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Every word of it is true, and I’ve arranged it so that it answers a question he didn’t ask.

You don’t lie to a man like Beau. You give him a truth shaped to fill the hole in his question. He accepts it. He goes away.

He nods slowly, and his shoulders come down.

“That’s rough. That’s genuinely rough. My brother-in-law does drywall; he’s been sitting since October.” He slaps my knee. “You need anything, say it. I mean it. I’ve got a basement full of nothing, four kids, and a wife who’d feed you. Say the word, and you’re at my table Sunday.”

“I’m all right.”

“Course you are.” He gets up. At the door, he stops. I know he has one more thing to say, so I hold still for it. “Six years, Kieran. Six years. You’ve never said yes to me.”

Then he’s gone down the hall, hollering at Emil about the charger.

I sit on the edge of Marty’s table with my feet off the ground for a while. Then I put my gear on, take Emil’s shots, and stop eleven of thirteen. Nils watches practice from the bench with folded arms. He says four words to the whole room in an hour.

Marek’s office is on the fourth floor of a squat brick building at the edge of the port district, above an insurance broker and a sewing-machine repair shop. The plate by the door carries his name, his designation, and nothing else.

I get there at one, and he isn’t there.

I don’t call ahead. I sit on the half landing with my back to the wall, elbows on my knees. The stairwell smells like floor cleaner and cold. A woman passes with a bag of sewing-machine parts. She looks at me. I look at the floor.

He comes up at ten past two and stops on the landing when he sees me.

He’s carrying a paper bag from the corner place, a folder tucked under his arm. He doesn’t ask what I’m doing here or check his watch. He gets out his keys, opens the office, and holds the door.

The office is one room and a kitchenette—filing cabinets, a desk, two chairs, a window with the blinds half down and the harbor in the gap. There’s nothing personal in it. No photographs, no certificate on the wall, nothing on the desk but a blotter and a mug.

I stay standing.

“A man came to my building last night,” I say. “Gray coat. He was sitting in the lobby when I came in at midnight. He stood up, said nothing, and then left when the elevator doors shut.”

Marek puts the paper bag down on the desk.

He doesn’t sit or take his coat off.

“You told me nobody goes near my brother while I’m cooperative,” I say. “That’s what you said. That’s the deal I took, and I’ve done every single thing you’ve asked me to do since. I gave you his address in a garage on Saturday night because you asked for it.”

“Yes.”

“So that’s all. That’s what I came to say.”

“Is there anything else you want?”

‘No.”

I’ve thought about that question the entire way over here, in case he asked it. There are things I could ask for—a name, a phone number for whoever is above him, a guarantee in writing, which is a joke, but I could ask.

“No,” I say again.

He takes the folder from under his arm and sets it down square to the edge of the blotter. He looks at it for a second.

“Sit down,” he says. “There’s coffee in the cupboard and the kettle works. I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?”

He’s already at the door.

“Don’t leave,” he says.