The rectangle in Victor's hand remembered it was cheap paper and a lie. Rita shot it once, then again, then sideways with the drone in frame. The card on her screen glowed window like a small law.
"Left lane," Boone said. "Outside is inside."
The push bar gave us a human width. Night air came in with the smell of rain that had decided to be respectful. We rolled three yards toward the alley when a man stepped in, neat jacket, clipboard, a kind of smile that tries to borrow authority.
He tapped the window twice with a knuckle that wanted to be a badge. "Service," he said. "Family Court."
Boone lowered the glass the width of a coin. "Credential," he said.
The man's smile thinned. He held up a laminated card under the streetlight as if plastic could invent a seal. "Process server," he said. "Time sensitive."
"Docket," Boone said. "Seal. Date. No service through a window."
The man kept the smile. He slid a manila envelope toward the gap like a person feeding a zoo animal. "Consider yourself served," he said.
Rita's phone flashed white. "Incident log," she said, voice even. "Alley outside Bay. 22:41. 'Service' attempted through window without credential, no seal visible."
Aisha's voice came through as spine. "Service rules: he must identify himself with state license or sheriff's credentials; he must state the nature of the papers; you are not obligated to accept through a vehicle window; photograph and log; do not touch; do not open; ask for docket and court. If he insists, say, 'Counsel will arrange acceptance at office during business hours.'"
Boone kept the coin-width. "State license," he said. "Name."
"R--," the man began, and mispronounced his own last name.
"No service," Boone said, and raised the window the height of a second coin.
The man's smile tried another face and failed. "You can't hide," he said, and knocked once in a way that would look bad in a room with a judge.
"Document," Rita said.
I lifted her phone and caught his face, the envelope, the lack of seal, the exact shape of the hand when it wants to be law and is not. Victor said the time out loud so the air would keep it for us. Boone put the SUV in a geometry that made forward the only gracious choice.
We moved. The man shifted to the side the way weather moves when a building says no.
At the corner, a ride-share car idled diagonal, hazard lights blinking in the international language of excuses. Boone rolled to a stop like an adult. He lowered the window a coin. "Move," he said, voice as polite as iron.
The driver found another gear in his life. He drifted back into the spot that had always been his if he had known.
A scooter nosed close, drone rider slung a controller like a pheasant gun. Boone opened his palm. Hands visible is a language.
The scooter learned it.
"Left," Boone said. "Service lane. Bakery shadow. Then north."
Victor tapped the glass with two knuckles. "Funkschatten by the bakery," he said. "Don't post there."
"Window guard only," Rita said. "Auto-post at 09:30 is scheduled. No replies. If the void invents 'license' again before then, we fire the card early."
Vivian's name lit Rita's screen with a line that had been written by a person who knows which verbs survive. Midnight segment 'Is He Taken?' she wrote. I argued 'Consent Poll' replay instead. They want the hearts. I offered your clip with window. They hate that word. I smiled like it was theirs.
Rita typed back three words: addendum. Rider. window.
The SUV took the turn onto the service lane that belongs to delivery trucks and people who never say please and still mean it. Boone read the air and used the gas like a sentence uses a verb.
"Recite," I said, because tomorrow works better when you can say it in the dark.
Rita did. "Pelham west service. 09:40 arrivals. 09:55 wide at the door. Consent on record lower-third. Window plate sits left. Serena first. Then you. If provoked, Evan uses twelve words. If paper waves, Maya says index isn't a record. Host has thirty for education if needed. No new nouns."
"Copy," Evan said.
"Copy," Aisha said in our sleeves. "I've checked the sidewalk rights: no permit for standing, but no tripods in the main path. Boone, your door geometry avoids the main path. We're good."
Boone's mouth made something that almost smiled. "Inside corridor," he said. "Up one turn from the door. Our lens gets there before theirs."
"Serena's handler confirmed route," Rita said. "He likes doors."
We floated through the bakery shadow. The SUV's shell translated speculation into dullness. Outside, a person with a camera remembered their home. Inside, Victor wrote the sound of our quiet in his head like a man making a map.
"Board ping," Vivian wrote again. If hearts win, they keep them. If you 'own the door', they'll pretend it was theirs. I can live with pretending.
Rita responded with a square: the window card and the three lines that had become our coin.
She didn't send a sentence. She sent a picture. Pictures get remembered when rooms are tired.
We came up on the private garage Rita had rented two blocks off Pelham, a place for musicians who have learned to pay the right person on the right day. The gate had a keypad and a guard with a crossword. He looked up, saw us, and put a palm up like a stop sign practicing.
"Reservation for Kestrel," Rita said through the window.
"Closed," the guard said. "Management says no film crews tonight. 'Reputation risk.'"
Rita's eyebrows did not rise. "One SUV," she said. "Two hours. We pay. We leave no footprint. Quiet hours."
"Closed," the guard repeated, as if the word paid rent.
"Manager name," Rita said. "Contract on file."
He looked at the crossword as if it would give him courage. "I'm just the guard," he said.
Boone turned to Rita, not the guard. "Second deck," he said. "Three blocks. Entrance on Lark. No guard. Fewer cameras. Worse lighting. Better decisions."
"Go," Rita said.
