“It’s Myra,” I say.

He yanks open the door, walks away from it without having seen me. “Some people wear a watch and actually look at it,” he mutters, walking down the hall. “If I wanted you to come this early, I’d’ve told you that. I’m not ready, I’m on the phone. Conference call. You going to have to wait, and I don’t want to hear nothing about it. I got a bidness to run.”

He turns around and, for the first time, sees Chip.

“Oh,” he says. “I didn’t know you was here.”

“Hey, DeWitt.”

“‘Be right there, my man.”

Let’s see. I’ll give Frank to Diann, and DeWitt to Chip. Wish them all the happiness.

• • •

After I do DeWitt’s dressing—remarkable progress, the wound is nearly healed—I get into the car without Chip. I’m going to finish my work day alone. Chip is staying at DeWitt’s—they’re going to watch a movie together. I had plenty of misgivings about leaving Chip there, I did everything but pick him up and carry him out, but they both insisted it was fine, and in the end, I had to simply leave without him. DeWitt said he had roast beef sandwiches, they’d eat some lunch and enjoy some “fine art” entertainment. Chip wasn’t particularly interested in seeing the Schwartzes again, and I need to spend a fair amount of time at the agency’s office, picking up supplies and doing paperwork—it would actually be better not to have Chip there. I told them I’d be back in a few hours.

“Make sure you not late, neither!” DeWitt said, walking me out, and when I started to say something back to him, he said, “Aw, relax. I don’t want you in this neighborhood after a certain time of the day, is all. Be a little funky for you. And anyway, your boy be tired by then.”

I pull away from the curb, look up at DeWitt’s window. I hope none of his clients come over. But so what if they do. Nobody will hurt anybody—all of that happens outside DeWitt’s place. It’s actually more dangerous bringing Chip in and out of DeWitt’s than letting him stay there for a while. And if Chip were to meet a client, it would at least be interesting for him, a better movie than the one they’re planning on watching.

I was once at DeWitt’s when a customer came to do a deal with him. It was because I’d been late, that’s why our paths crossed, and DeWitt was none too pleased about it. “She just leaving,” he told the man. “She ain’t even ’posed to be here in the first place and she know that. She be out of our way in a second.”