He fell in next to her, dribbling, as she crossed the court.

“Nobody much around,” he said.

“Daddy’s not in?” A note of desperation, of hope long since abandoned.

“Shi…”

“But where’s Eddie?”

“No show. He ain’t here by six, everybody went home.”

She seemed to take in the information like someone who was almost certain they had a terminal disease finding out for sure. She stopped walking. The sun, atypically strong this early morning, was behind them, glaring off the building. “You mean nobody’s here? Nobody at all?”

Alphonse, the basketball held easily against his hip with one hand, pointed his other hand in toward himself. “Hey, what am I?” he said.

“No offense.”

Alphonse offered her his white teeth. Except for some acne, his long, smooth face was not unattractive. His skin was very black, his nose was thin. His lips were sensually thick. There was a light sheen of sweat from the workout, and his longish hair, which Linda thought his worst feature, was held in by the net.

“No offense,” Alphonse repeated.

Linda sighed. “So what happened to the papers?”

Alphonse began dribbling again, walking next to her. The papers weren’t his problem. “Ain’t too many anyway.”

They rounded the building. In front of the warehouse, Linda could see the morning newspapers, still wrapped from their publishers. Without La Hora, they made a pitifully poor pile in front of the corrugated iron door.

Linda drew up again and sighed. “So I guess that’s really it,” she said. She threw her head back, looking to the sky for help, and finding none, she moaned, “I wish Daddy’d come in.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m waiting for.”

“And Eddie didn’t come in at all? Did he call?”

Alphonse smiled again. “I don’t do the phones, sugar.”

They had come to the glass front doors. Linda got out her keys and let them in. Alphonse followed her across the small entryway into her office, which was in front of her father’s. She went behind the desk and sat down.