They’re all still around, hiding somewhere, waiting for this to end, so they can go about their business. It’s not like we’re invisible. We’re standing under a fucking street light and cars are driving by. But no one wants to get involved.

“Give up the purse, Homes, and I’ll let the bitch live. Consider it your lucky day. Maybe someday you’ll be operating on me, you’ll save my life.”

“You can’t have my purse, Hector!” Trudy says.

He gives her a look. “How the fuck you know my name?”

“It’s tattooed on your neck. I’m Trudy, by the way.”

“You can’t make that Hector shit out! It’s hidden in all the gang tats.”

“Oh, please,” she says. “It stands out like a sore thumb.”

He looks at me. “You see it?”

He turns his head sideways to give me a better view.

I study the tats on his neck carefully, in case I need to pick him out of a police lineup later on.

“Well?” he says.

“I don’t see it.”

“Let me get more light on it,” he says.

He takes a couple of steps toward the streetlight, tilts his neck till his right cheek touches his shoulder. Points where his name should be.

“Sorry,” I say. “It just looks like a maze of ink to me.”

“Right answer. So how the fuck can she see it?”

“I’m good with puzzles,” Trudy says. “You know what you need, Hector?”

“Yeah. Your sweet pussy. Bet it smells like honeysuckle. How about I give it a little sniff? How would that be?”

“It would be rude.”

“I’ll start with the purse, ’cause I got a use for that $227.50. But don’t worry, I’ll track you down and sniff that honeysuckle real soon.”

“What you need’s a job. Honest labor.”

“Fuck you, bitch! I already got a woman up my ass about that shit. Got me a day job, too. But it don’t pay shit.”

“What’s your day job?”

“People pay me to come to funerals to augment the grief.”

“That’s sad.”

I say, “Hector, you should move along to the next victim. We’ve been under this light a long time. We can ID you, but we won’t, if you walk away right now. And anyway, someone will have called the cops by now.”

He gives me a look. “You right, Homes. About bein’ in the light a long time. Long enough for me to realize the prize is in your pocket, not her purse. Yeah, I’ll turn around and leave. Sure as shit will turn around and leave. But I’m takin’ your wallet with me.”

He moves toward me in a crouch, as if planning to engage in a knife fight.

I say, “Where’d you get your medical training, Hector?”

He ignores the question.