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mule.” He looked up pitiably. “I’m not smart enough. You understand?”
    “How much time did he give you?” Bernhardt said, interrupted by some low moaning coming from the whore on the stool. Bernhardt turned to look at her.
    “He didn’t say.” Sonny stared at Bernhardt expressionless,waiting for his attention to come back. He was wanting a miracle. Quinn knew the look, though he didn’t care about it on Sonny. His face just wasn’t useful to what he felt.
    “You fucking putz,” he said and sighed. He wanted to let Sonny take it all down. But there wasn’t even any way for that now. He was in too far.
    Sonny looked like he might cry. “It’s a setup,” he said. “What am I supposed to do?”
    “Who’s supposed to be set up?” Quinn said. “You? Are you worth setting up, asshole?”
    “I don’t know,” Sonny said and shook his head pathetically.
    Bernhardt stood up. The whore had finished making noise and was sitting straight on her stool, fanning her cheeks with her hand. The boy looked radiant. The room was quiet except for the fan at the end, and the sound of the guards’ feet scuffing. “Try to stay tranquilo,” Bernhardt said courteously.
    Sonny opened his mouth to speak, but Bernhardt wasn’t listening. He had started toward the exit.
    “What’s happening?” Sonny said. He seemed amazed.
    “You fucked this up,” Quinn said. “This was slick, and now it’s fucked up.”
    “What’re you going to do?” Sonny said.
    “Guess,” Quinn said.
    Sonny looked pathetic again. “When’s Rae coming?” he said.
    Bernhardt was already out the door. “Don’t think about her,” Quinn said. “Just pretend she doesn’t exist.”
    “This is dumb,” Sonny said. “Jesus this is so goddamned dumb.”
    “Is that right?” Quinn said. “You’re a fucking genius, man. I don’t know how you ever got in here.” He walked down between the rows of tables toward the blank wall where the exit was.

4
    T HE HIGH MOUNTAIN on the west valleyside had lost the sun and blackened down to the color of green without light. In the winter, chaparral fires blossomed in the steep inclines and defiles, hanging a mask of haze to the terminus of the valley. The fire burned for weeks, and people stopped noticing it, and after a while the smoke just became part of the landscape. It was, Quinn thought, the way you got yourself used to everything. It was like imagination, and then it was the way things were. And then you couldn’t tell the difference.
    “So how do we find this guy?” he said. Rae would be here too soon and things weren’t falling out just right.
    “It won’t be difficult.” Bernhardt adjusted his glasses with his thumb and fingers, then squinted over the steering wheel toward Monte Albán, clear in the open distance west, where there were still morning light windows on the precipices. Bernhardt was driving fast, “What would your wife’s brother do for money?” he said calmly.
    “Nothing that big,” Quinn said. “He couldn’t lay off that much.”
    “He could mail it to an apartado in the States, a dummy.” Bernhardt seemed to enjoy the speculation.
    “He’s too little.”
    “A great deal of trouble can be caused by little liars. You understand?” Bernhardt looked at him appraisingly.
    “No way,” he said. “He doesn’t have a big imagination.”
    Bernhardt fastened his eyes back on the highway. “Then we will have to impress the other man,” he said. “Mr. Deats. I will have to find a way to do that.”
    “What happens meantime?” His mind was on Rae. It was too late to call her in Texas. She’d be out of the motel already.
    “We will purchase the document of release,” Bernhardt said evenly. “I will go on with the arrangements to the judge. You will meet your wife. Things will go as we planned them. We can’t
worry
about Mr. Deats. It is a delicate situation.”
    They were approaching the army spec station from the opposite direction. More buses sat queued on