Gately shot by the Nucks (p. 614)
Joelle v.D. in her terry robe and gauze veil and still clutching a toothbrush has climbed out onto the little balcony outside the 5-Woman’s window and into a skinny ailanthus beside it and is coming down, showing about two meters of spectacularly undeformed thigh, shouting Gately’s name by the first name, which he likes. […] It occurs to Ken Erdedy, looking up into the oak past his upraised hands, that this deformed veiled girl likes Don Gately in an extracurricular way, it would seem.
Context
The theme's central tease, compressed into one page of gunfight: the narrator hands us "spectacularly undeformed thigh" — a word choice that only exists because the veil has made deformity the question — and four sentences later Erdedy flatly settles it for himself: "this deformed veiled girl." Everything below the hem is evidence; everything above it stays undecidable, and the book lets both readings stand in a single paragraph. (Ailanthus vs. Erdedy's "oak" — tree wobble as written.)