"It was just something dumb. He was in a little market and lifted something minor – a package of meat and some chewing gum. The store manager caught him and they got into a tussle. Some off-duty cop pulled his gun out and fired. All for a pack of ground beef and some Chiclets for me. What a waste. My mother never got over it. God, it was awful to watch. She married some guy six months later and he turned out to be a real shit, knockin' her around. Talk about bad karma – the cops killed him, too. She'd kick him out. He'd disappear and then show up again, all contrite. Move in, take her money, beat the crap out of us. He's drunk half the time, doing 'ludes and coke, anything else he could get his hands on, I guess. If he wasn't pawing at her, he was pawing at me. I cut him once, right across the face – nearly took his eye out. One night, he got caught breaking into an apartment building two doors away from us. He barricaded himself in the place with a twelve-gauge. The cops swarmed all over the neighborhood. Television crews. SWAT teams and tear gas. Cops shot him down like a dog. I was eight. It's like how many times I gotta go through this, you know?"

"Sounds like they did you a service on that one," I said.

Her smile was bitter, but she made no response.

"Your mother still alive?"

"Down in Los Angeles," Bibianna said. "What about you? You got family somewhere?"

"Not anymore. I've been on my own for years. I thought you were going to do my numbers," I said.

"Oh, yeah. What's your birthday?"

The date I was using on the fake ID was a match for mine. "May fifth," I said, and gave her the year.

"And me without a pencil. Hey, Nettie? You got something to write with?"

Nettie shook her head. "Not unless you count Chap-Stick."