"But if the glass is empty," Johanna said, and her hand found Lauren's wrist again and closed on it hard, harder than it had before, so hard that it hurt. "If you ever come down and the glass is empty and she's hot, you don't put water in her. You hear me? You don't ever put water in her hot. You put out the fire and you get everybody out in the street and you come and find me. You promise me."
"I promise," Lauren said, not knowing what she was promising.
"Don't tell Tiernan Carrigan," Johanna said. "Not yet. He's a good man, he's not a bad man, but he can't know. Not until it's warm. And don't let them drain her. Stu Brennock, he's coming Thursday to drain her, Corky told me. It's got to be warm by then. Oh, God. Oh, God, it's not going to be warm by then."
"Who's in there, Johanna?"
But the old woman's eyes had gone away somewhere. She was breathing hard and fast, short little breaths that didn't seem to go anywhere, and her lips moved, and Lauren bent close and heard her saying something under her breath, over and over, that sounded like names. Then the door opened, and the white sheet of cold rolled across the floor, and two men from the fire department came in with a stretcher between them and the frost on their mustaches and said, all right, all right, let's have some room, ma'am, ma'am, can you hear me, what's your name, ma'am.
They took her to St. James. Lauren stood in the door of the Gallus Frame in her uniform, at thirty-one below, and watched the ambulance go up Park Street with its lights going and no siren, and the exhaust standing up behind it in the still air like a white wall. Then Stevo took her by the elbow and brought her inside, because her ears were going white, and sat her down at the counter, and put a cup of coffee in front of her, and stood there.
She opened her hand and showed him the key.
He picked up the little tag between his thick fingers and turned it over. On the back, in the same faded brown copperplate, it said J.T. 1946.
"The Carrigan's empty," Stevo said. "They closed the Carrigan."