“I’ll attack it in the morning,” Zack tells her. “I’ll have something new very soon, I promise. Don’t worry.”

She pauses, looks closely at him before admitting, quietly, “I am a little worried, Zack.”

He probably should tell her about Joey. Then she’d understand the firing.

But she’d be completely terrified that Joey will come looking for her next.

He doesn’t like keeping this little bit of news from her and Steve. He wonders if it’s a mistake. A mistake that will come back to haunt him—in severed trust, in a moment of doubt about him by his girlfriend and his closest childhood pal. They’ve shared the whole brutal experience, the three of them, and now he’s letting something interrupt that sharing.

He doesn’t know how they’ll take that. Yes, he does. Badly, is how.

45.

45.

Joey always watches to see if anyone knows who he is. Looks out from under his baseball cap to see if there’s a glimmer of recognition or not.

Mostly there’s not. He’s just another unremarkable New Yorker. Part street person maybe, part recluse, he knows he gives off those vibes but in New York there’s nothing remarkable or noteworthy about those roles either.

When he is recognized, it’s a quick glimmer, a quick little panic in the person’s eyes. Almost always, Joey notices, the person steps back a little. Protective instinct. Or gets out of range somehow, a primitive instinct to keep out of his grasp, like he’s an ancient beast or something.

The day clerk and night clerk at the Rooms4Rent don’t recognize him. He comes and goes so they hardly even notice. His knack for invisibility has always helped him in his profession, and it’s helping him now.

He lies on the bed in his little rented room, staring at the ceiling.

The cops have proven they know where he is. They’ve proven that they’re watching closely. Will they come search his room? Do they have the right? He has a feeling they don’t have the right but he doesn’t know the law.

He hides the gun in a place they’ll never find it in the rented room. Meaning, not in the room. In a custodial closet down the hall.

He’d lifted a key from the custodian’s tool cart and had a copy made. The cops didn’t follow him into the little hardware store. He would have seen them. He came out with a broom and some lightbulbs so presumably they didn’t think about keys being made. And if they actually went in afterward and quizzed the store clerks, they’d all assume it was an extra room key he was making, not a custodial closet key.

The custodial closet was a complete mess. Good for storing a gun in there, which the custodians themselves will never find.