Amelia stares at him, then giggles. “That was a good story,” she says. “Would you like to hear a story?”

“Yes, I would.”

But before she is more than halfway throughThe Little Mermaid she hears shouting from below, Miss Milliken’s voice and her father’s voice.

“I have to go,” she says.

“Wait,” says Moie, and dipping his finger into a small clay pot, he presses a spot of ointment to the back of her neck. It feels warm on her neck for a moment. She scampers down from limb to limb and drops like a warm mango into her father’s arms.

After that she has to endure a stern lecture from the teacher, which her father supports. It is dangerous to climb into the tree. Does she want Miss Milliken to keep her indoors while the other children played? She does not. Well, then.

As parent and child walk away, Paz asks, “What were you doing up there, baby?”

“Nothing. Eating Fritos and watching the bugs. Did you have imaginary friends when you were a kid?”

“Probably, but I don’t remember.”

“I think it’s very babyish. I have a friend named Moie who’s half imaginary and half not imaginary.”

“Really? Like Mary Poppins?”

They have been strolling across the lawn to the parking lot, but now she stops short and looks at him severely, a look he has seen any number of times on her mother’s face. But this fades and is replaced by one more confused. “I forgot what I was going to say.”

“That happens to me all the time. Was it something about your imaginary friend?”

She shrugs. Then the animation returns to her face and she asks, “If God said you should kill me with a big knife, would you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“We had Bible study. They used to kill little boys and girls. It’s a sacrifice. I think Abraham was mean to sacrifice his little boy just ’cause God said.”

“But he didn’t sacrifice him.”

“No, but he was going to. I think God was mean, too.”

“It’s just a story, honey. Abraham had faith that God wouldn’t really make him do anything bad to his little boy.”

Again that dreamy expression crosses her face and clears.

“Isaac. There’s a Isaac in my class. He brought his Game Boy to school and Miss Milliken took it away and gave it back later.”

After a short pause she asks, “Anyway, would you?”

“No,” replies Paz without thought.

“Even if God would be mad at you?”

“Let him be. I still wouldn’t.”

“People who let themselves get sacrificed are martyrs, did you know that? And they get to be angels and fly around in heaven. Oh, look there’s Abuela!”

“Abuela!” she cries and runs across to the car and hoists herself through the window into her grandmother’s lap. The two chatter happily in Spanish for the whole drive to South Miami while Paz tries several times to get his wife to answer her cell phone, and grows increasingly worried.

At the house, after Mrs. Paz departed in her Cadillac, Paz and his daughter went around the back, and Paz noted that Lola’s bike was not in its place. She must have taken a cab home, which did not bode well at all. He paused before the door and said, “Look, kiddo, your mom’s a little sick and I want you to try and be real quiet, okay?”

“Okay. What’s wrong with her?”

“I don’t know. Probably a little flu or something. Just watch cartoons for now, and later you can help me make our dinner.”

“I could make it myself.”

“I’m sure,” he said and opened the door.

“What’s in the bag, Daddy?” the child asked.

“Nothing, just some stuff Abuela gave me.”

“Torticas?”Hopefully.

“No, just…a kind of medicine for Mommy. I’m going to go in now and see how she is. Go change out of your school clothes now.”

The child skipped off to her room and Paz entered his own bedroom. His wife was a mound on the bed under a light throw. He sat carefully on the bed, and as he did, he slipped theenkangue made with her hair under the mattress. She stirred and groaned.

He tugged the blanket off her face and felt her forehead. It was clammy but without fever. She blinked at him with red and swollen eyes.

“How’re you doing, babe? Not so hot?”

“They sent me home,” she croaked.

“Well, yeah. You’re sick. It’s a hospital.”

“I’m not sick. I had a…a breakdown.”

“A what?”

“I…they called me in, we had a kid, a drug OD, comatose. There was a traffic accident, a van, half a dozen seniors all hurt and the ER was jammed. And I couldn’t think what to do. I was the only spare M.D. and they were all staring at me and I went blank. I couldn’t…I told them to…I made the wrong call, and they all stared at me, the nurses, because they knew it was wrong and I started screaming at them and…I can’t remember it all, I was…hysterical, and they got Kemmelman and he grabbed me and threw me into the doctors’ dressing room. And later I went home, I sneaked away and took a cab and I have to sleep, Jimmy, I need to sleep and I can’t. I take pills, I can’t remember all the pills I took and I’m a doc. I’m a doc but I can’t sleep. Why can’t I sleep, Jimmy? I’m so tired and I can’t sleep.”

“You have bad dreams.”

“Sixty milligrams of flurazepam and I can’t sleep,” she said. Her voice had become high and soft, like a little girl’s.

“You have to get off those pills, babe. No more pills.”

She stiffened and tried to sit up. “Is Amy okay? Where’s Amy?”

“Amy’s fine,” he said. “She’s in her room. Listen, you’re going to sleep now. I’m going to stay here with you and rub your back and you’re going to go to sleep and when you wake up you’ll be fine.”

“No…I have to see Amy.” She repeated her daughter’s name several times, weeping now, but he held her close and stroked her back and after a while the sobs faded and were replaced with the sighing breaths of deepest slumber.

Paz awoke with a start out of one of those dreams that are so confused with reality that it takes more than a few seconds to discover which is which. He thought he’d been on a stakeout and fallen asleep and the suspect had slipped away, and he felt shame and despair. But, thank God, just aregular bad dream. Lola was still out, inert next to him, softly snoring. He slipped from the bed and went into his daughter’s bedroom. There he placed her newenkangue on the bedpost and retrieved his own, returning it to its old place around his neck.

His cell phone played its tune. He pulled it out, saw who was calling, and after a brief hesitation, made the connection.

“What’s up, Tito?”

“No one says hello anymore,” said Morales, “ever since they figured out how to tell you who’s calling. I think that’s a major cultural change.”

“The end of civilization as we know it. How did you make out?”

“Oh, I got the name and address. We’re looking for the Forest Planet Alliance, on Ingraham. Where are you now?”

“At my place.”

“I could come by. I think we should pay these folks a visit.”

“It can’t be now, man. I got personal business.” A silence on the line, and Paz added, “Lola’s sick.”

“Oh? Nothing serious, I hope.”

“No, just some kind of flu. Look, I’ll check in with you in the morning.”

“Fine. Look, you ever hear of a guy named Gabriel Hurtado?”

“No. Who is he?”

“A Colombian. Some kind of drug lord. His name came up. Apparently your…I mean, Calderón was in communication with him recently. We got it off his phone logs. The feds have expressed an interest. They’ve been after him for years, two million reward for information leading to.”

“The more the merrier,” said Paz, sniffing. Someone was cooking onions. He heard the familiar rattle of implement against pan. “Look, Tito, I got to go. I’ll call you.”

“Colombian narcos. Usually they don’t use mystic panthers.”

“Jaguars,” said Paz and broke the connection. Then he went into the kitchen and found his daughter, standing on the little wooden stool she had used as a baby, calmly sautéing chicken pieces. On the stove steamed a pot of rice and a pot of black beans. “I’m making arroz con pollo,” she said. “I was hungry and I thought if Mommy was sick and you were sleeping I would cook this for all of us. I didn’t make a mess.”