I went back out to the front room. Emilio Delarosa’s chin had dropped to his chest. He was snoring loudly.

I went through a stack of papers on the concrete counter by the sink. My hands seemed far away, as if I were watching through the wrong end of a telescope. I saw notices from the electricity company and the water company and the gas company. All of them wanted money.

I thought of Haley running out into thin air. Then I closed my eyes and thought of Haley on the flybridge of her yacht in Avalon Harbor. She was beautiful. I remembered her that way.

I found a statement from Banrural, a local bank. It appeared that Emilio Delarosa had a balance of just over three million nine hundred thousand quetzals. I did the math and figured it was around two hundred thousand dollars. I was pretty sure it was enough to buy the whole building where he lived, and maybe the rest of the block too. A king’s ransom in Guatemala. A kidnapper’s ransom in California.

I returned to the bedroom, walked to the window, and drew back the curtains. I looked down toward the street. The van was gone, if it had ever really been there.

I turned from the window and stood still, then looked around the room. On the floor beside the mattress was a small lamp, an electric clock, and a picture in a black metal frame. I bent and picked up the picture, and all in a flash I remembered why Spain was important.

Ah, sanity.

In the frame I saw an image of a happy family. I recognized Alejandro Delarosa from the photos I had seen in connection with the kidnapping, and I recognized the proud husband and father, Emilio Delarosa, even though the change in him since then was remarkable. For every year that had passed, he had aged three.

In the photograph between Alejandra and Emilio was a laughing girl who must have been their teenaged daughter. I stared at the image and thought that even eight or nine years before, when the photograph was likely taken, even before she had learned how to wear her makeup properly and dress herself in ways that would blend in with the wealth and privilege of Beverly Hills, even before she had learned about engines from the only Formula One racing team in Spain, even then the Delarosa’s daughter had shown every sign of growing up to be the stunning woman I knew as Olivia Soto.

39

Emilio Delarosa was dead to the world. After shaking him and yelling in his ear, I gave up and left. Eight blocks away I finally saw a cab. I stepped from the curb to hail it. The driver had to lock his wheels to stop in time.

After I was in the backseat, he said. “You must be crazy walking around this neighborhood.”

“Yes,” I said. “I think I am.”

I told him to drive to the hotel. When we got there, I told him to wait for me at the curb, and went inside. I ignored the desk clerk and the desk clerk ignored me as I walked through the lobby. I climbed the stairs and followed the narrow hallway to my room. The door had not yet been replaced. I went in and knelt in front of the old washstand in the corner. I bent to reach underneath it, and found the envelope containing my cash, credit cards and passports, still wedged tightly where I had hidden it the night before. I stood, raised my shirt tail and slipped the envelope under the waist band of my jeans. I dropped the shirt tail back in place to hide the envelope and left the room.

Outside the hotel, the taxi was still at the curb. I got in and told the driver to take me straight to the airport. It was almost dark when we arrived. The woman working the AeroMexico ticket counter was putting on her uniform jacket as I walked up. She stooped to get her purse. As I reached the counter, she straightened and slipped the strap over her shoulder.

“We are closed,” she said.

“Is there not an eight thirty flight to Tijuana?”

“No. Only on Wednesdays and Fridays.”

“But this is Friday.”

“Today is Thursday, sir.”

I tried to smile. “I’m sorry. Of course it is. When is the next plane to Mexico City?”

“Six thirty tomorrow morning.”

“I would like a seat.”

“We are closed, as I already said.”

I lifted a finger. “One moment, please.”

Turning my back to her, I lifted my shirttail and slipped my hand beneath my trousers. I withdrew the slender envelope and took out some cash. I faced her again and put two fifty-dollar bills on the counter.

“That is for your trouble,” I said. “And how much is the ticket?”

She glanced quickly left and right and then slipped the bills into her purse. Moving to the computer, she started tapping buttons on the keyboard. “I can get you on it for another two thousand seven hundred and twenty quetzals.”

I spent a long night in the waiting area at the gate on the black-leather-and-stainless-steel seating at the unexpectedly modern La Aurora International Airport. I tried not to imagine what would have happened if I had lost control of my mind in the mountains or in the van with Vega instead of while I was alone with Emilio Delarosa. I watched the few people wandering beneath the crisscrossed steel trusses over the concourses and wondered if any of them had followed me. Mostly they were airport employees, janitors, and security. A guard entered the restroom, and I had the crazy idea of following him and taking his gun.

At one point, around three in the morning, a man with a thin beard and military boots came into the area where I was waiting. He sat down a few rows away from me. I stood up and walked to another gate.

When I walked off the AeroMexico flight in Mexico City the next morning, I realized that some of my dizziness might not be due to the damage in my head. It had been more than a day since my last meal. I found a snack shop and gorged on two prepackaged sandwiches and a bag of potato chips. Then I went looking for a ticket to Tijuana.

The Mexico City airport was enormous. By the time I found the correct ticket counter, it felt as if I had already walked halfway to the US border. It turned out that in stopping for a meal, I had missed my chance to board the only morning flight. I wandered through the airport for nine hours, waiting for the next one.

It was dark again when we touched down in Tijuana. The rental car was waiting where I had left it in the parking garage. I tried to remember how long ago that had been, but the days and nights had merged together.

I walked past the car along the driveway. I followed the curve up and up until I found a Ford Taurus with California plates parked beside a van. It looked as if the van blocked the line of sight from the nearest security camera. I knelt and used the flat tongue of my belt buckle to remove the plates. I carried them back to the rental car, got in, and drove to the exit. There, I handed the parking chit to the man in the booth and paid the amount that flashed on the small screen. When he handed me a receipt, I checked the date printed there and saw it had been four days.

On a side street several blocks away from the airport, I parked at the curb, got out, and switched the plates. I threw the rental plates onto a pile of trash bags and drove on. I found an OXXO convenience store and pulled over. I went in and bought a blue-and-silver Dallas Cowboys gimme cap, a pair of full-frame reading glasses from a revolving stand that also displayed sunglasses, and the fattest cigar they had. I also bought another prepackaged sandwich, some more chips, and a bottle of tea for the caffeine.