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lookin’ good. Whatcha been up to?” Reggie released his shoulder after a peremptory squeeze that made Cal glad this man was a friend.
    “Oh, you know, clowning around.”
    “Yeah. My niece said you did her school.”
    Cal shrugged. “How’re things?”
    “Crazy. You know how it is. Good thing I got the Big Man upstairs in control.” He hoisted his thick finger toward the sky.
    “Yeah, good thing, Reg.”
    “Hey, Jack Smith got clean. Finally decided it was not worth the trouble to keep sneakin’ stuff in.”
    Cal pictured Jack’s haggard face. “Come on, Cal. You got connections, don’t you? Get me somethin’ …”
    Cal swallowed. “I’m glad to hear it.” He didn’t have the sort of connections Jack had wanted—or that sort of addiction. Cal’s had been strictly legal poison. Only stuff he had free access to as both a paramedic and consenting adult. Amazing what you could forget with booze and prescription drugs—until they grew horns and fangs and you were fighting for your life. He’d won the fight—so far.
    Reggie squeezed his shoulder. “I gotta get inside. You coming?”
    “Not this time.” Cal jammed his hands into his pockets. “I think I’ll stay sane for a while.”
    Reggie raised the shiny ridge of his sparse eyebrows. “Just get it close, man. Successive approximation. One little step in the right direction at a time.”
    Cal nodded. “Give Rita a hug for me.” Rita James, M.D., Doctor of Psychiatry and part-time shoulder. She meant more to the department than any other resource, and personally far more to Cal than that. Like Reggie, she was a friend.
    “You got it.” Reggie zeroed in on the first set of doors. “I’ll see you tonight.”
    Cal heard the slap of Reggie’s pink palms on the door as his bulky shoulders, double roll of neck skin, and black, nubby head disappeared inside. He climbed back into his jeep and headed for the elderly care facility nearby.
    Forty-two pairs of rheumy eyes fixed on him as Cal pointed to the charts, telling the residents of Oaklane Manor the best way to enter and exit a tub to prevent a fall. These occupants still managed on their own, unlike their counterparts in the nursing section of the facility, and fire safety wasn’t the only concern he dealt with. When Billy rode his bike through a window, when Junior choked on a grape, when Grandma broke her hip, when a diner passed out, who got called?
    Not that he minded. Helping folks was the heart and soul of what he did. That was the job. Or it had been. No, it still was. Prevention was as crucial as intervention. More so, because there was little you could do once a situation went bad.
    Although the makeup and wig were back at the station, Cal threw in a joke. “There were three spinster sisters. The first decides to take a bath and goes up to the tub. With one leg over the side, she says, ‘Now was I getting in or getting out?’ When she doesn’t come back, the second sister goes to check. She heads up the stairs and when she gets halfway, she stops. ‘Was I going up or going down?’ The third sister shakes her head exasperated, saying, ‘Thank goodness, I’m not like them. Knock on wood.’ ” He rapped his knuckles on the podium. “ ‘Now was that the front door or the back?’ ”
    Chortles and snorts followed, and one purple draped woman removed her glasses and wiped tears from the corners of her eyes. Maud would be squeezing his hands when he finished, saying what a nice young man he was to come speak to them.
    Flipping the chart, he started in on the fire prevention rules. “Make yourself a checklist. Turn off the burner, the iron, the …” His voice droned. Ed Mills in the white vinyl armchair snored long and low, then flubbered his lips with the expelled breath. His lips sank in between his gums, then flubbered out again. No one jostled him awake. Cal asked if they were all familiar with the emergency exits of the general facility as well as an escape route from their