The three rise from the gloom wrapped in their jackets as tattered as winding cloth and move to the door, and out. Split picks up a piece of metal that leans in the shadow of the jamb and it scrapes across the cement floor. He folds it into his coat as they pass the row of rusted boilers and the maze of pipes that snake out into the body of the hotel. They take the steps to the dim hallway that slinks past the laundry room. Just passing shadows, they tilt darkly down the hall and out the back door into the alley. They step into the winter blackness, into the stammering heart of the city.

They set off down Third Avenue to the river, keeping to the smaller streets which in a few hours will see cars quietly lining the chipped aprons of warehouses and plants still sucking life from the Mississippi. The rest of the city averts its eyes and thinks about the cold. Downtown is still; no one is on the street, and along the straight stretch of Third the traffic lights change in succession, marking the passing of nothing, miming the flow of traffic. The buildings reach high and through the dome of orange city light the stars whisper pale and unmoved. Three blocks west the IDS Tower rises unfettered by the spare night. Dayton’s storefronts are bathed in light and the mannequins sleep standing up, already surrounded by Easter fluff and rabbits wearing hats.

A taxi rolls by and T-Man and Simon watch as Split nudges a Marlboro from his pack. He holds the box out to Simon without turning his head as he fumbles in his trouser pockets for a book of matches. They light up and continue down Third Avenue behind the bobbing constellation of their cigarettes. They pass the police station with its beasts of burden parked docilely along the curb. They hurry over Fifth Street, all of them trying not to look back at the station, but not letting the others know. There are fears among men that are not shared. Third Avenue begins to rise and the gurgling of sewers and steam is replaced with the slush of the river as they near the bank. The wind blows strong over the river and the dam spins the ice-choked water in a yellow spume. It hums against the concrete banks and through the footings of the bridge. Flats of ice break free and are swept toward the violence of water and are crushed and disappear.

They retreat as far as they can into their coats and reach out with their hands only to flick the gray ash from their cigarettes.

“Where’s the car?” asks Simon.

Split points downriver.

“Around the bend, before you get to the Franklin Bridge.”

“Why’d we go this way, then?” asks T-Man.

“Cause it’s scenic.”