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slipped the man a dollar bill folded to the size of a stick of gum. I did the same with the porters and customs men outside.
    This was the thing to do, I had been told, but it bothered me a little. You could look on a dollar as a tip and you could also look on it as a small bribe. I was afraid one of these fellows might turn out to be a zealot like Bruce Wayne, whose parents were murdered by crooks and who had dedicated his entire life to the fight against crime. An attempted bribe, followed by the discovery of a pistol concealed in a pie carton, and I would really be in the soup. But nothing happened. They palmed those dollars like carnival guys and nobody looked into anything. The customs man marked my suitcase with a piece of chalk and a porter stuck the decals on my windows and I was gone. I was free and clear in Mexico with my Colt Cobra.
    Those boys were sleepy and not much interested in their work, it’s true enough, but I was still pleased at the way I had brought it off. I couldn’t get over how composed I had been, looking prison right in the face. Now I was surprised and lightheaded, like a domestic fowl that finds itself able to fly over a low fence in a moment of terror. Vestigial Midge powers were rising in the blood. I was pleased too that I was in Mexico and not at home, but that works both ways because after sunrise I met Americans driving out of Mexico and they all appeared to be singing happy songs.
    I waved at children carrying buckets of water and at old women with shawls on their heads. It was a chilly morning. I’m a gringo of goodwill in a small Buick! I’ll try to observe your customs! That was what I put into my waves.
    The poor people of Mexico were the ones without sunglasses. I could see that right off the bat. The others, descendants of the great Cortez, he who had burned his ships at Veracruz, were stealing small advantages in traffic. They would speed up and hog the center line when you tried to pass them. They hated to be passed. I say Cortez “burned” his ships because everyone else does, but I know perfectly well that he only had them dismantled there on the beach—not that it takes away from his courage.
    A few miles from the border there was a checkpoint and an officer there examined my papers. Nothing matched! I was driving a completely different car from the one described on the form. He couldn’t deal with such a big lie so early in the morning and he gave the papers back to me and waved me on.
    The desert road was straight and the guidebook said it was boring but I didn’t find it so. I was interested in everything, the gray-green bushes, the cactus, a low brown hill, a spider crossing the road. Later in the morning a dark cloud came up that had a green rim and then rain fell in such torrents that cars and buses pulled over to wait it out. A desert rainstorm! You couldn’t see three feet! I turned on the headlights and slowed down but I kept going until the brake linings got wet and wouldn’t hold.
    I don’t like to piddle around when I’m on the road and this stop made me impatient. If you stop for ten minutes, you lose more than ten minutes’ driving time. I don’t know why, but I do know why slow ships can cross the Atlantic Ocean in just a few days. Because they never stop! My ankles and my new cordovan shoes were soaked from water sloshing up through the hole in the floor. I sat out the storm there on the shoulder of the road reading The Life and Glorious Times of Zach Taylor , by Binder. It was not the kind of title I liked but it was a pretty good book.
    After the sun came out, I drove slow and rode the brakes for a while until they were dry. I was still on the straight part of the highway north of Monterrey when a big yellow car came racing up behind me and stayed right on my bumper. More Mexican stuff, I thought, and then I saw that it was Jack Wilkie in his Chrysler Imperial. I could see him in my mirror, laughing