Nobody said anything. On the radio, on KBOW, a man was reading the obituaries. The old man in the armchair pulled a breath and let it whistle out.
"Johanna doesn't give that key to anybody," said the one with the shovel.
"She gave it to me this morning," Lauren said. "She came into the cafe and she fell down. She's sick. She's real sick. She's got a fever and she can't breathe right and her fingers are frozen. They took her to St. James in the ambulance. Before they came, she gave me this, and she told me about the boiler, ten and four. And she said the boys know the valve."
She held up the key on its string with the tag.
The man with the shovel looked at it. Then, slowly, he lowered the shovel. He leaned it against the front desk and stood there on his crutches, and something went out of his shoulders.
"Ah, God," he said. "Ah, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I told her. I told her and told her. Didn't I tell her, Tomo?"
"You told her," said the old man in the armchair, in a voice like a door creaking in the wind.
"I told her to let me do the four. She wouldn't have it. She said I'd break my neck and then she'd have to carry me up as well." He sat down hard on the edge of a mattress, with his crutches across his knees. "Is she dead, miss? You can tell us straight."
"No," said Lauren. "She's not dead. She's at St. James."