"You're supposed to write the room number on a piece of paper which you privately slip to the guest so every drone can't see where he keeps the wife and Rolex. In case you ain't keeping up with the news, you had a murder real close to here just a couple weeks back." In speechless bewilderment the clerk watched Marino next hold up his key as if it were a piece of incriminating evidence.

"No minibar key? Meaning forget having a drink in the room at this hour, too?" Marino raised his voice some more.

"Never mind. I don't want no more bad news." As we followed a sidewalk to the middle of the small motel, TV screens flickered blue and shadows moved behind filmy curtains over plate-glass windows. Alternating red and green doors reminded me of the plastic hotels and homes of Monopoly as we climbed stairs to the second floor and found our rooms. Mine was neatly made and cozy, the television bolted to the wall, water glasses and ice bucket wrapped in sanitary plastic. Marino repaired to his quarters without bidding us good-night, shutting his door just a little too hard.

"What the hell's eating him?" Wesley asked as he followed me into my room.

I did not want to talk about Marino, and pulling a chair close to one of the double beds, I said, "Before I do anything we need to clean you up."

"Not without painkiller." Wesley went out to fill the ice bucket and removed a fifth of Dewar's from his tote bag. He fixed drinks while I spread a towel on the bed and arranged it with forceps, packets of Betadine, and 5-0 nylon sutures.

"This is going to hurt, isn't it." He looked at me as he took a big swallow of Scotch.

I put on my glasses and replied, "It's going to hurt like hell. Follow me."

I headed into the bathroom. For the next several minutes, we stood side by side at the sink while I washed his wounds with warm soapy water. I was as gentle as possible and he did not complain, but I could feel him flinch in the small muscles of his hand. When I glanced at his face in the mirror, he was perspiring and pale. He had five gaping lacerations in his palm.

"You're just lucky you missed your radial artery," I said.

"I can't tell you how lucky I feel." Looking at his knee, I added, "Sit here." I lowered the toilet lid.

"Do you want me to take my pants off?"

"Either that or we cut them." He sat down.

"They're ruined anyway." With a scalpel, I sliced through the fine wool fabric of his left trouser leg while he sat very still, his leg fully extended. The cut on his knee was deep, and I shaved around it and washed it thoroughly, placing towels on the floor to blot bloody water dripping everywhere. As I led Wesley back into the bedroom, he limped over to the bottle of Scotch and refilled his glass.

"And by the way," I told him, "I appreciate the thought, but I don't drink before surgery."

"I guess I should be grateful," he answered.

"Yes, you should be." He seated himself on the bed, and I took the chair, moving it close. I tore open foil packets of Betadine and began to swipe his wounds.

"Jesus," he said under his breath.

"What is that, battery acid?"

"It's a topical antibacterial iodine."

"You keep that in your medical bag?"

"Yes."

"I didn't realize first aid was an option for most of your patients."

"Sadly, it isn't. But I never know when I might need it." I reached for the forceps.

"Or when someone else at a scene might-like you." I withdrew a sliver of glass and placed it on the towel.

"I know this may come as a great shock to you. Special Agent Wesley, but I started out my career with living patients."

"And when did they start dying on you?"

"Immediately." He tensed as I extracted a very small sliver.

"Hold still," I said.

"So what's Marino's problem? He's been a total ass lately."

I placed two more slivers of glass on the towel and stanched the bleeding with gauze.

"You'd better take another swallow of your drink."

"Why?"

"I've gotten all of the glass."

"So you're finished and we're celebrating." He sounded the most relieved I had ever heard him.

"Not quite." I leaned close to his hand, satisfied that I had not missed anything. Then I opened a suture packet.

"Without Novocain?" he protested.

"As few stitches as you need to close these cuts, numbing you would hurt as much as the needle," I calmly explained, gripping the needle with the forceps.

"I'd still prefer Novocain."

"Well, I don't have any. It might be better if you don't look. Would you like me to turn on the TV?" Wesley stoically stared away from me as he answered between clenched teeth! "Just get it over with." He did not utter a protest while I worked, but as I touched his hand and leg I could feel him tremble. He took a deep breath and began to relax when I dressed his wounds with Neosporin and gauze.

"You're a good patient." I patted his shoulder as I got up.

"Not according to my wife."

I could not remember the last time he had referred to Connie by name. On the rare occasion he mentioned her at all, it was a fleeting allusion to a force he seemed conscious of, like gravity.

"Let's sit outside and finish our drinks," he said. The balcony beyond my room door was a public one that stretched the entire length of the second floor. At this hour the few guests who might have been awake were too far away to hear our conversation. Wesley arranged two plastic chairs close together. We had no table between us, so he set our drinks and bottle of Scotch on the floor.

"Do you want more ice?" he asked.

"This is fine." He had turned off lamps inside the room, and beyond us the barely discernible shapes of trees began to move in concert the longer I stared at them. Headlights were small and sporadic along the distant highway.

"On a scale of one to ten, how awful would you rank this day?" he spoke quietly in the dark.

I hesitated, for I had known many awful days in my career.

"I suppose I'd give it a seven."

"Assuming ten's the worst."

"I have yet to have a ten."

"What would that be?" I felt him look at me.

"I'm not sure," I said, superstitious that naming the worst might somehow manifest it. He fell silent and I wondered if he was thinking about the man who had been my lover and his best friend. When Mark had been killed in London several years before, I had believed there could be no pain worse than that. Now I feared I was wrong. Wesley said, "You never answered my question, Kay."

"I told you I wasn't sure."

"Not that question. I'm talking about Marino now. I asked you what his problem is."

"I think he's very unhappy," I answered.

"He's always been unhappy."

"I said very." He waited.

"Marino doesn't like change," I added.

"His promotion?"

"That and what's going on with me."

"Which is?" Wesley poured more Scotch into our glasses, his arm brushing against me.

"My position with your unit is a significant change." He did not agree or disagree but waited for me to say more.

"I think he somehow perceives that I've shifted my alliances." I realized I was getting only more vague.

"And that is unsettling. Unsettling for Marino, I mean. " Still, Wesley offered no opinion, ice cubes softly rattling as he sipped his drink. We both knew very well what part of Marino's problem was, but it was nothing that Wesley and I had done. Rather, it was something Marino sensed.

"It's my opinion that Marino's very frustrated with his personal life," Wesley said.

"He's lonely."

"I believe both of those things are true," I said.

"You know, he was with Doris for thirty-some years and then suddenly finds himself single again. He's clueless, has no idea how to go about it."

"Nor has he ever really dealt with her leaving. It's stored up. Waiting to be ignited by something unrelated. "