“Were we being followed?”

“No.”

He was still driving with half his attention on the rear view. She had been in San Juan before but only as a tourist; he was driving through sections she’d never seen—stucco slums, open-front shops blaring an astonishingly loud cacophony of strident recorded music.

They emerged onto a narrow blacktop road that two-laned away to the end of what appeared to be a swamp; then it began to climb into the hills. The rain had stopped. She rolled down the window and heard the pneumatic hiss of the tires on the wet asphalt.

They passed a white paddock fence—horse stables—then ran up along a curling track through a dark tracery of trees. The road had sharp bends and the headlights kept flashing across gnarled tangles of leaves and wood. Sensitive to shadows and compositions, she felt suddenly aware of her position: the dark mysterious hill road, the car in the night, the silence—nothing but the rush of the car—and her companion: half civilized, as coarse-edged as rough hand-hewn woodwork, as secure (she suddenly feared) as a three-legged chair.

“Where are we going, Crobey?”

“Well it ain’t the Ritz.”

“You could have booked me into a hotel—”

“No,” he said, “I couldn’t.”

They ran slowly through a village: a little row of shops, an intersection. Everything jerry-built and as shabby as the sets for a nonunion movie; corrugated metal roofs, tattered remains of circus posters, here and there a yellow pool under a naked light. A small dog barked at the car. For a little way it chased them, yapping alongside Carole’s window; then Crobey accelerated and the dog fell behind and they were out in the lonely darkness again.

“Where are we?”

“The interior. Up-island.”

“Specifically.”

“Does it matter? You wouldn’t find it without a guide.” He was slowing, looking for something—he leaned forward to peer out over the wheel. There was a gap in the trees on the left. He turned the car slowly, easing into the narrow opening. A pair of muddy ruts curled into the trees. Crobey hauled the stick down to low and the transmission whined as the car lurched forward.

“Crobey, this is absurd.”

He was concentrating only on the driving; he didn’t reply. His massive corded forearms fought the wheel. A wet leaf pasted itself to the windshield. Branches scraped alongside, flicking moisture in her face; she rolled up the window. The car pitched and bucketed, the rear wheels spinning at times on the slick mud but momentum carried it through each time and finally they emerged—one last bend and they were in the open, grass on the slopes to either side, dark hulks grazing: cattle or horses, she couldn’t tell in the night. Just above the horizon she could see a patch of stars but the sky overhead was dark. She sat rigid with alarm and the uneasy speculation that Crobey night have sold out. Why else would he drive her so secretively into the wilderness? She drew the handbag into her lap—it was heavy enough; perhaps she could club him in the face with it; fling the door open and dive from the car.…

A shabby little house loomed in the headlights. Crobey said, “We’re here.”

She braced her feet against the floorboards, pushing herself back stiffly in the seat as if it were a dentist’s chair. Too late to run now. Her eyes went dry and she began to blink rapidly; there was a taste like brass on her tongue.

He ran the car across the grass, around behind the house. When he switched it off there was abrupt silence broken only by the pinging of heat contractions in the engine. The darkness was almost total. She had trouble drawing breath. Then Crobey opened his door and stepped out. “Come on, then.”

She let herself out. On rubber knees she lurched a few paces and then waited for him to guide her. He chunked the door shut and took her elbow.

“Crobey—”

“Relax. You’re tight as a drumhead.”

His grip was light; he didn’t squeeze her elbow. She hadn’t the presence to pull away. Crobey took her around the house—she had an impression of clumped shadows, a barren yard, another building over to the right (a barn?), the steamy smell of manure and livestock. A cowbell jingled distantly. There was a heavy weight in the air—the rain hadn’t refreshed it but only matted it down, like her hair which felt pasted on her skull and wet against the back of her neck.

“Mind the steps.” Just the same she nearly tripped; she felt blind—had she ever known such complete darkness outdoors? She felt tentatively with each foot, scraping the rough surface of the steps. Four of them and they were on the porch. Then Crobey’s fist was thudding—the rattle of a screen door’s frame. Heavy footsteps within. A man’s rough voice: “¿Quien es?”

