He leaned back, a faint grin etched on his face. "Is it that obvious?"

She leaned over the bar (giving him a chance for an eyeful of cleavage, which she was pleased he didn't capitalize on) and peered at the baton ring protruding from his belt. "Plus the Galls boots. Dead giveaway. I been working here a long time. And though you're cute"-this widened the smile-"I know the template. Newjack or transfer?"

His eyes, faded blue, took on a hint of playfulness. "How do you know I'm new here?"

"Because I haven't seen you. Hell, we are called the Furlough. Even the prisoners know about us. That's what we get for being on the thoroughfare." She tossed the stale popcorn into the trash and slotted the wooden bowl back into the cupboard. "So, I'll ask you again, hotshot-Newjack or transfer?"

"Newjack." He extended a callused hand. "Brian Dyer."

"Laura Hillman." She pointed at the neon sign hanging over the rust-stained mirror. They hadn't had it serviced in years, so it read, F nk e Furl gh. "Frank's daughter. Been around a few blocks a few times." She cocked her head, letting a tangle of hair cross her eyes. "Still embarrassed?"

"Why would you say that?"

"No blazer, no bad maroon tie, no gray slacks. You changed after shift in the lockers even though the draft in there can make your"-a delicate tip of her hand-"retract inside your body. It can catch you a lot of static in the world, being a correctional officer, so you'd rather leave the uniform behind the gates."

Again he smiled, and she felt something inside her warm. A part of her that hadn't felt comfort-or hope-in a long time. Though the fire was a good fifteen feet away, a drop of sweat hung at his hairline. She liked that he sensed the heat so keenly.

He bobbed his head. "What else? I mean, aside from the fact that you're clearly smarter than me. Is there a Mr. Laura?"

Rick strolled to the near side of the pool table, overchalking his cue. Myron had stumbled out, heading home to get his nightly tongue-lashing from Kathy over with, so Rick was burning his remaining quarters chasing trick shots. He'd started staying right up until last call ever since Laura, in the wake of her father's latest heart attack, had taken over weekends.

A loud click of the pool balls and Rick cheered himself heartily.

Laura leaned forward, lowering her voice. "I look bad in blue, so I married into the family tradition instead. Fresh out of high school. Mr. Laura had just graduated the Academy. And you know what they say are the first three things you get when you become a CO."

"A car, a baton and a divorce," Brian replied.

"We gave it the obligatory two years. Since then, I've been a lonely girl."

"Not so lonely," Rick offered from where he was leaning over the thirteen, which had evaded the corner pocket for three shots running.

"Thank you for that, Spike"

He grumbled something and got back to chalking.

"What's with the tattoo?" She rested a hand on the faded blue ink on Brian's forearm, and he jerked ever so slightly at her touch. His skin was warm and soft, and the feel of it against her palm was inexplicably thrilling.

Behind them, the pool cue clattered to the worn velvet, and Rick said, "Fuck this, then." A brief howl of wind as the door banged the chimes, hard, and then they were alone.

"The tattoo," Laura said, tracing the dip of the inked woman's waist with a thumb.

"I don't remember getting it."

"Sounds like a sailor story."

"Not quite." Brian looked away, his mouth firming, and she sensed sadness there, and anger. "It was during an eight-day drunk…"

Her voice was quiet and a touch hoarse with the premonition that she might regret her flippancy. "After what?"

"My wife. Three months pregnant. Drunk driver. High-school sweetheart, for what that's worth. We'd been together four years, were just starting to really fight good-you know, baby'll help things-but she was part of me." He tilted his beer bottle to his lips, but it was still on empty. "Another sob story. Just what you need in a place like this."

Her hand still rested on his arm and it felt awkward to withdraw it now. She liked the feel of their touching, the feel of him. The seam of their skin was slightly moist, their sweat intermingling. She struggled for words that wouldn't sound trite. She thought about fetuses, the crunch of car metal, Brian's faint limp. "How do you get back from that?"

"Am I back?" He laughed a real laugh, like he was enjoying himself. "It put me down for a good while and when I got up, I enrolled in the Academy. You can go either way after a thing like that. The line is-" he held up his hand, thumb and forefinger, measuring a quarter inch. "I thought a little order would help me pull it together and I was right. So order I've got. I spend my time in a place where guys keep Clubs locked on the steering wheels of their cars that they park in the shadow of a wall tower. Guy I work with-Conner?"

"Sure, I know Conner."

"He welded a hasp to his lunch box so he could keep a tiny lock on there. No shit."

"Sounds like Conner all right."

"It's being locked in paranoia. But you know what? I'd be lying to say I don't take comfort in the metal. All those right angles. And the bells, set your watch to them. I'll leave someday, I'm sure, head somewhere warm, and I bet I'll miss it all. It's like.armor, almost."

"And you needed armor."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I did."

She found herself close to him, a foot maybe-he'd been speaking quietly and drawn her in, and there was an instant where she thought she'd just keep leaning until their lips met. His heaviness seemed to match the weight of her disappointments. A single child raised motherless in a frozen plain. She'd tried to get out, even to Detroit, but she'd chosen young and then her marriage had dissolved, leaving her mired like a shot bird. Twenty years old then and she'd never found it in herself to risk again.

She'd gone to Florida once-Disneyworld with Sue Ann-but as for spreading her wings, well, she'd always stayed in her childhood bedroom, except for during her brief marriage. And even then she'd made it not ten miles, just across the gully. A decade and a half ago, now. And so she'd spent her years since laughing with the truckers, shooting stick with the COs and taking the occasional roll in the sheets just to get some warmth inside her. Her indiscretions bought her snickers in church and criminating looks from her father, exaggerated into a kind of horror now by his palsied left cheek and the white film ringing his lips. It stung her deep and hard, the murmur that preceded and followed her, but she'd long resolved herself to getting what sustenance she could where she could, and to hell with the rest of them.

She'd been saving up though, a few years now, and maybe that money would get her out of Upper Ridgeway or at the very least out of her father's house. Or maybe-a notion almost too painfully hopeful to entertain-it would help her get a house with someone else someday. But her radar was off, as her father liked to say. She saw what she wanted to see in men and sometimes these days she didn't even see that.

Brian raised a hand to her cheek (impossibly, impossibly warm), his elbow braced on the bar so she could give his palm the full weight of her chin and then the door smashed open and a man with a gun charged them, screaming so loud flecks of saliva dotted the bar.

"The safe-I know there's a fucking safe get it open now."

Laura backed against the glass shelves, a bottle of Triple Sec bouncing twice on the floor and clattering to a quiet roll. Brian remained on his stool facing forward, enveloped in an intense calm that spoke of experience, his hands spread in view on the bar. His eyes stayed straight ahead; he seemed to be tracking the man's movement in the mirror behind her.