Shame

baggy clothing. Over the blare of the radio, he asked, “Run out of gas, man?”
    “My girlfriend did,” shouted Caleb. “She took my car and forgot to look at the gas gauge, and now she expects me to bail her out.”
    The lie came easily to him, emerged without any thought.
    “Sounds like my girlfriend, man. Anything goes wrong with her car and it’s like, ‘You’re the guy. You take care of it.’”
    Caleb nodded. He didn’t try to compete over the loud Latin pop on the radio.
    “So, where’s your car, man?”
    “Out near State.”
    The driver weighed the location and opted for continuing along his straight line. “I better drop you off on College, then.”
    “Thanks,” said Caleb, then tried to remember his East County geography. The drop-off spot would be a mile or two from the sorority. He looked at his watch again.
    “Want to make five bucks?” Caleb shouted.
    “Doing what?”
    “Driving me to Montezuma. My girlfriend was sort of spooked about having to wait outside for me.”
    The driver shrugged his shoulders a little, then his head started bobbing in agreement. “Spooky times, man. No problem. You just hired yourself Antonio’s Taxi Service.”
    Caleb wished Antonio had the lead foot of most cabbies, but the driver was content to go the speed limit. As loud as the music was, the station breaks were even louder. The disc jockey’s staccato and voluble Spanish made it sound as if he were having an apoplectic seizure. Caleb looked out his window. The ethnic mix that lived in the neighborhoods surrounding University was revealed in its restaurants. Polyglot signs advertised everything from taquerías to dim sum to Ethiopian take-out. Somehow immigrants kept fitting in. That’s all I ever wanted to do, Caleb thought, just fit in.
    As they drew closer to San Diego State, Caleb found his heart racing. Pounding. Sweat dripped off him, soaking Lola’s sweatshirt. His wound stung, the perspiration finding its way into the cut. Caleb patted the sweatshirt, feeling to make sure the gauze strips were still in place. They were, but his hand still came away sticky and red. He looked down and saw a dark patch in the front of the sweatshirt. He was lucky the sweatshirt was navy blue. It masked the blood, especially at night. To the casual eye it looked like sweat.
    “Make a right here,” Caleb shouted, “and then drop me off anywhere.”
    He pulled out his wallet and then wiped his hand on his pants. It wouldn’t do to hand Antonio a bloodied five-dollar bill.
    Antonio didn’t immediately pull over. He turned his head right and left, trying to catch sight of a woman waiting by a car.
    “Where’s your lady, man?”
    Caleb didn’t say anything, just craned his head as if he expected to see his waiting girlfriend. Montezuma was a mixture of apartment buildings, residences, and sorority and fraternity houses. Cars lined the streets. Caleb pointed out a VW Jetta that was parked farther away from the curb than the other cars.
    “That’s my car,” he said.
    “So where’s your
chica
?” asked Antonio.
    Caleb motioned with his chin. “She’s got a friend who lives over at that apartment,” he said.
    He handed Antonio the money and hopped out of the car. Caleb offered a wave and started walking toward the apartment he had pointed out. Behind him, he heard the Toyota make a U-turn and then drive off.
    Caleb reversed his steps and started walking up Montezuma. He knew by the street numbers that the Kappa Omega sorority was several blocks away, apparently at the end of fraternity and sorority row. As he covered the distance, Caleb tried to think like the killer. Around him, the complexion of the neighborhood changed. Shrubs became hiding places; opened windows were invitations for him to visit. The role of killer, he found, was all too easy to assume.
    He took up his first position from half a block away, hid behind a eucalyptus tree while scouting the area. The sorority house wasn’t as large as he expected, was just a converted two-story townhouse that had undergone several additions. The house was situated in the middle of an oversized lot. On one side of it was an apartment house and on the other a home that by all signs was rented out for student housing.
    Caleb left the shelter of the tree and made his way forward along a pathway of trodden ice plants. As he neared the house, he noticed the street was darker than it should have been. Looking up, he saw that the street lamp wasn’t