“Crobey.”

And the door opened, throwing light.

She only saw the man’s silhouette—thickset, massive; and the hard outline of a revolver in his hand.

Crobey made an impatient noise in his nose and she felt herself propelled through the door. The man with the gun stepped back, lowering the weapon to his side—an exchange of glances with Crobey; the screen door slapped shut and Crobey leaned back against the solid door to close it.

Crobey said, “Santana—Miss Marchand.”

The other man smiled a bit and dipped his head to her. He put the pistol away in a pocket of his baggy pants. She heard him mutter something—“con mucho gusto”—and then Crobey walked past to drop her case on a rickety old parson’s table.

The room hardly registered on her awareness; it was a basic enclosure—rustic, beaten up, more than lived-in. The air smelled of garlic and sweat. Santana in the light was squat, shorter than she’d thought at first—no neck; jowls; dark unruly hair; a swarthy face. His little eyes kept watching her and she wondered if she was going to scream.

Santana said something in Spanish. Crobey said, “Talk English now.”

Santana shrugged and gave an apologetic smile. With a thick accent—annyWHAN for anyone, jew for you—he said, “Did anyone follow you?”

“No. I guess they weren’t looking for me at the airport. Well they wouldn’t care if I left—it’s my staying here that burns them.”

Carole drew a ragged shuddering breath. Crobey said to her, “If you want to wash up there’s a pump on the kitchen sink. The privy’s just outside the back door.”

“Talk to me,” she said. “Am I your prisoner here?”

“What?”

“Who’s your friend?”

“Santana? He used to be my ground-crew mechanic.”

Santana beamed at her. “I used to keep Crobey’s planes flying.” She barely understood him. “Then my brother, he died and I inherited this place.”

“I see.” She looked at Crobey. “And what do you and your old buddy here have in mind for me?”

“Maybe you’d rather sleep out in the rain?”

“It didn’t occur to you they have hotels in Puerto Rico?”

Crobey glanced at Santana, who only grinned infuriatingly; Crobey’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling, seeking inspiration from the Almighty.

“Crobey, tell me what’s going on.”

“We’re staying out of sight—I’d have thought that was obvious. It won’t kill you to spend the night here. Tomorrow we’ll put you back on a plane home.” He picked up her case and walked out of the room. She counted four doors: the front one through which they’d entered, one that led into a hallway through which she could see part of a rudimentary kitchen, two others. Crobey went through one of these and she glimpsed a cot before he blocked the view with his body. “This’ll be your room for tonight. I’ll bunk down on the couch there. Now sit down.”

With his gravelly manner Crobey made the most innocuous command sound like a ferocious threat. She backed up to the window and hiked her haunch onto the sill defiantly. She was still trembling slightly.

On his way to the couch Crobey’s limp seemed more pronounced; maybe it was the rain. He sat down, gave her a hostile grin and picked up the drink Santana had left on the table. Crobey said, “I’ve been making waves since I got here. Apparently I splashed the wrong people. I was at the Sheraton like any other tourist until yesterday. Then I went down to breakfast and a cop pulled up a chair at my table. Very polite, very diffident and the personality of a closed door. No threats, but a visit from those folks can be a threat in itself. He asked questions and I told lies, the kind where I know he knows I’m lying—he wanted to know what I was doing in Puerto Rico and I told him I was working for a movie director, which was true, and that I was down here scouting locations for a movie about the Bay of Pigs, which was not true. He wanted to know why I was going around asking peculiar questions and what gave me the idea I could pester citizens without an investigator’s license. The hint was that there are people here who can make their wishes known in official circles and that it wouldn’t take too long for the order to come down, and when it did I’d probably be collected by the security police and escorted to jail or the airport or something. We’re very sorry but you understand, señor, an irregularity in your papers. It’s funny in a way, if that kind of thing amuses you—I feel like I’m running out of places to hang my hat. Nowadays it seems you can tour all the friendly countries with an overnight bag.”