Excellent, says Charles.

I say, Is he a movie star?

Charles says, He is.

He says, He’s actually Chinese, from the mainland. Daniel Day-Lewis he is not, but he’s not wooden and he is good-looking. Perfect movie star material.

Right then, a great hulk of a girl comes storming up to us, pointing at my camera. This She-Hulk is part of the bowling sisterhood on the lane next to ours.

She’s saying she wants you to delete the picture of her friend, Charles translates.

Say cheese, I say.

She-Hulk stands there blinking. Her face goes all red, and she blows back to where she came from.

Exhibit C, ladies and gentlemen.

Only she’s changed her mind, and now she’s coming back. Before I can lift my camera to fire off another shot, she’s grabbed it and lobbed it over to where the restaurant is.

I watch in abject horror as it arcs in the air and thuds onto the ground in between two families sat down with their hotdogs.

You’ve got a lovely way with people, says Charles.

Back at the lane, and my camera is miraculously okay. Body undented, lens uncracked. Jeez, what a raging psycho bitch that girl was.

Thank god for carpet, that’s what I say.

Charles is turning my camera around in his hands, giving it the once-over.

See, he says, engineered to perfection. Built like tanks these little Leicas.

I say to Charles, Your friend is going to think he’s got a stalker, the way we got into his apartment like that.

He says, Or his wife’s got a stalker.

Nice, I say. She’s a movie star too, is she?

She is, he says.

Charles hands me back my camera. You know, he says, I still can’t get over my luck bumping into you in that doughnut shop.

He says, Do you believe in fate?

I say, Not really, no.

I must say, he says, I was very impressed with the photos.

Picture Sean the happy little hippo, splashing around in the praise.

He stands back up again, holding his bowling ball up under his chin. Eyes focused on the pins.

He says, How about helping me with another practical joke?

I think about how being in that luxury apartment was a rush, for sure.

I think about how warm and fuzzy it felt to do good work.

I think about the coin I could get for doing another job.

And then I think about the morning after, and how the whole thing just felt more fucked-up in the hazy light of a Taipei day. A little too fucked-up.

I say, You know, I think I’m good.

Out the corner of my eye, at the far end of the alley, a figure stands still among the blur of bodies.

Face painted in swirls of red, white, gold, black.

Watching us.

I hear a voice calling out, Guo lai!

But when I turn to look proper, the figure is gone.

Ah, a shame indeed, says Charles, but I understand. He lets the ball fly.

Boom…

Rumble…

I watch the ball curl in the lane.

Crash.

T

HIRTEEN

She moves closer to Mia, gazes into her bottomless brown eyes.

She takes Mia in her arms, kisses her.

She holds Mia’s hand, leads her to the bed, and they tumble down, down, down. A single mass of tangled up legs and arms and hands and lips.

Mia’s infectious giggle, starting quiet, then getting louder, and louder, and louder.

Reverberating.

I wake up, alone.