I had my pepper spray out and was threatening him with it. Which felt like anticlimax. But I don’t think he knew what was happening yet. He looked around, in his rumpled suit, like someone was going to stop and save him. But it was quiet. Or no one wanted the trouble. Or the neighbors were used to this kind of trouble.

I repeated my question.

He looked up at me through a bloody eye. A trickle of blood from a split lip. His left eye already had a black circle around it.

“Stop looking for Silvina,” he said. Local muscle? He had an accent like he’d grown up here. “Stop looking for Silvina. Or you’ll pay.” He had a good chin to be so coherent already.

I lunged like I was going to kick him again, and it felt good when he flinched, held up his hands. It was like being back in the wrestling ring. Me circling an opponent, looking for the opening. Them already down, at a disadvantage.

“How about this,” I said. “You stop following me. You stop threatening me. And you stop stealing things from me.”

Was that surprise in his eyes? Like one of those things I’d accused him of something he hadn’t done?

“You won’t like what’s going to happen if you don’t stop,” he said, already readying himself for another assault. His gaze unfocused.

But my anger was banking. More cars were driving down the street. I saw someone looking up at us from around the corner of the parking lot down below. A distant siren that probably had nothing to do with us.

“Leave me alone,” I said. “Or I’ll go to the police. Now, get out of here.”

I held Shovel Pig and my go-bag in one hand and the pepper spray in the other.

With difficulty, without another word, the man got up and staggered back down the hill, down the sidewalk. I’d torn his suit in the back. The white shirt beneath protruded like the inside of a stuffed animal.

My heartbeat was going to overwhelm me, so I steadied myself. Slowed myself down. Took some deep breaths. Watched the man disappear around the corner into the parking lot.

I started back toward my car, up the hill.

That’s when I heard it. The sound of someone on the other side of the fence. Someone shadowing me. I stopped walking. They stopped walking. I started up again, they started again. I kept walking. Stopping again would be a tell. I was shaky, not ready for more.

Maybe just a concerned neighbor? How long had he been there? Every instinct told me it was a man.

I kept walking. The car would be close. I could sprint to it if I needed to. I could unlock the door fast, could get behind the wheel fast. Remember to lock the door as soon as I was in.