Decker knocked again. He shouted something in Spanish.

The dog had worked itself up into a frenzy. There was yelling from above. Dad yelled back at him.

“You’re going to cause a riot,” I told my father.

“Nah, he’s just screaming for someone to shut the dog up.”

“Obviously, no one’s home.”

“Or sleeping. If he was out last night, Cin, he might be sleeping late.” Dad knocked again.

The dog kept up its vocal pyrotechnics.

Dad pounded this time.

“Let it ride—”

“You want to take control of your destiny or leave it to assholes?”

I exhaled. Dad gave the door another thrashing. “Last time,” he announced.

The dog was barking itself hoarse.

Ten seconds … twenty.

The dog quieted—a bark or two but without real feeling behind it. To my utter shock, I heard movement behind the door. My father pushed me out of the way. “Yo, Pepe,” he said. “Soy Miguel.”

I couldn’t understand the rest of his speech. I caught words but nothing else. I thought about Dad with his Spanish and Koby speaking three languages. I could barely cope with my native one.

Muffled Spanish came from behind the door.

Dad responded, “Un hombre blanco—alto con pelo rojo. El la busca, hombre. El dice que usted le debe dinero. Yo no le dije nada pero el dice que tiene una pistola, amigo. Si me da cincuenta dolares y una cerveza, pienso que yo puedo hacerlo esperar.”

Silence.

I whispered, “What did you say?”

He shut me up with a movement of his hand and put his finger to his lips. A couple of perfunctory yelps from the pooch, then I could hear the clunk of the dead bolt being opened. Dad pushed me against the wall.

The image of a charging pit bull leaping at my father’s face became quite vivid.

“Give me your gun,” I told him.

“What?”

“Don’t argue!” I spat fiercely. “You told me to have convictions—I have them now. Give me your gun now or I’m going to yell police!”

He gave me his gun.

Slowly, the door started to open. Just a crack at first, then it opened a little wider. Immediately, Decker shoved full force with his body and the door flew open.

As expected, the dog sprang upward, but Dad had come prepared. He gave the canine a swift, hard kick in the cranium, sending the midsize pooch across the room and crashing into a table. Pepe was going in one direction, while the dog, a pit bull mix, was shaking itself off, readying itself for round two.

I jumped on Pepe’s back, squeezing my legs around his waist and encircling his throat with my left arm. I jammed the bore of the gun into the nape of his neck. “CALL THE DOG OFF!” I shoved the gun deep against his cervical vertebrae. “CALL IT OFF! CALL IT OFF!”

The pit bull started charging. Dad picked up an end table. I screamed and shot at the intractable beast, grazing its head but not deterring it an iota. Dad threw the end table, knocking it again on the head as Renaldes did a rain dance, trying to shake me off his back.