Chapter 16: Sub-Basement Rules

"Mrs. Gallagher," Desmond called across the lobby. "Why is a laundry cart standing on my marble?"

My heart restarted.

"Taking it to the dock, Mr. Finnegan," Dot said, in a voice sweet as a church bake sale. "The wheel stuck."

"Move it. And you're off tonight's tip jar for this."

"Yes, sir."

She rolled me out of the lobby at the speed of a funeral.

By eleven that night, Reuben Lowry was standing in the sub-basement break room in a gray smock that did not close over his shoulders.

The night crew had formed a half circle around him.

Dot stood in the middle with a mop in one hand and a clipboard in the other.

"Rule one," she said. "Nobody eats alone down here."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Rule two. You don't get a badge, you get a bucket."

The skinny kid held one out, grinning.

Reuben took it with great dignity.

The woman in the hairnet pinned a name tag to his chest that said LUCY'S FRIEND.

"I've been shot at in Kuwait," Reuben said. "This is worse."

"Rule three," said Dot. "The sergeant and his boys sleep on the linen shelves till the sun comes up, and nobody asks them anything."

Six former guards sat along the wall with plates of rice and beans and the stunned look of men who had resigned that morning.

The sergeant lifted his fork.

"Best rule I've heard all day," he said.

Everybody laughed, including Reuben, and I felt my chest go warm.

For the first time in four years, I had a table to come home to.

He mopped the sub-basement service hall under my supervision.

He was terrible at it.

He swung the mop, and he left wet streaks in the shape of Nevada.

"You're doing it wrong," I said.

"I've been told."

"You push, you don't sweep. Your wrists are the problem."

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