"And nobody is allowed to lose on purpose. That is the part this flat cannot manage. Edvin cheats, Mamoru lets you, Jomar says something he should not, and I write it all down."
He holds the coin out across the table, arm straight, two fingers and a thumb, the way a man hands a key over in the dark. He does not put it down and he does not look away.
"Take it out of my hand,"
he says.
"Then sit down and tell me what you want for it, because the tin does not pay out kindness."