“What does it pay?” Joey asks. Still being a good, dumb, dutiful, ambitious soldier. Still trying to believe it’s just another assignment, that it’s his big chance to prove himself to the boss.

Karloff looks at him, pausing a moment. Looking for a suitable answer, he almost shrugs.

It’s suddenly clear to Joey: Karloff has never even thought about the pay because he doesn’t expect Joey to be around to collect.

Will successful completion of the assignment mean never knowing he successfully completed it?

They got him out of prison. But because he’s out, is he now—ironically—being sentenced to die?

Karloff smiles generously, magnanimously. “Name your price, Joey.”

Confirming to Joey that he is not expected to survive.

31.

31.

Zack is assigned the last shift at GreenGirl—six in the evening to one in the morning. He knows, he accepts, that this shift is the least desirable. The mornings are what you want. You’re busy, productive, and employed people leave generous tips in the register jar, people who identify with and admire the baristas’ hustle.

The last shift is customers hanging around with nothing to do, no better place to go, at loose ends, marking time. The last shift is when the drunk and high come in for a sober-up cup or two or three. The last shift is statistically when there is trouble in the store.

The hot Hispanic barista, Roseanne, works the more desirable morning and afternoon shifts so he can’t train with her. He trains with Shaquille, fairly new himself, who’s stuck on the evening shift for now. They initially give Zack just two shifts a week. The money per week is paltry, a joke really, but it’s a start.

“Dude, you got to get yourself a phone. What if we got to reach you? Change your shift around? Need you in an emergency on one of the other shifts? How can you not have a phone?” Shaquille asks.

Zack shrugs. He doesn’t want to explain what happened with his last one, in a GreenGirl no less. He likes that Shaq doesn’t know anything about that, and he wants to keep it that way. “You can call my girlfriend and leave a message. She’ll let me know,” he tells Shaq.

“What if you two break up? You got to get yo’self a phone, okay, man? They ain’t expensive no mo’.” Assuming that Zack has never been able to afford one. Simply doesn’t have the money. “You got to join the world, my man. No choice.”

Zack nods noncommittally.

“Yo, let’s go over the register one more time.”

32.

32.

The meeting is short. Just a few minutes spent sealing his fate before Will is summoned and hustles Joey away from Karloff, out of Karloff’s sight, into yet another dull-colored, blend-in sedan.