“I’m taking a break,” he called to his boss, who acknowledged the statement with a bored thumbs up.

Brian led Holly through a stockroom. It was cramped with half-empty boxes of casettes, a small table and four chairs for meals, and an assortment of trash bags full of Styrofoam peanuts. The air in there was stuffy, so when he opened the back door, the fresh air was a relief. He let the door slam shut and reached up, where a ladder extended off the fire escape. It rattled to the ground.

“Nobody goes up here,” he said. These days, he didn’t want to hang out in the alley. It seemed excessively dangerous.