"Harper." It was Gino, and behind his voice she could hear the dispatch radio crackling, and someone, Sobczak maybe, shouting a cab number. "Harper, sweetheart, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Wilbur's in a ditch."
"Is he okay?"
"He's fine, he's fine, he's in a ditch on the Kensington by the Grider Street exit with a state trooper, he's drinking coffee out of a thermos, he's happy as a clam. But he's not getting here tonight. Nobody's getting anywhere tonight. And Harper, I got seven cars out still. I got Mose, I got Sobczak, I got the Cholewa kid, I got Dziedzic and Lenihan and the two Wisniewskis. They won't come in. You know them. Christmas Eve, the fares are good, the tips are good, there's people at midnight Mass need to get home, there's nurses at Sisters and Millard Fillmore need to get to work. And I gotta go." His voice cracked. "It's my mother. The nursing home called. She's asking for me, she's—they think tonight, maybe. I gotta go, Harper. I can't sit this radio. I can't leave seven guys out there in this with nobody on the other end."
"I'll come," she said. She was already looking at the clock, at the parka on its hook by the door, at Roman asleep on the rug.
"I got no right to ask."
"You didn't ask. I'm coming. Go to your mother, Gino."
"You're an angel. You're a saint. I'll leave the door unlocked. There's sfogliatelle—no, I gave you the sfogliatelle. There's Fig Newtons in the drawer. Merry Christmas, Harper, God bless you."
She hung up. She stood with her hand on the receiver. Then she turned around, and Lucian Zeller was standing in the kitchen doorway in his borrowed socks, holding on to the frame.
"I have to go to work," she said. "Until morning, probably. I can't leave Roman. Mrs. Wilk is seventy-eight, she goes to bed at nine, I can't—" She heard her voice speeding up and made it slow down, the dispatcher's voice. "I'll take Roman. He can sleep on the cot in the back. You can stay here. There's the sofa. There's blankets in the hall closet. There's more pierogi."
"No," he said.
"No?"