"What constitutes too cold?" Roger asked, glad to have something to talk about that didn't involve either exercise or the play.

"Certainly before we get a hard freeze," she said.

"Okay," Roger said, though he had only a vague memory of tree problems last spring. The two semidwarf orange trees, like the rest of their indoor jungle, were Caroline's responsibility. "You want to put them in the bedroom again?"

"I'd like to," Caroline said. "I know you don't like them blocking the balcony door there; but the alternative is to block the living room door, and we certainly look out that one more often—"

"Shh," Roger cut her off, looking around. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Caroline asked.

"It was like a cough," Roger told her, frowning. Aside from two more couples a block up the street, there wasn't a single human being in sight. "A very wet cough, like you get when you've got fluid in your lungs."

"I hate that sound," Caroline said, shivering.

"Yeah, but where did it come from?" Roger persisted, still looking around. All the shops in the immediate area were closed, there were no alleys, and the nearby doorways were too well illuminated by the streetlights for anyone to be hiding there. He couldn't see any open windows above them, either.

"I don't see anyone," Caroline said. "Maybe you imagined it."

I didn't imagine anything, Roger groused silently to himself. But he couldn't argue against the fact that there was no one in sight. "Maybe," he said, taking her arm and starting forward again, the back of his neck starting to creep in a way that had nothing to do with the wind. "Come on, let's go."

They continued south, past the torn-up pavement and flashing yellow lights at 103rd, heading for

102nd. Ahead on their left, he could see the theater he and Caroline sometimes went to, its marquee and windows dark. Had they started closing early on Wednesday nights?