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lives of the townspeople, under siege as they were from a moribund economy, La Migra, dope-dealing street gangs and their clients, the relentless tide of gentrification, and their own diseases, demons, and bad, bad luck. But still they hung on. Some of the villagers recognized their local doctor; some even waved as I passed.
    My first stop was Carmen’s—a low cinder-block bunker around the corner from the clinic, and tucked between a sheet metal shop and a fabric wholesaler. It was painted in horizontal bands of yellow and parrot green, had two red metal doors, and a sign above advertising sandwiches, soda, beer, and an ATM. I stopped at the outdoor counter and spoke to Mateo through the service window.
    Mateo owned the place, did the cooking, and came to see me about his hypertension. Sometimes he brought his wife, who was diabetic, or his mother-in-law, Carmen, who was mildly asthmatic and awesomely mean. Mateo made a wicked iced coffee—pitch black, but smooth—and he poured it over plenty of ice in a tall plastic cup. He pushed a jar of sugar syrup through the window, along with my coffee and a straw.
    “¿
Qué tal,
doc?” he said, and his heavy brown face creased into a smile.
    “I’m all right, Mateo. How about you?”
    Mateo nodded. “Still here.”
    “That’s what it’s all about. How’s Ana, and her mom?”
    “Ana’s good—trying to get exercise and watch the diet, like you said. And Carmen…” Mateo shrugged.
    I smiled at him and took the photos from my pocket. “Maybe you can help me out,” I said. “I’m looking for a woman who came by the clinic yesterday. She left something behind, and I’m trying to get it back to her.” I slid the photos of the woman and the boy across the counter.
    Mateo pulled a pair of smudged half-glasses from his apron and perched them on his nose. He squinted. After a while he shook his head.
    “How about these guys?” I asked, and passed photos of the two crew cuts across the counter.
    Mateo squinted harder. “Sorry, doc. Don’t know
los soldados
either.”
    “You think they’re soldiers?”
    Another shrug. “The hair, the big necks, kinda mean-looking—that’s what I think of.”
    I took back the prints and stared at the two men.
Los soldados.
I thanked Mateo and tried to pay for the coffee. He refused my money and refilled my cup, and I continued down the street.
    The next few hours were much the same, except hotter and without free drinks. At soup kitchens, shelters, bodegas, check-cashing joints, building-supply yards, and wholesalers of fruits, vegetables, and candy, I exchanged greetings and small talk, heard about symptoms, looked in a few throats, palpated some necks, bellies, and limbs, and passed my pictures around. And people studied them, shook their heads, and said, “Sorry, doc,” in many languages.
    Under the relentless sun, the city was a baking brick: hard, brown, parched, and cracked. I bought a lime Jarritos at a bodega on Eighth Street and found some meager shade to stand in. I drank the soda and held the bottle to my neck and looked across the street. A line of the homeless, ten of them, genders obscured by layers of clothing, sheltered beneath the frayed awning of a boarded storefront. Some held signs, crudely scrawled on cardboard, that asserted past lives—
OIF veteran;
Five kids;
Fry cook
—advertised a willingness to work for food, or simply pleaded:
Need money food home NEED HELP.
At the end of the line, the smallest figure held the largest sign. It wasn’t hand printed, but a collage of words and letters cut from newspapers and magazines. The text twisted this way and that, and finally wound into an illegible knot—an incoherent ransom note from a mind held hostage by itself.
    I shook my head, then finished my soda and went back to the grocery. I returned my empty bottle and bought ten gallon-jugs of water. It took me two trips across Eighth Street to deliver them. It wasn’t world-changing, I knew; improving the next