"Thanks, Cornelius."
"Sit down. One game. I'll give you a rook."
"Can't. Last day of the sweep."
"Ah." Cornelius set his white king on its square with a small decisive click. "The famous sweep. They're going to sweep me away?"
"They're going to sweep the guy who feeds the pigeons."
"Arnold." Cornelius shook his head. "Arnold is a menace. He brings an entire loaf. I'm in favor."
Lloyd almost smiled. He walked on. Lavonne's cart was parked under the big copper beech near Holloway Street, as it was most mornings, piled high and lashed with bungee cords, and Lavonne herself was sitting on the bench beside it in a purple parka eating a breakfast sandwich out of its paper, a heavyset woman somewhere between forty and sixty with a face that could go from friendly to murderous with nothing in between. She looked at him. He looked at her. She had been on that bench at six that morning, he would have bet money, and probably at five, and probably all night, because the women's shelter on Garland had a waitlist of three weeks and she did not like the men's side of the mission and had told him so in language he would remember for the rest of his life. He had found her there at dawn in September and written her a warning, and she had taken it from him and torn it in half and then in half again and handed the pieces back.
"It's eight-twenty," she said now. "Park's open. I'm eating."
"I didn't say anything, Lavonne."
"You were going to."
"I was going to say good morning."
She considered this. "Good morning," she said, with tremendous suspicion, and went back to her sandwich.