"You think I can't do something about it?" she said, talking to the cigar. "You think I'm one of your whores? You can keep eating that Viagra like M &M'S but you're no man."

She nudged the cigar with her toe and saw that beneath the black ash of its tip a small orange ember still lived. She thought about his wrinkled, bony hide snuggling up to her in bed, his cold limp thing on her leg and hot bourbon breath in her ear asking her for "a poke.''

"I know how to stop you," she said, resting the bottle of vodka on the table and tossing what remained of her drink over the railing. "You son of a bitch. I'll do it.

"I'll do it," she said again. "You fucking gargoyle.''

She stamped the cigar, grinding it flat into the tiles, smearing the ember into the burned-up waste and the soggy leaves, smiling as it crunched beneath her toe like a bug, dead and unknowing, and then her heels clicked across the terrace and down the back stairs to the office where he did his work.

CHAPTER 66

TWENTY FEET FROM THE TABLE, TWO BIG FAT MEN IN BLACK cowboy hats, jeans, and Western shirts with rhinestone pocket buttons stepped in front of him. Jose held up his hands, shouted his name above the music, and asked to speak with Flaco. One frisked him, examining Jose's cell phone, while the other held a finger to his ear and spoke into his lapel before they returned the phone and let him pass. Jose glanced up and saw the riflemen relax.

The gold grill in Flaco's wide smiling mouth winked at Jose beneath a thin black mustache. Flaco's bug eyes spun around the table from whore to whore as he finished up a story that left everyone laughing. Jose's eyes traveled quickly over the women with big breasts and big white teeth, but lingered to study Flaco's cronies, two young punks he didn't know.

Flaco's eyes widened even more when he saw Jose.

"Eh, Jose mi espanol irlandes," he said, poking his hat back up on his forehead with a long-nailed thumb.

"You know," Jose said, sitting down in a space Flaco made for him on the edge of the booth and resting his beer, "up there, they call me a Mex. Down here, I'm a mick. I'm a man without a country."

Flaco laughed and rolled his eyes at the whores and, in Spanish, introduced Jose as the only good cop north of the border. A waitress set down a dozen pale green shooters that shimmered in the changing light.

"You gonna like this, amigo," Flaco said, raising a glass. "Is green like your Irish ass.''

Jose obliged, slammed his glass down after he swallowed its contents, and put back another before offering up a grin and telling Flaco, in Spanish, that he needed to see Soto.

At this, Flaco grew instantly serious and at the stiffening of his body, Jose saw the riflemen swing their guns back his way in unison, like a small school of fish. From the corner of his eye, he caught a minute red laser dot spring to life on his hand and scuttle quickly up his arm like a roach, coming to rest, he figured, at the base of his skull. Absently, he rubbed the skin behind his ear.

Jose took a breath.

Flaco cast an angry look at his compatriots and flicked his head. He gripped Jose's arm and leaned close.

"You come in here asking for Soto?" Flaco said, his words a snaking hiss. "Are you fucking joking with me, man? Does he know? Are you fucking with me? Are you wired? Because if you are, we'll gut you like a fucking fish."

The two fat men Jose had passed by now reappeared. Flaco glared up at them.

"He wired? You check for that?" Flaco asked them accusingly.

One of the men lifted Jose roughly from the booth, and together they swept their hands up underneath Jose's shirt and combed through his hair. One of them examined his ears and open mouth with a penlight while the other dropped his drawers and frisked everything in his boxers and boots.

"What?" Jose said. "Aren't you going to kiss me first?"

After the inspection, he buckled his pants and glared at Flaco. Around them, the thin crowd continued its dancing and drinking without pause.

"You don't say his name," Flaco said, shaking his head like a dog at the kill. "Every other motherfucking badass bitch you can think of is looking for the man. The Cougar. That's what he is called."

"Well," Jose said, "I thought I had a marker. Maybe I was wrong."

"You think you got a marker? I think you got a fucking marker in your brain, man," Flaco said.

"You going to call?" Jose asked. "Or are you saying he pusses out of a deal?''

"You crazy bitch," Flaco said, sliding out of the booth. "I'll get him word. I don't promise nothing."

Jose watched Flaco disappear through a back door with one of the big fatties. He took a swig of his beer, but before he could enjoy a second, Flaco burst back through the door, put a hand on Jose's shoulder, and leaned close.

"He said for me to tell you that you got cojones the size of cannonballs," Flaco said. "Muy macho."

Jose nodded and said, "Solid steel."

"We'll see," Flaco said. "Come on."

Outside Perro Rojo, a Suburban raced up the alley and came to a rocking halt. Two thugs in black cargo pants and T-shirts jumped out, handcuffed Jose, and wrapped his eyes with ACE bandage, taping it tight. After spinning him around like a child in front of a pinata, they helped him into the SUV, which took off with the same yip from its tires that had announced its arrival only moments before. They turned three or four times a minute for the first ten, then the road got straight. They took that for a time before pulling an abrupt U-turn, where Jose felt the truck nearly roll. They rode back twice as fast, Jose's heart in his throat, he guessed their speed at somewhere over a hundred miles per hour, before taking a sudden right and going for nearly an hour on a bumpy road. Twice, Jose's head bounced off the ceiling, eliciting chuckles from the two men who sat on either side of him, gripping his elbows.

When the SUV finally stopped, Jose climbed out and held out his hands for the cuffs to be removed.

"Vamos," one of them said, telling him to come on and grabbing him by the collar.

They helped him into a helicopter, buckling him in as the blades chuffed into motion. The bird lifted, tilting forward, and eased up and away from the earth. Jose figured they flew for twenty minutes before descending to a soft landing. They hustled him off and lifted him by the armpits up a long set of what felt and sounded like stone steps. He heard the creak of massive metal doors that clanged shut behind him before heavy hardware rattled back into place. From the echoes of their footsteps, Jose knew they passed into and out of two large chambers before coming to a halt in the middle of a third, where the cool air seemed to swallow all sound.

When they removed his handcuffs and unwound the bandage on his face, Jose saw before him the big sad eyes and heavy drooping jowls of his old nemesis Soto.