Skinner was sitting at the table when she got back. More like a shelf than a table. He was drinking coffee out of a dented steel thermos-mug. If you just came in and saw him like that, it didn’t strike you right away how old he was; just big, his hands, shoulders, all his bones, big. Gray hair slicked back from his forehead’s lifetime collection of scars, little dents, a couple of black dots like tattoos, where some kind of grit had gotten into a cut.