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Carlin out front.
    A plump little man with a penchant for ratty sweatpants and sweaters two sizes too small for him, Carlin Pelham is fifty-three, and but for an unkempt horseshoe around the lower portion of his head, completely bald. He always looks like he needs a shave and smells like he could use a good head-to-toe scrubbing. His skin is pasty and unhealthy looking, and when he breathes he tends to wheeze and sniffle incessantly. Luckily for Carlin, his uncle owns the motel, or he’d have been fired long ago. Carlin lives in a small house a few miles from the motel with Marty, his wife of twenty-five years. She’s on disability for severe depression and agoraphobia, is nearly five hundred pounds and has not left their home in more than eight years. Kit has only seen her in photographs.
    Had she not spoken to her on the phone a few times when Carlin hadn’t gone straight home after his shift and she’d called looking for him, Kit probably wouldn’t believe she existed.
    Although Kit has worked with Carlin for several months now, they only see each other for short intervals as they change shifts. Still, due to Carlin’s shocking lack of hygiene, his pornography addiction, breathtaking lack of social skills and his general disregard for anything even remotely resembling sexual harassment laws, her interactions with him are almost always memorable.
    “So you want me to stay?” Carlin asks, bouncing his eyebrows. “If it gets bad maybe we’ll get snowed in together. Power could go out. No power, no heat. You see where I’m going with this?”
    “One, gross.” Kit piles her jet-black hair atop her head and holds it in place with a plastic clip. “And two, you need to get home to Marty. Remember Marty, your wife?”
    “She’s sleeping by now,” he says softly. “Don’t even know I’m gone.”
    Despite the fact that Carlin is, well, Carlin, she can’t help but feel a bit sorry for him. This is his life. It isn’t going to change or improve. Ever. At least for Kit this is a temporary setback. She still has her whole life ahead of her.
    But then, like any character in this novel that is life, can she be sure?
    “I bet she’s already worrying about you getting home safely,” Kit tells him.
    He shrugs. “Maybe.”
    The woman in the video does a cartoon orgasm scream in time with the man slamming into her from behind. “Could you shut that off?”
    “Don’t act like you don’t like it.” He grins, points to the screen. “If I had a crank that big I’d rule the world.”
    “Yeah. Not so much.”
    He shuts the laptop, silences the silicone blonde screamer. “Anyway, drawer’s balanced. Joe Business paid with a Visa but the other dude paid cash. Ice machine’s full and I put the number for the plow guys on the bulletin board in case you need them come morning. If plows can even get through, that is.”
    “Thanks, Carlin. That was actually nice of you.”
    “No problem.” He slides down out of his chair, grabs his plaid flannel coat from the office then scoops up his laptop and tucks it under his arm. “But if you had any class at all you’d show me how grateful you are.”
    “Not to diminish your status as the grandmaster connoisseur of class, but you did something kind without any ulterior motives. Don’t ruin it.”
    Carlin pulls a fur hat with earflaps from his coat pocket and slaps it on his head. “Tell you what. Flash your tits and we’ll call it even.”
    “OK, drive safely now.” Kit takes up position on the chair he just vacated and slides her knapsack onto the counter. “Or not.”
    “Fine, you win, a hand-job it is.”
    “Yeah, just not feeling the whole Elmer Fudd fetish tonight, dude, sorry.”
    Chuckling, he stops at the front door and gazes out at the rain. “Dark one out there tonight.”
    “That’s what happens at night, Carlin. It’s called darkness.”
    Normally he’d have a quick comeback, but this time says nothing and continues staring out at the parking lot.