If only Ghazi would let the asylum thing rest. On the way to Del Fuegos, on the way back, it was Charlie Stone, Charlie Stone, Charlie Stone. The third waitress, who was still Ghazi’s girlfriend, who had introduced Ghazi to Charlie, was Aziz’s shadow. “Charlie’s good people,” she said to Aziz, while they waited for their margaritas from the slow young bartender. “Charlie’s been asking about you,” she said, when lunch was quiet on a Monday. “Charlie wanted you to have this,” she said, pressing an envelope into Aziz’s hand as he headed out the door for the bus and home.

It was a conspiracy. Mourad said applying for asylum was the thing to do. Heather, prodded by Ghazi, took Aziz aside on a Saturday morning and said, “Lahouari, he can’t apply. Ghazi says you, you suffered, you can. They’re still after you. Mourad was telling me it hasn’t been easy for you. You go home—” She moved a finger across her neck in a line.

Aziz explained how Charlie Stone had no secretary, only a phone on the wall and a desk with no papers. “You work at a law firm,” he said. “This—is this a lawyer?”

She looked worried. “Don’t go through him,” she said. “I can help you get the forms. I go by the federal building all the time for work. I’ll help you fill them out.”

Lahouari, coming from the bathroom the next morning, said, “They tell you asylum. Listen.”

Hamid that night said, “Make the wrong done to you help you.”

Ali the next morning said, “If I could, I would try it.”

Rafik passed Aziz in the kitchen, sat next to him on the sofa in the living room, bumped his arm in the hallway coming out of the bathroom. He had nothing to say. All he asked a few days later when Aziz was leaving for work was, “So, you closing up Del Fuegos tonight?”

“Go home,” Ghazi said.

“I want to wait.” Aziz was putting Sweet-n-Low in the table holders.

“You take the bus now, home before one. Stay with me, two.”

“We have to talk. This asylum. Charlie.”

Ghazi shrugged. As if he had not been banging that hammer. “You need sleep,” he said.

“Hill told me to close up,” Aziz said.

“What does Hill know who closes? You. Me. Me. You. The same.”

When Ghazi set the alarm and locked the three deadbolts, it was already two. The streetlights were flashing red. It would be a long wait for the bus at this hour. It was cold too. Another November in Boston. He started walking toward the stop. He smelled a cigarette. Had Aziz come back? He looked up. There was a man smoking on the bench at the bus stop. He was looking directly at Ghazi. He was in shirtsleeves.

“You have a woman?”

The man in shirtsleeves was driving. Ghazi was in the passenger seat.