“Hot can always be found,” Ghazi finally said. “It is getting close enough to warm, without burning, that matters to me.” Rafik was unimpressed. Aziz wondered if that was meant for him. If so, what did it mean? He could not see Ghazi’s face in the dark. Aziz twitched. His eyes hurt. His toes hurt. He sat on his hands, hoping for warmth; soon he was asleep. When they got to Brooks Street, Aziz woke to see that Ghazi had worked up a closeness with Rafik. They were making plans to go shopping the next morning on Newbury Street. This was a street of minted perfect Rafik could not, unemployed or employed, afford. Had it been Rafik’s idea or Ghazi’s? Aziz cursed his sleeping.

Inside the gloves, his hands were sweating. The rubber was thick and black. The cuff of one was torn, and Aziz worried it might split further. Should he take it off and turn it inside out? Dropping a plate would be bad. A stoned Cuban with a deep tray of dishes came toward him. Behind him, John Hill was upbraiding an elderly busboy, black-skinned, silver-haired. Aziz looked at Ghazi. With the water rushing and Hill barking, talking was impossible. Ghazi looked back, then directed his head toward Hill and mouthed, “Shitbag.”

John Hill was on them. “You boys keep good time.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Aziz.

“We like,” Ghazi contributed.

As John Hill walked back out to the floor, Aziz closed his eyes. John Hill would hate them soon enough, no matter how they bowed.

Ghazi tapped him. He spoke in Aziz’s ear.

“Rafik is in shit.”

“Tell me.”

“He charged over five thousand dollars on a credit card this morning.”

Aziz looked around, afraid someone had heard. Not a one could care. He was embarrassed. “Are you sure? Do you know this new money?”

“Aziz.”

“Okay. Okay.”

“He bought two suits.”

“Two?”

“Only two. I swear to God.”

“He is crazy.”

“You say he does not work.”

“No. Not now. He did.”

“What work?”

“A moving company in Brighton. Russians.”

“When did that stop?”

“When Mourad came, he had not been working. When the Three came he was not. He took me there after the Djara. So he has not worked since the Djara.”

“The Djara? Took you where?”

“I met—no, I saw a woman, she looked like Djara. We were at Reach, and that night Heather made me take her to Reach—”

“Reach?”

“A club.”

“And Rafik took you where?”

“To the moving company.”

“Where he worked.”

“He said he worked there.”

“But you think no.”

“The men seemed fake to me. Called in for show. It was that night I found the smell of hash in his room. He had these suitcases on a rope—”

“A rope?”

“Across the ceiling of his room. His and Heather’s.”

“Is she—?”

“I know nothing about the true nature of Heather.”

“The suitcases.”

“They were cement.”

“Concrete?”