At the end of the day, I drove home, west into blinding sun, my eyes aching all the way into their sockets. I was seeing Brenae’s last full day not as a retreat from her world, but a test of it, hour after hour ticking by, the studio lightening and then darkening, the clatter and voices outside and the stillness and silence within. The replaceability of everything in the room, her art most of all. What was her art worth? What was her life worth?

The gun waited for her choice.

Watch me.

BY THE TIME I TOOK the stairs to my apartment to change for my costume date with Yegina, I thought I had done an excellent job forcing the two cases and Ray from my mind. At least I did in five-minute bursts, and then the series of impressions would return: Erik and Brenae on the mattress; Layla sitting at the edge of the pool, legs submerged to her knees; Brenae and her gun on Nelson’s wall; Nelson and Calvin leaving the party; Ray holding the palmier cookie. It was evening and no call from Ray or Alicia or Janis. I didn’t know what I’d expected, but not this.

I sat down at my laptop and scanned the local papers’ websites. Nothing about LAAC or Hal resigning. It was too soon.

The sublet felt less like my home than ever. There was my heap of books and printouts on Françoise Gilot, and there was my little pile of dishes in the drain—one plate, one cup, one pan, a cluster of silverware. My sheets, my toothbrush, my dresses in the closet. Still, the rooms felt alien. I turned on the radio while I got dressed, listening to the report of the fire consuming the hills to the east of the city, and the sudden promise of rain. I drank a glass of wine. It tasted sour. I stared around at the dining room set, the rocket lamps. Nothing looked out of place, but everything seemed jarred and different. Something had happened to Ray. Or was happening.

Frowning in the mirror, I donned the red wig, a cloak, and bright lipstick. I didn’t look like anything or anybody, and I would be going to a neighborhood where almost everyone had a flair for appearances. But I was tired of appearances tonight. I just wanted to be invisible.

My intercom buzzed.

“I’m Raggedy-Gon Jinn,” I said downstairs to Yegina’s look of wry shock, which was enhanced by her black lips and eyeliner, all black clothes, black gloves. “What are you, a goth?”

“Goth Moth.” She gestured to gauzy pale green wings in her back seat.

“Nice,” I said. “That’s effort.”

“So tell me what’s happening with Hal Giroux,” she said.

“I can’t,” I said. “But his days might be numbered.”

A shadow crossed her face.

“What?” I said. “What’s wrong with that?”