She closed her eyes, my mother’s coat draped over her like a morgue sheet.

Watch this, she said, her eyes still closed. She stabbed her cigarette out on Ashley’s face. Red ember ground down, burning a blue hole in the little girl’s eyes.

The roof was harder than a cliff, and I ended up spending the entire night just sitting cross-legged, staring at the pure black sky. All night, I didn’t hear a siren or a scream or anything. I might as well have been in the forests with my father; it was just as still and quiet up above the sleeping retirement town. I kept thinking that I should go home before Sylvia discovered the note I’d left. Hey Sylvia, Gone to Dean Black’s for the week. Don’t worry about me.

I’d try not to think about Sylvia and then I’d just start thinking about Dirk Wallace. I kept seeing him awkwardly loping around his house in Oak Bay, trying to explain his missing wallet to his wife. His wife was probably named Sue. She was probably on to him by now. I want a divorce, she’d scream. Get out of here, you sleaze. Or maybe not. Maybe he’d just saunter into the police station and say he’d been rolled by two desperate girls in the alley behind the King’s Hotel. Describe the assailant, please. Red-haired. Shivering. Skin like the Arctic Sea.

Across the way, I saw on a higher roof nearer Chinatown the shimmer of a girl.

Later, I’d find out the shimmer was Justine. She lay down on a rough roof, higher than mine. Like me, she pressed her back against pebbled tar. She held herself; she shivered and counted the stars.

Good morning, Fresno, China said, in a radio announcer’s voice. It’s a fine day in the lovely city of Victoria. We’re expecting twenty-two inches of rain, and after these commercials, we’ll bring you breaking news on the fine young daffodils Mrs. Smith has planted in her garden.

My stomach grumbled.

Let’s go to the Get Laid, she said. It’s on Dirk.

I was in no mood to see Stanley and his yellow teeth.

It is a delightful day, she said, holding my mother’s jacket tentlike over her head to keep away the rain. Why are you so freaked out?

That guy threatened me. Last night.

You call that a threat? Man, I’ve heard way worse.

He sounded pretty angry, I insisted, because, believe me, he did.

OK, take this, she said, thrusting a gift into my hand. Lighten up, would you? Stop being so paranoid.

So that’s how I ended up with the knife. The knife the cops are looking for, the knife they’ll never find.