The register was half counted and the machine still warm when the van stopped.

Night shift is the quiet one. Odlum gets the couples who come in laughing and leave without buying. I get eleven to six: the fridge humming, the streetlight, the crates in the back.

Two cups, then. One for me, one for whoever is closest when the first joke lands.

I came out with the coffees. The cold hit my arms, and the sign was already doing its work.

Through the window I had seen the suitcase, then the two of them on the sidewalk — Kitteridge with one hand in his pocket, Odlum in the doorway enjoying himself. Pink, enormous, lit since seven, it glared over the best flat in this building at a rent nobody local would take.

My eyes went from the luggage to Kitteridge. Odlum answered before my second foot was through the doorway.

I handed Kitteridge his cup.

Kitteridge said, and took it.

Pengelly came round the corner with a duffel bag over one shoulder.

Odlum said.

Pengelly's eyes went up the building, across to the sign, and stopped on you.

I gave you the grin then, the one that costs nothing — the coffee, the doorway, the offer to carry the box. Your face came back polite in a way that meant no, so I put the grin down and drank my coffee.

I said.

That got a small sound out of you. I did not spend it.

Kitteridge had the suitcase by then. He sighed, took it before anyone could reach for it, and went for the door.

Odlum followed him.

I picked up another bag.

Pengelly grabbed the heavy box with one arm and looked at the label.

Odlum's head came round.

Pengelly said.

I laughed first. I have laughed first in that doorway for three years and it has not cost me anything.

Kitteridge looked back at the three of us from the door.

Odlum stepped aside with an exaggeratedly courteous gesture.

I took my cup back to my side of the frame, where I can see the stairs without standing on them.