“I’m sure,” said Paz. “Tell me, Professor, do you think he’ll be easy to catch?”

“Almost impossible to catch, in my opinion,” said Cooksey.

“And why is that?” asked Morales.

“Because he’s very good at hiding. He could be behind that hedge right now or in the tops of any of our big trees.” Cooksey pointed and everyone looked, and looked nervous doing so. “Now, if you’re finished with me, I do still have my own work to do.”

He started to go but Paz held up a hand. “Just one more thing, sir. Does this guy have a name?”

“Yes. His name is Moie,” said Cooksey.

Two minutes later, Paz and a protesting Morales were in the latter’s unmarked, heading north on Ingraham at an unsafe speed. Paz was cursing in Spanish, mainly at the absent Cooksey, because an instant after hearing the name, he had loosed a barrage of ferocious questions and quickly determined that the scientist had stashed his Indian in the great banyan that shaded his daughter’s school; and cursed also himself, for being too slow to understand that Amelia did not have animaginary little friend up in the tree at all.

It was a short drive. When they stopped on the shoulder next to the school lawn, where the upper boughs of the monster overhung the road, Paz popped his door open and was about to get out when Morales grabbed his arm.

“This is mine, Jimmy,” he said.

Paz struggled in his grip. “No, I’m going up, man,” he said.

“I could cuff you to the wheel, if you want,” said the other. “I’m serious, Jimmy. This fucker is a serial killer and you’re unarmed, one, and two, a civilian. I should call for backup, except I don’t want to make an ass of myself in front of the whole SWAT team if this is another stupid Paz trick.”

“If you don’t think he’s there, why don’t you let me take an unoffi cial look?”

“Don’t be a jerk, Paz. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t break your neck.”

Both men left the car and approached the tree. Morales stared upward into its mass and let out a low whistle, as for the first time he realized just how big the thing was.

“You’re sure, now?” asked Paz. “I’m a lot closer to our African monkey roots than you are.”

“Jimmy, if your daughter can climb this fucker, so can I.”

“If you’re not down in three days, or if I see chunks of mangled flesh wrapped in a cheap suit, I’m going to call for help, okay?”

Morales did not dignify this last with a response but vanished into the shadowed base of the fig. Paz leaned against the police car and lit a short, thick, black cigar. Occasional cracking sounds reached him from the tree, and frequent curses. The cigar was nearly done before he heard slithering sounds from the tree and a worn and filthy cloth suitcase plopped on the ground amid a small scatter of leaf, twig, and fruit. Shortly thereafter, Morales appeared, amid a larger scatter of the same. He was red-faced, sweating, scratched, disheveled, with his shirttails hanging out and his slacks stained with sap.

“What’s in the case?” asked Paz. “Dried businessman jerky?”

“No, a black suit, a pair of shoes, a hat, and a hammock. And I found these.” He removed a large evidence envelope from his back pocket. In it were three small empty Fritos bags.

“They might have prints.”

“I’m sure,” said Paz. “Among them mine and my daughter’s. But no Indian.”

“No, but he might come back. This is his base. I think we should stake it out.”

“Well, you’re the cop,” said Paz. “And Tito? I’m real glad he wasn’t there this time. Don’t try to take this guy yourself.”

“He’s just an Indian, Jimmy.”

“So was Geronimo. But he’s not just an Indian. And our professor is not just a professor.”

“Meaning what?”

“A little too cool. The guy was some kind of commando. He’s spent a lot of time in Colombia, too. I were you, I’d find out who he’s been calling recently.”

Morales gave him a look to see if he was kidding, saw that he wasn’t, shrugged, and went to his car to call in the latest news to his superiors.

First there was the taste in her mouth, pennies and puke, and then the pain, as if a thick spike covered with grit had been driven across her skull just behind her eyes. A hot spike. She tried to open her mouth to spit and found she could not. It had been taped, and when she tried to take the tape off, she learned that her arms and legs were similarly bound. It took some time for her eyes to register what they were seeing, for the light was dim and the shapes baffling: pipes, oblong objects, wires, hoses, a dim skylight above this tangle. A smell, too, familiar but hard to place-chemical, heavy, a cold sort of smell, and suddenly everything clicked into the gestalt: she was in the repair bay of a garage, looking up at the ceiling. She was taped to one of the hoists, her arms and legs tied to theX -shaped steel beams of the lifting platform, at about table height above the floor. And she was naked.

Heavy footsteps and men’s voices. A shape stepped between her spread legs and she heard a laugh and a cruel insinuating voice speaking in Spanish. A rough finger was thrust into her and she squirmed violently. Someone else spoke in angry tones and the man spat out what sounded like a retort, but he moved away. Then a round, pockmarked brown face appeared above her own, one she recognized with horror. The man who had shot Kevin peeled the tape from her mouth.

“You thirsty?” asked the killer.

“Yes.”

The man produced a plastic squeeze bottle and pushed its tube between her lips. Orange juice, cool and sweet. She sucked at it for what seemed a long time.

“Thank you,” she said, gasping.

The killer said, “Okay, listen, you in lots of trouble, now. You got to tell them everything,comprende? Everything about thoseIndios killing those people. I try to keep those guys off you, I don’t know, maybe I can’t do, you know? So you tell me before the boss come, ’cause he gonna mess with you, and then you tell him, but maybe you lose some pieces.”

He reached over to one of the tool tables and held up a short bolt cutter. “The boss gonna cut you with this, start with your toes, then he burn you with a torch so it don’t bleed. I seen him do it before. You don’ wanna fuck wit’ him, you know? So you tell me an’ you be all right, yes? Yes?”

“I don’t know anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He shook his head sadly. “No,chica, that’s not the way to go. You think about this, yes? Where thoseIndios stay, who sent them, who their boss is, that’s what you got to tell him, you don’ wanna get chopped up.”

Jenny started to cry, and Prudencio Rivera Martínez left her and went back to the garage office, where he found Santiago Iglesias fiddling with a snowy, staticky television set, and Dario Rascon watching.

“I can’t get this whore to work for shit,” said Iglesias.

“Forget it,” said Martínez. “We won’t be here that long. And, Rascon, I told you to keep your hands off that girl.”

Rascon shrugged and grinned. “I was just getting her warmed up.”

“The man said don’t touch her until he gets here. You want to explain playing with her to El Silencio when he told you not to, that’s fine with me.”

“What, you’re going to rat me out?”

“No, but once you get started on a girl, you don’t stop until she’s all messed up.”

Iglesias looked up from the TV. “Yeah, when El Silencio gets finished with her, then you can have her. You can keep her in the parts bin, in those little drawers.”

“Shut up,pendejo!” said Rascon. “I guarantee you she won’t last two cuts, she’ll be telling her whole life story.”

“If she knows,” said Iglesias. “But if not, the man’s going to have to take her apart to make sure she don’t.”

“She knows,” said Rascon confidently. “She was with that little merdita Prudencio shot, and he was with theIndio. She’ll spit the whole thing out. And then…” Rascon leaned back in his chair and massaged his genitals. “You can have her asshole when I’m finished, Iglesias. You like that the best anyway.”