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death."
    Automatic doors opened. Someone smelling of apples emerged.
    "Hey. Sandy."
    "Morning, Bob. You ever go home?"
    "Sure I do. Break time?"
    "You bet."
    "Catch as catch can, huh?"
    "Better believe it. This day could go down the tubes fast, any moment. Twenty-seven-week triplets on the board."
    "So I heard."
    With a discreet ding, the elevator sighed open.
    "Later, Bob."
    "Give the kids a hug for me, Sandy. Rich get over his cold?"
    "For now, anyway."
    'Woman's a hero," Skinner said as the doors shut. "Her ten-year-old's some kind of musical genius, been giving concerts since
     she was six, had to have a special cello made for her. Four-year-old's a cystic. Sandy's always been torn between the two
     of them, what they need. Husband can't handle it at all. Either he's gone completely, out of the picture for months at a time,
     or he's there bringing her flowers one moment, beating on her the next. Then every day she comes in to worry over these kids. Buy you a coffee?"
    We descended together to the lobby, where I'd been heading all along. In the cafeteria Skinner pushed my cup across a table
     sticky with God knows what. We go suddenly into free fall, you could stand on it and be okay.
    "Sugar? Cream?"
    "I'm fine."
    I sat back dipping in and out of nearby conversations. Lawyers with briefcases of resdess papers just to our right, cops with
     crackling radios also nearby, one of them a rookie being talked through a written report, man with a catch in his voice asking
     How can you do this to me, Thelma, don't you know I'd do anything for you? don't you? as the woman stood and walked away.
    "So," Skinner said. "You don't have a kid in NI, what were you doing up there?"
    "Told you. I got off on the wrong floor."
    "Maybe you were meant to."
    Uh-oh, I thought, here it comes. One of those guys who's got it all figured out. Next thing I knew he'd be witnessing to me,
     wanting to know what church I attended, inviting me to his.
    "What about you?" I said.
    "Me?"
    "Son? daughter? grandchild?"
    "No, nothing like that, nothing at all. Not even married—not any longer, anyway. Truth is. . ." He trailed off. "Name's Lew,
     right?"
    "Right."
    "Well, truth is I'm sterile, Lew. Susie, my wife, she had some considerable trouble with that. She foughtit, but itfinally
     got on top of her. Can't say I blame her all that much. Up in Minnesota last I heard, living with some student half her age.
    "I'm a veteran. Korea—you remember all that? Gave half a lung to the cause of democracy. TB. Tilings didn't go quite the way
     they were supposed to. Squirreled out awhile there too, afterward, in the hospital. Sequelae, the docs like to call it. Code
     for somebody screwed up. So for a few years there I was a frequent flyer as far as hospitals go. Hung out on the wards a lot.
     ER's, too— that's some-thing'll definitely change the way you see the world. Then one day I walked by the nursery. There was this kid in a crib
     just inside that I'd have sworn was watching me. Even held up his arm that jerky way they do, pointing it at me. So I started
     going by every few hours, and you know? it was like he was always glad to see me. He'd hold up that shaky arm and smile. Like
     he'd been waiting. Later I found out his name was Daniel. Mom was barely fifteen, no prenatal care. Came in to have him, then
     no one ever saw her again. Nurses named him. One of them finally took him home with her. Great world, huh?"
    The one we have, anyway. Late and soon, getting and spending, laying waste our powers. All that.
    "Boys need a refill?" a waitress asked.
    "No thanks." One cup and I already had a buzz on.
    "77/ have half a cup more if you don't mind, ma'am."
    She poured and walked away, shoes slapping at the floor. House slippers with the backs caved in, no doubt, latest fashion
     in American footwear.
    "I live four blocks from here," my companion said, "over by the river, in this tiny little house made out of cypress and set
     up on cement blocks. Onion plants