experience. At several of the places they had drinks and perused the hookers, then declined and talked to some of the girls and the madams in cryptic terms about what they were really looking for.
At dusk they stumbled on a live sex show. They stood in the back of a room that was mostly empty except for a few standing patrons. The room had a heavy, fetid smell of chickens and blood that brought Behr back to his boyhood on the farm.
“They hold cockfights here?” he asked Victor, who seemed impressed with the question and answered yes.
A rail-thin man entered and strutted about the stage to a poor, crackling recording of traditional Mexican music. Then a woman no older than twenty walked onto the stage in a sheer red coverup, which she dropped without fanfare. Her body was mocha-colored and supple but bore purple keloid scars on one side of her abdomen. Her hair was wavy and fell past her shoulders, where it obscured some amateurish tattoos. She lay down on a bed and the thin man mounted her without much preamble.
An unseen emcee prattled on loudly in Spanish over the speaker system to the delight of the three or four other men in the audience.
The couple went on for a good while, changing positions several times. Behr and Paul exchanged a glance and headed for the door. Victor had one eye still on the show even as he followed them out.
Outside, the arrival of night had taken some of the weight out of the air, or maybe just being away from the performance enabled them to breathe easier.
“You no like the show?” Victor asked, his faith in his clients seeming to waver for the first time.
“Not much,” Behr answered.
“It was fine,” Paul said, as if Victor was the impresario behind what they ’ d seen and he didn ’ t want to offend.
“We ’ re gonna go eat dinner,” Behr said, walking away.
“I come,” Victor offered. “There are other places — ”
“No,” Behr said. He gave Victor one hundred and fifty dollars. “See you later.” The tawdry day had worked on his nerves and had built a well of sickened frustration in him. He needed a break.
They left Victor standing behind them looking bereft despite his smile.
Behr and Paul found a grim motel that had a room with two double beds and a mildewed bathroom, where they washed the day ’ s grit off their faces and necks. Behr ’ s arm had recovered to the point where he no longer needed to ice it and just kept it wrapped in an Ace bandage, which was a good thing as the motel had no ice machine. They were tired, but sleep was out of the question. The hotel clerk pointed them to a restaurant down the street. They ’ d traded perhaps fifty words all day. There was nothing to say.
They sat and ate carne asada with rice and beans off large ceramic plates. They washed it down with half- cold beer and waved at fat and greedy flies with their free hand.
“I had to come here, man,” Paul said, apology in his voice.
“I know,” Behr responded.
“It was a waste of time. Of everything.”
“No,” Behr said without much behind it.
“I ’ m not even his father anymore.”
“It doesn ’ t end just because your son is gone.” Behr pushed his plate away.
“We can leave — ”
“We ’ ll leave when we ’ re done.”
It was then that they saw Victor across the restaurant coming in the door. Paul threw some bills on the table and they got up. He followed Behr ’ s lead, which was to walk past Victor right out the door. The persistent young man followed them, even as they walked out of the pool of light produced by the restaurant and on into the darkness of the rest of the street.
“Ay, wait.”
“This kid doesn ’ t quit,” Behr said to Paul, stopping and allowing Victor to reach them.
“I take you someplace else?” Victor said hopefully.
“We ’ re done with you,” Behr said.
“Come on, man.”
“All right,” Behr said, turning and stepping closer to the slight younger man. “Take us to the place where the rich gringos go. The place where the real young ones are. Chicos.”
It registered with Victor. He studied them. “You ’ re not jotos.”
Behr grabbed him by the shirt and jacket and jerked him forward off balance. Paul glanced up and down the street, which was clear.
“No, but we ’ re looking for what happened to someone important. Someone who may have ended up there. So where would you take us if we had a taste for young boys?”
“You are cops — ”
“No.”
“Fuck off.”
“I like you, Victor. You ’ ve been decent to us. You ’ re just a guy trying to get ahead. Right?”
“ Sн, sн.”
“But I will start breaking things on you if you don ’ t help us.”
“No, man. Fuck off.”
Behr drew back in a blaze of motion and delivered a short, chopping punch to Victor ’ s liver. The young man gasped and keeled, and Behr held him up.
“More is coming,” Behr warned, and Victor ’ s head set to nodding. After a moment he regained the ability to speak.
“My cousin is a pollero.”
“What ’ s that? A chicken cowboy?” Behr wondered, as his Spanish was rudimentary.
“ Coyote? Maybe you know that?”
“Border crosser.” Behr nodded with understanding.
“ Sн. One thousand U.S.” Victor sucked at the air. “He help with other things. ї Entiendes? ”
“Where is he?”
“He gone now. He back tomorrow night. Maybe the next.”
“Fuck that,” Behr said.
“For true. You meet him then.”
Behr let Victor loose and then stepped back and ran his hands through his hair. Victor probed around his midsection with his hands.
Paul moved over to him, handed him two hundred-dollar bills, and patted him on the shoulder. “Bring him to us when he ’ s back, then. If he takes us where we want to go, you get the rest of the thousand,” he said.
“And don ’ t fuck around with us,” Behr added.
“I no fuck,” Victor assured them and moved off into the night.
“Damnit,” Behr breathed when it was just the two of them.
“Let ’ s get a drink,” Paul said.
“Eh — ” Behr began, as much defeat in his voice as Paul had ever heard. From some men the tone of voice wouldn ’ t have meant much, but from Behr it was unacceptable.
“I need one,” Paul said.
THIRTY-TWO
Finding a place to drink wasn ’ t difficult. They didn ’ t know Ciudad del Sol well, but all cities were the same basic mixture of humanity. They all had aspects of beauty and ugliness. All had at least one church and one jail. Paul and Behr had been there long enough to start to understand the geometry, and they found a bar on Calle Maria del Monte that served the local tequila out of clay gourds. It was a clear, fresh-tasting distillation that had salt and lime undertones, as well as some flavor of the clay in which it came. The first drink was had in silence. Paul quickly
