8 Shall I Tell You? WHEN THE LIGHTS came back on, I lay sprawled and dripping on a grimy floor with this guy standing over me. Massive legs and shoulders. Dirty prote uniform. He held my piton gun, checking it out I glanced around and saw shelves, boxes, trash. I was lying in a small cube with metal walls and one dim overhead light source. A portable generator growled in the corner. My helmet was gone. When the guy saw me moving, he pointed the gun at my throat, but his finger wasn’t on the trigger. “I am Vincente,” he said in thick Spanglish. “Why have you broken into my home?” “Hey, amigo, sorry. I must be in the wrong place.” Spanglish came easily to me because it had cognates with my native Paris gutter-Fragñol. I sat up fast and skidded backward on my butt till my shoulder pressed against something sharp. I kept my eye on that gun. Pitons in the throat leave nasty scars. “So, Vincente, this your cube?
