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“Breakfast,” I tell him.

He gets up so fast he almost falls off the bed.

Merek’s in the kitchen in a T-shirt and sweatpants, which is the most casual I’ve ever seen him, frying eggs in the cast-iron pan. He looks up when I come in and does a whole-body scan of me, top to bottom, before he says anything.

“How’s the head?”

“Better. Mostly gone.”

“Knees?”

“Ugly.” I tug up the hem of his T-shirt, which I slept in, to show him my knees, and he winces. “Don’t make that face. They’re just bruises.”

He pours me coffee while I scoop Billy Bob’s kibble and dig his pill out of the bottle and push it into a piece of cheese. Billy Bob eats the cheese and spits the pill out onto the floor. I pick it up and do it again. He eats it the second time.

“He does that every day,” Merek says.

“He hates pills and loves cheese,” I agree.

There’s a knock at the front door. Merek doesn’t even look up.

“That’s Tav,” he says. “He’s been texting me since six asking if you’re awake.”

Tav has to duck to come in. He’s carrying a paper bag from the bakery on Thurman, and he looks terrible. His fur’s flat on one side, and there’s a smear of grease on his forearm and sawdust in his ears.

He stops in the kitchen doorway and looks at me sitting at the table in Merek’s T-shirt, with my coffee and my bruised knees.

“Boss,” he says.

“Hi.”

He puts the bag on the table. “Pastries.”

“You brought me pastries.”

“Morning buns.” He doesn’t sit down. He’s looking at my hands, at the scrapes on my palms. “How do you feel?”

“Like I fell down a lot. My head’s okay.” I pull the bag over and look inside. There are six morning buns. “Did the inspector come?”

“At two. We went through every room downstairs until eight this morning. The reinforced suite’s sealed. They’re pulling the whole suppression system Monday.” He finally sits, on the bench Merek keeps for him at the end of the table, which creaks. “Everything else looked clean. I want to look again.”

“You were up all night.”

“Yes.”

Merek sets a plate of eggs in front of him without asking. Tav doesn’t pick up his fork.

I tear a morning bun in half and eat some of it. It’s still warm.

“Okay,” I say. “So if downstairs is clean, I’ll come in early tonight. I want to get back behind the bar. Kit’s been covering my station for two nights, and I...”

“No,” Tav says.

I stop chewing.

“You’re not going back down there,” he says. “And you’re not working the bar. You’re going to sit in Lenart’s office, and you’re going to...”

“Tav.”