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didn’t want to deal with his cousin, Undersheriff Robert Torrez. He scrabbled the nearest shoe upright and stabbed his toes into it, stamping it on with practiced ease.
    “Do you have your driver’s license on you?” Matt hesitated. “I need to see it.”
    He leaned sideways and managed to pull his wallet from his back pocket. I reached over and took it. “Where’d you buy the booze last night?” I asked.
    “I didn’t buy nothing,” Matt Baca said.
    “Oh, sure,” I agreed pleasantly. The wallet included seven dollars and a valid New Mexico driver’s license that showed a sullen Matt Baca and a birth date of December 13, 1982. I slipped the license into my shirt pocket and handed the wallet back to Matt.
    “Sosimo,” I said, “your son is charged with leaving the scene of an accident, providing alcohol to minors, driving under the influence, and half a dozen other things. The best thing for you to do is to come down in the morning and have a chat with Judge Hobart.”
    “The judge,” Sosimo said.
    “That’s right. The judge. We’ll have a preliminary hearing about nine o’clock. Unless you want me to wake Judge Hobart right now. He’s apt to be a little sore if you did that.”
    “No,” Sosimo said.
    “And you’re not in any shape to talk with him now anyway.” I stepped toward Matt and took him by the left elbow. “The boy will be safe in the county lockup until morning.”
    “So you’re going to drive up there now,” Sosimo said.
    “Yes,” I said. Sosimo looked like he wanted to say something else, but waved a hand. The whole thing was too much for his cider-laced brain. “You have a good night,” I said, and turned Matt toward the door. He shuffled along, letting me steer him into the glare of the lights.
    I opened the back door of the Ford and he ducked inside before I had a chance to say, “Watch your head.”
    It was only as I was turning the car around on the narrow lane that he said, “Where’s Bobby? I thought you said he was out here.”
    “Apparently not,” I said, and Matt Baca settled back and ran through his entire four-letter vocabulary in both Spanish and English.

Chapter Five
    I lost a bet with myself. I figured that the first thing Matthew Baca would do after he settled down in the backseat was to squirm his cuffed wrists down around his legs so that his hands were in front of him. That wouldn’t accomplish much, but at least he’d be able to pick his nose. About half the kids that we put into cuffs managed to accomplish that maneuver, and I suppose that every one of them hoped that we’d be surprised as hell, thereby showing us a thing or two, by God.
    Matt didn’t bother with that stunt. Instead he lay on his back and let fly at the right side window with both feet.
    The safety glass was pretty strong, and for the first few kicks he was off balance and experimenting. I slowed the car and twisted around to look through the heavy steel grille that separated front from back. Matt Baca was a dark, featureless shadow, but he could see my profile clearly enough.
    “The last time one of those windows got busted,” I said, “the court made the young man who kicked it out pay a hundred and eighty bucks to replace it. And that’s in addition to all the other charges. You might want to think about that.”
    Matt did think about it, for about ten seconds. Reasoning wasn’t on his agenda. He set to kicking again, this time with a vengeance. The
thud, thud, thud
rocked the car. Either he was tuckered from his trek on the mountain, or the soles of his nifty sneakers were too well padded. The window refused to break. His muttered display of colorful language came in short bursts as he sucked in air between assaults on the window.
    “Son,” I said, “I’ve never actually seen anybody climb out through a bunch of broken glass while the car was moving,” I said. “Especially with handcuffs on. That’s going to be quite a stunt to watch.”
    Maybe young Baca was sober