We left the gate where it had always been and learned the lesson it thought it had taught us. The stringer with the scooter tried to be interesting again. Boone's palm opened. The scooter lost interest.
"Lark deck in four," Boone said. "Inside spiral. Space near the ramp."
Vivian pinged. Network is threading the Consent Poll result under their midnight hearts, she wrote. They think compromise is when both people are unhappy.
"Post the window on your recap," Rita wrote back. "If they strip it, we cc Standards with a 'plate removed on export' note."
"I like paperwork," Vivian wrote. It never sleeps. Neither do I.
We took the Lark deck ramp like a sentence with nothing clever to prove. Up one turn, the air went cool and concrete remembered being poured by people with legs. Boone parked where exits stay exits.
"Down," Boone said.
We sat and listened to the night work. Rideshare engines elsewhere did their job. A forklift two floors away thought about being in a poem and decided against it. Rita's phone counted seconds without making announcements.
Victor uncapped a small penlight and looked at my palm under the gentle lie of LED. "Dry," he said. "Good. Don't let anyone put your name on tape."
"Not tonight," I said.
Aisha again, voice even. "I checked tomorrow's courthouse rules," she said. "No filming inside, obvious. Public sidewalk outside, yes. If a 'Courthouse Cam' tries to plant a tripod in the main door path, we can ask them to move per Fire Marshal guideline. Boone?"
"Door geometry will beat them," Boone said. "We don't need a marshal. We need a head start."
Rita's auto-post scheduler showed 09:30 in a quiet font. Under it, the window square waited like a breakfast that actually nourishes.
The Host pinged a text that read like a joke and worked like a plan: I can toss the six words over coffee if someone pours it into me. Rita sent him a thank-you he would believe.
Evan's phone buzzed with the agent's name again. He let it be weather. He looked at me, not because he needed permission, because map is a shared object.
"Your apartment won't like this," he said.
"That's why we won't go there," I said. "Second deck has friends. My neighbor is a drummer. He thinks fame is a drum solo. He will guard the corridor with opinions."
Rita smiled a little. "I prefer Boone," she said. "But I'll take a drummer with principles."
We rolled down a half level to a darker lane with a nicer attitude. Boone pointed at a rectangle where a camera could be content and not be content. "There," he said.
The SUV settled. The motor became something that kept warmth instead of promises. Night got bored where it needed to and interested where we told it to.
Rita's screen flashed with a Vivian line that belonged to a boardroom and a childhood at once. If we keep your plate on our replay, their hearts don't win alone. I will keep it, if only to hurt the right people in the right meetings.
Rita sent a period. Sometimes a dot is a hug.
Aisha's voice shifted register. When the law changes posture, you can hear it even when words are still polite. "Heads up," she said. "The network's outside counsel just filed for an Emergency TRO. They want to restrain 'unauthorized on-air statements' and any 'public record commentary' by Evan and Maya. Hearing at 08:15. The judge sits downtown. Zoom permitted. They're aiming at your Public Record Statement and at the Pelham frame."
"Basis," Rita said, already putting her thumb to the place where paper meets speed.
"'Irreparable harm' to brand, 'breach of exclusivity and morals clause,'" Aisha said. "It's a bluff with nouns. But judges are tired and the word 'emergency' is loud at dawn. We'll oppose: no breach, no disparagement, consent on record, pure education, window shown, index ≠ record, and no unannounced intimacy. Also, their hands are unclean; they seeded hearts without consent."
Boone looked at the dash clock like a man doing math with structures. "08:15 hearing," he said. "09:40 arrival. We can try both if wheels stay wheels."
"We do both," Evan said, calm, because choosing is his job. "Paper first. Then door."
Rita breathed out and turned breath into work. "Copy packets," she said. "We send the three bumps with window on screen. The Consent Poll result. The county clerk 'don't call us' post. The fake seal analysis. The rider and addendum. The twelve-word line. The no seal, no story card. Timecodes. Then we sleep in ten-minute pieces."
Aisha had already moved her fingers in the places where digital becomes law. "I'll file our opposition before 07:30," she said. "Boone, I may need a quiet corner for Zoom where long lenses can't lipread. Victor, give me a wired set if possible. Maya, Evan, one sentence each if the judge asks: 'education, not allegation.'"
"Copy," Victor said.
"Copy," I said.
Evan nodded. "Copy," he said.
Vivian's name lit Rita's screen one more time. If they gag you, I still have to air a show, she wrote. If they don't, I'll give you thirty to say the six words again before Pelham. I can't promise it, but I can fight for it.
"Fight for it," Rita wrote back. "And keep the plate."
Boone opened his door and listened to the garage like a person listens to a sleeping house for good creaks and bad ones. He closed it again. "We have forty-seven minutes where night is a friend," he said. "Use them."
Rita set alarms that will sound like planes taking off inside skulls. Victor adjusted the heat the way you adjust a child into sleep. Aisha's typing was a metronome behind my ear.
Evan looked at me in the kind of way that is not romantic and is still the whole point. "Hands visible," he said.
"Always," I said.
We let the quiet be a tool instead of a wish. When the alarm would speak, it would be to tell us where the judge was and what the door would be allowed to be.
The SUV held the night around us like a secret we had decided to tell properly.