His gut tightening, Chelsea said, "Sir, it might be wiser to go with two million. It's closer to the real number...just in case somebody makes an issue of it."

"No, two is – chickenshit, really. Five's better. And the parade, too, I'm serious." Kingsbury stood up. He was dressed for golf. "A parade, that's good video," he said. "Plenty of time to get it for the six-o'clock news. That's our best demographic, am I right? Fucking kids, they don't watch the eleven."

Chelsea nodded. "What do we give the winner? Mr. Five Million, I mean."

"A car, Jesus Christ." Kingsbury looked at him as if he were an idiot. A few years earlier, Disney World had given away an automobile every day for an entire summer. Kingsbury had never gotten over it. "Make it a Corvette," he told Chelsea.

"All right, but you're looking at forty thousand dollars. Maybe more."

Kingsbury extended his lower lip so far that it seemed to touch his nose; for a moment he wore the pensive look of a caged orangutan. "Forty grand," he repeated quietly. "That's brand new, I suppose."

"When you give one away, yes. Ordinarily the cars should be new."

"Unless they're classics." Kingsbury winked. "Make it a classic. Say, a 1964 Ford Falcon. You don't see many of those babies."

"Sure don't."

"A Falcon convertible, geez, we could probably pick one up for twenty-five hundred."

"Probably," agreed Chelsea, not even pretending enthusiasm.

"Well, move on it." Francis X. Kingsbury thumbed him out of the office. "And tell Pedro, get his ass in here."

Pedro Luz was in the executive gym, bench-pressing a bottle of stanozolol tablets. He was letting the tiny pink pills drop one by one into his mouth.

A man named Churrito, lounging on a Nautilus, said: "Hiss very bad for liver."

"Very good for muscles," said Pedro Luz, mimicking the accent.

Churrito was his latest hire to the security squad at the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills. He had accompanied Pedro Luz on his mission to Miami, but had declined to participate in the beating. Pedro Luz was still miffed about what had happened – the old lady chomping off the top joint of his right index finger.

"You're useless," he had told Churrito afterward.

"I am a soldier," Churrito had replied. "I dun hit no wooman."

Unlike the other security guards hired by Pedro Luz, Churrito had not been a crooked cop. He was a Nicaraguan contra who had moved to Florida when things were bleak, and had not gotten around to moving back.

While Churrito was pleased at the prospect of democracy taking seed in his homeland, he suspected that true economic prosperity was many years away. Elections notwithstanding, Churrito's buddies were still stuck in the border hills, frying green bananas and dynamiting the rivers for fish. Meanwhile his uncle, formerly a sergeant in Somoza's National Guard, now lived with a twenty-two-year-old stewardess in a high-rise condo on Key Biscayne. To Churrito this seemed like a pretty good advertisement for staying right where he was.

Pedro Luz had hired him because he looked mean, and because he'd said he had killed people.

"Comunistas," Churrito had specified, that night at the old lady's apartment. "I only kill commoonists. And I dun hit no wooman."

And now here he was, lecturing Pedro Luz about the perils of anabolic steroids.

"Make you face like balloon."

"Shut up," said Pedro Luz. He was wondering if the hospital in Key Largo would sell him extra bags of dextrose water for the IV. Grind up the stanozolols, drop them in the mix and everything would be fine again.

"Make you bulls shrink, too."

"That's enough," Pedro Luz said.

Churrito held up two fingers. "Dis big. Like BBs."

"Quiet," said Pedro Luz, "or I call a friend a mine at INS." He couldn't decide whether to fire the guy or beat him up. He knew which would give more pleasure.

"They got, like, three flights a day to Managua," he said to Churrito. "You getting homesick?"

The Nicaraguan grimaced.

"I didn't think so," said Pedro Luz. "So shut up about my medicines."

Charles Chelsea appeared at the foot of the weight bench. He had never seen Pedro Luz without a shirt, and couldn't conceal his awe at the freakish physique – the hairless bronze trunk of a chest, cantaloupe biceps, veins as thick as a garden hose. Chelsea didn't recognize the other fellow – shorter and sinewy, with skin the color of nutmeg.

"I'm working out," said Pedro Luz.

"Mr. Kingsbury needs to see you."

"Who ees that?" Churrito said.

Pedro Luz sat up. "That be the boss."

"Right away," said Charles Chelsea.

"Can I go?" asked Churrito. He didn't want to miss an opportunity to meet the boss; according to his uncle, that's what success in America was all about. Kissing ass.

"I'm sorry," Chelsea said, "but Mr. Kingsbury wants to see Chief Luz alone."

"Yeah," said Pedro Luz. As he rolled off the bench, he made a point of clipping Churrito with a casual forearm. Churrito didn't move, didn't make a sound. His eyes grew very small and he stared at Pedro Luz until Pedro Luz spun away, pretending to hunt for his sweatshirt.

Churrito pointed at the scarlet blemishes on Pedro Luz's shoulder blades and said: "You all broke out, man."

"Shut up before I yank your nuts off."

Backing away, Charles Chelsea thought: Where do they get these guys?

Francis X. Kingsbury offered a Bloody Mary to Pedro Luz, who guzzled it like Gatorade.

"So, Pedro, the job's going all right?"

The security chief was startled at Kingsbury's genial tone. A ration of shit was what he'd expected; the old fart had been livid since the burglary of his private office. The crime had utterly baffled Pedro Luz, who hadn't the first notion of how to solve it. He had hoped that the mission to Eagle Ridge would absolve him.

"I took care of that other problem," he announced to Kingsbury.

"Fine. Excellent." Kingsbury was swiveling back and forth in his chair. He didn't look so good: nervous, ragged, droopy-eyed, his fancy golf shirt all wrinkled. Pedro Luz wondered if the old fart was doing coke. The very idea was downright hilarious.

"She won't bother you no more," he said to Kingsbury.

"You made it look, what – like muggers? Crack fiends?"

"Sure, that's what the cops would think. If she calls them, which I don't think she will. I made it clear what could happen."

"Fine. Excellent." Kingsbury propped his elbows on the desk in a way that offered Pedro Luz an unobstructed view of the lurid mouse tattoo.

"Two things – " Kingsbury paused when he spotted the bandage on Pedro Luz's finger.

"Hangnail," said the security chief.

"Whatever," Kingsbury said. "Two things – some assholes, the guys who stole my files, they're blackmailing me. You know, shaking me down."

Pedro Luz asked how much money he had promised them.

"Never mind," Kingsbury replied. "Five grand so far is what I paid. But the files, see, I can't just blow 'em off. I need the files."

"Who are these men?"

Francis Kingsbury threw up his hands. "That's the thing – just ordinary shitheads. White trash. I can't fucking believe it."

Pedro Luz had never understood the concept of white trash, or how it differed from black trash or Hispanic trash or any other kind of criminal dirtbag. He said, "You want the files but you don't want to pay."

"Exacto!" said Kingsbury. "In fact, the five grand – I wouldn't mind getting it back."

Pedro Luz laughed sharply. Months go by and the job's a snooze – now suddenly all this dirty work. Oh well, Pedro thought, it beats painting rat tongues. He hadn't shed a tear when the mango voles were stolen.

Kingsbury was saying, "The other thing, I fired a guy from Publicity."

"Yeah?" Watching that damn tattoo, it was driving Pedro silly. Minnie on her knees, polishing Mickey's knob – whoever did the drawing was damn good, almost Disney caliber.