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hummingbirds and their manic metabolisms as he wrote—seemed the stuff of the most intangible fantasy.
    He found the book in the second pile he’d searched. On the cover was a black and white photograph of an ancient fountain in the middle of a square. Malcolm knew it was in Antigua, but the fountain itself reminded him of Hawthorne’s description of Beatrice’s in “Rappaccini’s Daughter.”
    The book was thicker than he remembered. He decided to leave it unopened for the night, setting it in the middle of his desk to await Labor Day weekend.
    Malcolm returned to the front of the house to feed Ricardo and drain his now watered-down High Voltage.
     

Chapter 4
    Malcolm
    M alcolm planned to stop at the bank on his way to school, but as he turned onto West Congress St., he started to wonder—too late—about getting the gun inside. He wouldn’t be able to carry a handgun into the bank without causing a scene—or worse. Malcolm immediately regretted not storing the AMT in a box or bag, but he had nothing in his car that would do.
    He turned down Cajundome Boulevard and headed toward campus. He could find a box in his office and run the errand later.
    Malcolm passed the “Firearm Free Zone” sign as he pulled into the parking lot at H. L. Griffin Hall.
    “Great. I’m breaking a federal law.” He made a mental note not to try to box up the gun before leaving campus.
    Before his 9 a.m. class (the one sophomore level course that was free of complaints thus far), Malcolm sat down at his office desk and stared at the list of contacts in his phone. He considered jotting down Madeleine Percy’s number so that it would be staring up at him on Tuesday. Madeleine had been his agent since his first publication six years before when he was an untenured assistant professor at Jacksonville University. At 29, he was one year out of the University of Miami’s graduate school, and already young Dr. Vashal had a book with his name on it. In those days, he could hear the tattoo of tenure-track in the rhythm of his steps.
    Madeleine Percy had represented him in his bid for subsidiary rights to a collection of short stories. The writer, a 30-year-old native of Mexico City had woven a theme of emigration to the U.S. into four tales, all about Mexican teens. Luis Miguellez had been skeptical about handing the rights over to an American, but Madeleine had been charming, persistent. She had emphasized her connections in Houston and Santa Fe who could offer publishing and marketing and take his collection of adolescent hope and hopelessness to an international audience.
    In the end, what convinced Miguellez stemmed from Madeleine’s suggestion that he talk to Malcolm himself. A conference call between the writer and his agent and Madeleine and Malcolm was scheduled, but Madeleine let Malcolm do the talking, tell Miguellez why he’d chosen the book, what he thought American readers and especially Mexican American readers needed to see in the grim lives of Miguellez’s lost teens. The writer had consented, and the deal was made. Stray Dogs by Luis Miguellez, translated by Malcolm Vashal, Ph. D., could be found in a few bookstores in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California that year. The book had only one printing in the U.S., but reviews in The San Antonio Express-News and the Houston Chronicle were enough to allow the printing to turn a modest profit. As for Malcolm, it was more than he could hope for as a man under 30. And it was enough for Madeleine Percy to secure his trust.
    Malcolm stared at Madeleine’s office number. Stray Dogs had, in many ways, determined the direction of his life. A job. A move. A marriage. Malcolm did not shrug away the certainty that fell on him like a cloak, that threatened to smother him: that it was a damn fool thing to trust something that felt good.
    He left for class. No one burst into tears. No one called him names. No one stormed out of the classroom. Considering Malcolm’s dread about