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guy nervous.”
    “You never had a problem before—no worries about the intel he feeds us, or the logistics; no complaint about the splits or the banking service; no gripes at all that I heard about.”
    Latin Mike nods slowly, but concedes nothing. “Still, a guy gets older, he starts to like the bird in the hand, right, Bobby?”
    Bobby smiles. “Three bucks and a quarter—we used to call that a nice payday.”
    There’s wood smoke in the air, something fragrant, mesquite maybe, mixing with the scents of warm earth, bay laurel, and sage that rise from the hillside. Carr breathes in deeply.
    “Back when Declan brought me on, you guys thought half a buck was Christmas morning. Times change; prices rise. Three and a quarter isn’t what it used to be, especially after expenses. It’s not beach money anymore.”
    Mike empties his wineglass. “And you’re all about retirement, right,
jefe
?”
    “I thought we all were. I thought that’s what we said the last five times we had this conversation. But if you’re saying something different, let’s not dick around. Tell me now and I’ll tell Boyce when I see him day after tomorrow.”
    Bobby pops up, as if he’s sat on a tack, but he’s smiling. “Nobody’s saying anything. We’re just thinking out loud.”
    Valerie’s laugh is like ice in a glass. “Is that how you split the labor, Bobby—Mike thinks, and you do the out loud part?”
    Bobby flips her the bird, but he’s laughing too, and so is Dennis, and so—finally—is Mike. Carr is still watching purple shadows spread over the valley when the waitress reappears and says that their table is ready.
    It’s set with heavy linen, battered silver, and votive candles in thick blue glass. Valerie is at the head, between Bobby and Latin Mike, and Carr sits at the other end, between Dennis and the vacant chair. Valerie’s playing hostess tonight, smiling, laughing, keeping glasses filled and conversation weightless. It’s a part she plays well: conspiratorial and flattering with Mike; flirtatious and profane with Bobby; and with Dennis simply present to be gazed upon. Carr can relate; he can’t look away either.
    Candlelight flickers on her arms and throat and softens her elfin features. Her green eyes glow and, as the night wears on, her braid loosens and two honey-colored strands slip down to frame her face. Always in motion, the face, the hands, the voice—lifting, lilting, insinuating. It must be exhausting, Carr thinks—it exhausts him just watching her, but he watches just the same. The room darkens, the crowd thins, wine bottles march steadily past, good soldiers all, and by the time the entrees are cleared Carr is drunk and drifting backward again, to Costa Alegre.
    *    *   *
    It was off-season in Chamela—white mornings, the narrow pastel streets empty until noon—and Carr was on R & R between jobs, nursing a row of bruised ribs. He was sticking close to his rented casita, swimming, reading, sleeping, and he’d never have seen her if not for Fernando.
    Fernando did alarms for Declan when Carr first joined up, and his brother Ernesto did surveillance, but their skills didn’t line up with Declan’s ambitions and they’d slipped into retirement about a year later—Neto to a sport fishing business on the Riviera Maya, and Nando to invest in Jalisco real estate. Carr had always liked the brothers, their unfussy competence and soft-edged cynicism, and he’d been happy to hear from Nando and accept his invitation to drive up the coast for lunch by a hotel pool.
    Nando was thicker, darker, and more jocular than he’d been the last time he and Carr had shared a meal. He was working steadily through a platter of chicken tacos and a long story about some condos he was building in Manzanilla when he paused and pointed with his beer to the far side of the pool. “
Oye, cabrón
—you like a little mystery?”
    She wore a green two-piece, and her skin was the color of toast. Her hair wasn’t