A surge of emotion erupted from me in the act. I had thought it might be dispassionate, but it was too physical for that, too personal. Using what I’d learned as a wrestler. But also because, in those final moments, I saw all of Shot. I saw the truth of him laid bare. That there wasn’t much difference between who he’d been before the sickness and after. And that there was enough of him left to know what was happening to him.

Which I was grateful for, that mercy. Because I would not have wanted to kill a stranger.

[81]

Hillman’s wound looked fresh, but the blood on the floor had begun to dry. The police could pull up any second. No time for anything other than looting the room, looting Hillman. I can’t say I was sentimental or respectful.

No suitcase. Just toiletries in the bathroom. I put my gloves back on and awkwardly searched his body. Nothing except a pack of gum in his shirt pocket. His wallet lay on the floor in a spackle of blood, next to a riffled-through backpack. I took both, wiped down the doorknob, and got the hell out.

The car engine barely turned over and then kind of sputtered to life. The car dealership was a no-go, but I doubted I could make it back to the houseboat. And I didn’t know how to hot-wire a car.

So I took a chance. Although, by then, what was taking a chance versus taking an opportunity? Another few months like this and it wouldn’t even seem like a risk. It’d just be another thing I’d done.

I pulled up outside Nora’s workplace. She was the office manager for a life insurance company. I could’ve waited there, in the corner of the parking lot, half hidden by a huge green truck covered in mud. Maybe she would’ve come out before the end of business. Maybe not.

I cut the engine. That car wasn’t ever going to start again. I got out, stood on the curb of the pathetic gray-beige strip mall that stank of some cheery pesticide. A few wary red-winged blackbirds on migration sipped from a puddle of water by the road.

Text Nora? No, I didn’t think so. No guarantee she wouldn’t alert whoever had set me up at the dealership. But the bank kiosk next door had a fire alarm, so I went and pulled that instead.

There came that weird hesitation built into the rituals of emergency. That moment of indecision when people just sit or stand, wondering, “Is this real?” Is it real? When no reassurance came, employees began to spill out the front doors into the parking lot.