Benji smiled. It wasn’t the big one or the one he used at the bar. It was the small one, the one that was just for rooms where no one was watching, the one that involved his eyes more than his mouth.
“The animals,” he said. “Right.”
He took the ice pack and went down the hall to the foster room. I heard his door close, heard the soft sound of Princess Consuela acknowledging his return with a chirp, and heard the creak of the bed as he settled in.
I washed my mug, checked on Hiro, who was asleep at the foot of my bed, his breathing steady, checked on General Tso, who was on the refrigerator, one eye open, maintaining his eternal vigil, then checked on Potato, who was on the couch, who was always on the couch, who would be on the couch when the sun went dark and the seas boiled and the last star burned out.
I went to bed.
I did not write a Post-it.
Some things were better left without a written record, especially the things you weren’t ready to read back to yourself in the morning.
But I lay there in the dark for a while, listening to the apartment settle.
I noticed the quality of the silence had changed again.
It was the same quiet, the same nighttime hush of a building at rest, but it registered differently now that I knew everyone was home and safe and accounted for.
The animals nested in their places.
The man down the hall lay on his bed, in his room, with his cat.
I stared into the darkness where the ceiling fan spun.
Everyone was accounted for.
Everyone was home.
Chapter 15
Benji
Dante Pierce walked into Barbacks on a Wednesday afternoon looking like someone had ordered a bouncer from a catalog titled “People You Do Not Want to Mess With,” and then, at the last minute, given him the face of a Renaissance painting.
He was enormous.
Not tall-enormous, though he was tall, maybe six-two, but dense-enormous, built with the kind of broad, layered muscle that suggested either serious gym time or a previous career moving furniture or possibly large boulders. His skin was a deep, rich black that caught the bar’s warm lighting and made him look like he’d been carved from onyx. His head was shaved clean, and he wore a black T-shirt that fit him the way a wetsuit fits a Navy SEAL, which is to say, technically correct but with a level of anatomical tension that suggested the garment was aware of itslimitations and was coping bravely.
He was also, and I want to be clear about this because it became relevant almost immediately, holding a paperback copy ofAnna Karenina.
The book wasn’t tucked in a bag or shoved in a back pocket. He held it in his massive hand, with a thumb marking his place about two-thirds of the way through, the cover creased and softened with the wear of a book that had been read in coffee shops and on bus rides and in whatever quiet moments a man could carve out of a day.
Mark had been interviewing bouncer candidates for a week, a process that had produced a parade of men who ranged from “probably fine” to “almost certainly has an outstanding warrant.”
Thankfully, Mark’s standards were exacting in a way that made Peter’s whiteboard look casual. He wanted someone who could handle a confrontation without creating one, who understood that the job was ninety percent presence and ten percent intervention. Perhaps most importantly, he wanted a man who wouldn’t make the regulars feel like they were entering a nightclub that took itself too seriously.
Mark spotted Dante first as he stepped into the bar.
“Dante Pierce?” Mark said, standing from thecorner booth where he’d been interviewing.
“That’s me.” Dante’s voice was a gravely bass that seemed to originate somewhere around his kneecaps and travel upward through several geological layers before reaching the surface. He extended a hand that could have palmed a basketball—possibly two at once—without trying. Mark shook it and visibly recalibrated whatever mental image he’d built from the résumé.
“Thanks for coming in. Have a seat.”
I was behind the bar, prepping for the evening shift, close enough to hear the interview if I didn’t make too much noise with the ice scoop. This was technically eavesdropping, but I considered it quality assurance, since anyone who worked the door at Barbacks would be interacting withmycustomers. I had a vested interest in the caliber of that interaction.
“Your résumé says you did security at The Yard in Ybor City for two years,” Mark said.
