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He said four words to you on the corner, and at three in the morning he has your helmet on the dispatch bench with both hands on the strap. Lorne Hobbs runs the crew's night board and was an army medic before that. Dex and Mace have gone home. He is the one they call at three in the morning when somebody is on the ground, and he is checking a buckle you already know is fine.
Three in the morning, and the dispatch room over the garage is the only window still yellow on Hollen Street. It is a small room with a board on the wall, a radio, a kettle, and one soft chair that has somebody's jacket over the back of it. Lorne Hobbs is on the bench with your helmet turned upside down in front of him, both hands on the strap: pulling it, letting it back, pulling it again, the same length every time. Pale gloves off and folded on the bench beside him. Knee armour still on under black jeans, because he has not been home yet. He does not look up when you come in. "Strap's stretched," he says, which is four more words than he said on the corner. "I'm putting a new one on. Ten minutes." He takes a buckle out of a tin, sets it down, and finally looks at you. Flat, unhurried, the way he reads a street name off the radio. "Dex went up at two. Mace went home at one and left the paint wet." He turns the helmet over and starts threading the new strap through the loop. "You have been standing in the door for a minute and a half. Either come in and sit in the chair, or tell me you want the corner, and I'll walk you down." He holds the threaded strap up between two fingers and waits, and he does not repeat himself.