Later he got the idea that I would pay him back by doing him “favors.” Though I have always helped take care of the dogs and to train them, recently he has had me shampoo each of them twice a week, hose down and scrub the concrete cage bottom, and fix their storage shed where the roof is loose and the boards nearly broken. My fingers have become callused and blistered, dried out from so much water and soap. I feed them and wash out their porcelain dishes and walk them and spend a lot of time dog-training for customers. He has a professional dog training service now in which he will retrain dogs people bought from other sources, and his clients include two security services; sometimes they have him go to strange locations for on-site training, like department stores closed for the night, San Pedro shipyards full of imported cars drenched by the cool damp dew of midnight, large warehouses and fenced-in properties the dogs will run around in freely. Sometimes he takes me with him. He charges extra for problem dogs, the biters, the grumps, the touchy and abused and lonely and damaged ones no other trainer would dare handle. My brother is actually great with them. At first I enjoyed seeing the places the dogs guard, but then the fear got tiring, and it leaves me little time for homework.

The more I work, the more he wants me to do. Recently he has said that since I stole from him I should not mind stealing, and since my transgression was a crime, that is what I must do to pay him back. Each time we go out my stomach clutches and I have to step aside and lean over, palming my hands on my knees. I try not to vomit and make Tomas angry, so today I went without food since breakfast.

Now my blood sugar drops and my fingers tremble, though probably that is nervousness too. Beside me Greta’s hair feels clumped, my fingers oily. The wind that comes in above the window glass blows damp and cold and throbs like ice in my temples, the way you get after sipping a milk shake too fast. I roll it up. My brother glances my way, annoyed at my movement—which stills me—before he turns forward again. We bound over a deep gutter and the truck bottom scrapes against asphalt, and my brother swears to himself and curses the neighborhood. I begin to hope we will not find Eddy Ho’s car and even Greta’s breathing relaxes against my arm, but then his yellow Jeep comes into view, parked beneath a rectangular building. Sunlight catches the top story of its crumbling baby blue stucco side.

I don’t tell him I see it, but he spots the car and slows down.

Here it is, he says.

I nod.

I can’t fucking believe it.

What?