I’ll get Fenton to give me a hand.”

“Fenton. That the guy you brought in yesterday? You seem pretty chummy; how come you don’t bring him in more often?”

Conversational stuff now, distraction. “Actually yesterday was the first time.” He lifted his head to confirm that they were out of earshot from the other men. “Some of these guys, they’re fine to drink with, but not quite the class of men that Fenton normally associates with.” Maybe not so conversational.

“But you are.”

“Yeah.” Dammit. Yeah.

“But Langston’s not.”

Rudd stood up, with difficulty yet unwilling to give that away. Not that he was fooling anybody, he knew from experience, and experience was something that this woman Jill evidently had her share of. “I get my own whiskey for now. You can answer your own questions.”

She saw that she had offended him and regretted it. She needed him; her instincts told her, he was her best shot at getting out of Tony’s alive, getting to somewhere safe-though where that might be she’d have a hard time saying. The television was painting a pretty gloomy picture. Yet there were still cities in which the violence had been kept to a minimum. It would still be at the spreading stage this early on. Certainly a slowing stage would follow, a time for people to catch their breath and realize exactly what they were doing to each other. But there were no guarantees, not even among the men in here, and this Rudd, Jill knew, would be the one to be next to if things really fell apart. He wasn’t there yet. He was a long way from it. But like herself, he would be able to do what had to be done. She merely had to place herself in that category, something that he would find had to be done.

He nudged himself onto a stool, her watching and him knowing she watched, in front of the bottle, where she had left it and him moving clumsily, backward and confused yet getting the point across with the overkill effort of one who moves to make a point overkilledly. Yet she also noted a basic grace to the action, a practice. One of the men—Jill didn’t know who—issued a single snore from the booths, and it served to make her realize how quiet things had become outside. She thought about a shower, worried that she smelled, inanely wondered if her bra was dirty. Should have worn a black one. Of course they show through a white shirt, and how was she to know she’d be stuck here for who knows how long without a shower. Something she’d heard as a little girl about men hating dirty bras. Those dirty white training bras and her mom getting on her about something no doubt unrelated like keeping her room clean, getting on her with some stupid unrelated offhand remark and her now twenty-seven. Dirty white bra, have to wash it sooner or later with something from the cleaning supply closet, napkin service no doubt having been canceled with yesterday’s firemen murders.

Rudd heard that snore. He thought about how he was being a jerk and how quiet it was outside and how-as much as he’d like to sit here and drink all day-this woman was depending on him to move the bartender’s body into the freezer. He wanted to turn and look at her, make nice and steal another glance at what must be magnificent breasts and at the very least exactly the size he preferred. But he wasn’t being depended on to think about breasts anymore than he was being depended on to drink. He looked at his Rolex; that snore occurred at 10:17 A.M.

Downing his coffee, he stood.