For a moment we both stop, stunned. I stare at Schermer. He stares at me. We both stare at the hole in the ceiling and the ballet of plaster dust floating down upon us. I stare again at Schermer and apprehend, too late to do anything except observe, that he has taken advantage of our intermission to throw a well-placed haymaker that connects above my ear. This time it hurts. It also sends me grapevining across the room and into a shelf that disgorges its contents onto my head as I slump to the floor.

For a moment I am occupied mainly with savoring the painful cacophony in my skull and the steel-wool taste of bloody ski mask in my mouth, but then I realize that one of the items scattered around me is a plate-sized piece of wood. I pick it up and see that its convexities are embellished with cloth, raffia, and cowrie shells. This seems relevant for some reason, but I can’t figure why right away, and at any rate it’s not as pressing as the barrel of the gun that is now leveled at my head, smelling of oil and burned metal and death.

“Say goodbye, fucker,” Schermer says.

Then it clicks.

“The K’plua,” I say.

“What?”

He cocks his head quizzically at me holding the mask and then, from somewhere behind him, something flashes like a fish in water and Schermer goes down hard. Herk smiles at me.

The K’plua’s mouth is doing something, too, but I wouldn’t say it’s smiling. I know that it is just a wood carving and therefore not prone to buccinator plasticity, but it now appears as a split and ruptured-looking rictus—a terrible Ugolino gurn. The day of its theft it seemed plenty mad but now it looks absolutely ecstatic with outrage—disapproving, yes, certainly, but also judgelike and vengeance-ready.

I have really let it down.

Sportsmanship and the tenets of fair play require that I check to see if Schermer’s all right, or at least alive, but instead I take advantage of the situation and approach the unconscious body of my longtime foe coolly, with a Steve McQueen swagger, and punch him in the head as hard as I can.

The moment isn’t as triumphant as I would like, though. Even to my ears, when I cry out “And a-one!” it sounds stupid and childish. I forget to say, “That’s for the dog biscuits in the locker, motherfucker!” as I had fantasized about doing for so long. And there’s something a little unfulfilling about smiting a nemesis who doesn’t move. It’s like punching a stuffed animal. Additionally, at the moment of impact, Schermer, already knocked out, makes no noises of distress and I do: something painful happens in my thumb and I let out a startled yelp.

“Jesus,” Herk says. “What did you do? Hit him with your thumb inside your fist?”

I shrug.

“Who taught you how to punch?”

“Jessica,” I say. “Cardio-kick. Tuesdays / Thursdays at seven.”

“Should have fucking known. Is it broken?”