The figure in the conifers fell over, got up, returned fire. Couldn’t tell if they’d really been hit. Or just been caught off-balance.

I took that as my cue to get to my feet, grab my cane, and run back to the Dollar Store. No matter the agony of that. Slammed up against the corner, I dared a peek back out.

The gun battle continued. Percussive insanity. The figure in the conifers in retreat. I heard a car’s engine, the vehicle hidden by the trees. The figure running. The triad content to just feed the little forest bullets, but not pursuing. Framed in a strange light that lit the trunks of the trees golden green and cowled the canopy in shadow. As small ink silhouettes labored murderous below.

By the time the shooter had escaped and the triad had stopped shooting, I was in my car and driving away. Who the fuck started firing instead of hightailing it for the shed?

Only then did I feel the nick. Lucky. A bullet had grazed my left calf. Maybe in another time, another world, that would’ve felt traumatic.

But now it was just a distraction from all the rest.

I didn’t have to worry about Nora’s husband anymore, and neither did she. The last thing I’d seen was Nora’s husband’s head bursting open.

The parting shot. The last retort.

That would bring down attention. Of all kinds.

That was my lasting memory of my birthday. I’d almost forgotten. There was no cake. There was no celebration. No one cared, not even me.

I guess my only present was not dying.

[79]

Silvina had no advice in her journal for the aftermath of gun battles. But I couldn’t find it in me to be shocked or surprised or anything other than numb.

I drove around aimless, just trying to put some distance between me and the dealership as I heard the wail of sirens. What should my next move be? I entered a maze of older neighborhoods, drove slow, kept moving. Doors locked. Windows up.

Nora had set a trap for me. Someone had paid her to set me up. And her husband clearly hadn’t been in on it. So maybe she already knew her husband was cheating on her and figured this might solve that, too, permanently? Or maybe this moment Nora was wailing like the sirens.

A whiff of something sharp and bitter from outside. The pangolin’s scales against my arm, the bristly skin between the plates, as we all burned. I put the air on recycle to get rid of it. A kind of magic. But it would remain there, in my head.