Except for 206.

“Where’s two-oh-nine?” he said to the cleaning person, whose mouth was full of cheese and bread.

“Siento mucho, señor, pero no hablo inglés.”

Then why not learn some inglés if you’re going to live in this country? he said to himself.

He went in the other direction, going past the breezeway into an area of even numbers. At the far end of the building, with his hand pushed back inside his coat, his thumb hooked on the holstered butt of his semiautomatic, he paused and looked out over the city. Somewhere out there in the fading light was the Alamo, where he and his wife had taken their daughter when she was nine. He had not tried to explain to her the actuality of the events that had occurred there, the thousands of Mexican soldiers charging the walls on the thirteenth day of the siege, the desperation of the 118 men and boys inside who knew this was their last morning on earth, the screams of the wounded who were bayoneted to death in the chapel. Why should a child be exposed to the cruelty that had characterized much of human history? Hadn’t men like Bowie and Crockett and Travis died so children like his daughter could be safe? At least that was what Clawson had wanted to believe.

How could he have known at the time that his child’s death would be a far worse one than any experienced by the Texans inside the mission? Clawson could feel his eyes watering. He hated himself for his emotions, because his remorse for not having taken better care of his daughter had always paralyzed him and made him, too, the victim of his daughter’s killers, men who had yet to be executed, who ate good food and had medical care and watched television while his daughter and her fiancé lay in a cemetery and he and his wife dwelled daily in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Theologians claimed that anger was a cancer and that hatred was one of the seven deadly sins. They were wrong, Clawson thought. Anger was an elixir that cauterized sorrow and passivity and victimhood from the metabolism; it lit fires in the belly; it provided you with that deadening of the conscience that allowed you to lock down on someone with iron sights and forget he descended from the same tree in a Mesopotamian savannah that you did.

He went back up the walkway to the central part of the building. The cleaning person was still by her cart, looking in the opposite direction. Then he discovered why he had not found room 209. The tin numerals on the door of room 206 had been affixed to the wood with three tiny nails. But the nails at the top and bottom of the numeral 6 had been removed or knocked loose from their holes by the constant slamming of the door. The 6 was actually the numeral 9, turned upside down on the remaining nail.

The curtain was drawn on the window. Clawson tried to see through the corner of the jalousie with no success. Then he realized the door was slightly ajar, perhaps not over a quarter of an inch, the locking mechanism not in place. He put his left hand on the door handle and eased his semiautomatic from the holster. Behind him, he heard the wheels of the cleaning cart begin to move stiffly on the walkway. He pushed open the door, pulling his weapon, keeping it pointed at the floor, his eyes straining into the darkness of the room.

The bed was made, the television set on, the shower drumming in the bathroom. “Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” he said.

But there was no response.

He walked across the carpet, past the television screen, the light flickering on his wrist and hand and the dull black hue of his weapon. The bathroom was coated with steam, the heavy plastic curtain in the shower stall barely containing the water bouncing off its opposite side.

“Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” he repeated. “Turn off the shower and place both your hands against the wall.”

Again there was no response.

He gripped the edge of the curtain and ripped it back on the rod. The shower mist welled into his face.

“You shouldn’t go in a man’s room without a warrant,” a voice said behind him. “No, no, don’t move. You don’t want to look at me, hoss.”

Clawson stood frozen, his weapon held out by his side, the mist from the shower dampening his clothes, the back of his neck burning. But in the instant before he had been warned not to turn around, he had seen what appeared to be a hooded shape against the blowing rain, a nickel-plated pistol barrel in the figure’s left hand.

“Drop your piece in the commode,” the voice said.

“The cowboy at the desk dimed me?”

“You dimed yourself when you came here without backup. You’re guilty of the sins of pride and arrogance, my friend. But they don’t have to be your undoing. That means don’t listen to the kind of thoughts you’re having right now. This doesn’t have to end like you think.”

The grips of the semiautomatic were damp in Clawson’s grasp. Moisture had beaded on his face and was running into his eyes and collar. He could hear a sound in his head that was like the roaring of the sea, like a whoosh of flame from the gas tank of a burning automobile.

BY THE TIME Hackberry turned in to the motel parking lot, the sun had disappeared completely and the thunder had grown in volume, crackling across the sky like a tin roof being peeled joist by joist off a barn.

“I can’t believe this. An honest-to-God rain,” Pam said.

“Try Clawson again,” Hackberry said.

“Waste of time. I think he’s gotten himself into a pile of shit.”

He gave her a look.

“You got it,” she said.

He pulled in front of the motel office while she made the call. He could see a man dressed like a cowboy behind the front desk.

“No answer,” Pam said.

“Well, let’s see what life is like at Traveler’s Rest,” Hackberry said. He got out of the truck and buckled on his gun belt, the open door shielding him from view. Through the motel’s front window, he saw the clerk answer the phone and then go into the back. An electronic bell rang when he and Pam entered the office.

“Be right with you,” a voice in back said.

By leaning sideways, Hackberry could see the clerk standing in front of a mirror. He had just removed a Band-Aid from the corner of one eye. He rolled it up between his fingers and plunked it into a wastebasket, then peeled the paper off a fresh one and glued it against his skin, smoothing the adhesive down firmly with his thumb. He ran a comb through his hair, touched at his nostrils with one knuckle, and came back to the front desk with a smile on his face. His eyes dropped to the revolver on Hackberry’s hip. “Help you?” he said.

Hackberry opened his badge holder. “Has a federal agent by the name of Isaac Clawson been here?”

“Today?”

“In the last hour.”

“Federal agent? No, sir, not to my knowledge.”

“Can you tell me who’s staying in room two-oh-nine?”

The clerk bent to his computer, his expression earnest. “Looks like that’s a gentleman who paid cash. For five days, in advance. I’ll have to look up his registration card.”

“Can you describe what he looks like?”

“I don’t think it was me who checked him in. I don’t place him offhand.” The clerk touched at his nose. His eyes drifted off Hackberry’s onto the parking lot and a palm tree beating in the wind. “Y’all must have brought that weather with you. We can use it,” he said.

“Know a hooker by the name of Mona Drexel?”

“No, sir, we don’t allow hookers in here.”

“Did you see a man who has a shaved head and octagonal-shaped glasses and looks like a weight lifter?”

“Today? I don’t recollect anybody like that.”

“You know who Preacher Jack Collins is?”

“I know some preachers, but not one by that name.”

“I hear the A.B. is for life. Is that true?”

“Sir?”

“Those blue teardrops by your eye, the ones under your Band-Aid.”