The hard hat nodded vaguely off to the right. “Emergency room exit.”

Mike followed the cement path beneath the long overhang where for decades ambulances had dropped off casualties. Exchanging sun for shadow, his eyes lost their squint and his face softened, becoming younger, friendlier. He was thirty-four years old, an age that had once seemed as insurmountable as Everest but now felt as lived-in as his old beach sandals. Parenthood had added the first wrinkles around his eyes, and his hairline was beginning to thin. Lately, without saying anything about it, Sarah had begun buying low-fat snacks and sending salads with his supper, which he knew was as close as she’d ever come to remarking on the fact that they were both, unthinkable as it once seemed, broaching the hinterlands of middle age.

Mike went inside, walking past Steve Calhoun in his alcove set just within the emergency room entrance.

“Seven o’clock already?” Calhoun asked, scowling down at the Sports page.

“Almost.”

“Ain’t you the eager beaver.” The security guard shook his head. “My old man said never trust a fella that isn’t late for work once in a while.”

“Sounds like the model employee.”

“Then there’s you,” Calhoun continued on, “never been a minute late in your life. Coming in early, even.” He seemed to mull it over in his mind. “Man like that must have something real special waiting for him downstairs.”

“Excuse me?”

“Come on, sweet Jolie Braun?”

Mike flushed. “Now listen—”

“Okay, take it easy,” Calhoun said, looking up from his newspaper to nod at the wall of video monitors rising alongside him. “I get paid to notice things, that’s all. Doesn’t mean I got to tell nobody.” A smile crept over his face. “You’re a married man, ain’tcha? Got a kid at home?”

Mike set his hands on the security counter and leaned forward, forcing Calhoun to meet his eyes. “You’re way off base on this.”

“Not that I blame you. Lord knows I’d give my left one to get my hands around some of that.”

“Look—”

“All right, all right, don’t get all bent out of shape.” Calhoun leaned back on his rickety stool and Mike heard the big key ring on his belt jingle. “You know, I’m surprised they even made your sorry ass come in to work tonight. You must have really pissed somebody off up the food chain, huh?”

Mike blew out his breath, relieved at the turn in conversation. “Must have.”

“And the midnight shift no less?” Calhoun scowled at him, the incredulity building in his eyes like an impending sneeze. “Christ Jesus, there ain’t even anybody here! Ambulance fleet transferred the last patients out to Good Sam’s this morning. All that’s left is files and furniture. Otherwise this whole place is as hollowed-out as my checking account.”

“Suits me.” He watched Calhoun’s hand move automatically to the breast pocket of his uniform, finding the soft-pack of discount cigarettes, shaking one out and installing it expertly between his lips. Though he couldn’t have been much older than Mike, Calhoun’s entire physical appearance betrayed a lifetime of spectacular misuse and neglect. He was a scrawny, limping, unshaven man with an enormous Adam’s apple who nonetheless evoked a kind of brute durability, as if the very ligature of his body was strung together by alcohol-cured leather.