Before it disappeared back into the clouds, the moon also illuminated the figure of a ripe-looking teenage hooker on the side of the highway. She waved to the two men in the truck. Marco Gonzalez, the driver, honked his horn and leered in appreciation, displaying two missing front teeth.

"Enow her?" asked Lew Verbanic from the passenger side of the cabin. Lew was tall, nearly six and a half feet, and very thin. As a result, he stooped whenever he spoke, even when he was sitting down. He was stooping now. "She looks kind of like that Mexie girl you go with. That Rosa."

"That a slur on the Chicano race?" sniffed Gonzalez, peering out of eyes formed into tight slits.

Verbanic laughed softly. "Chícanos aren't a race," he said.

"Oh, yeah? What you call us, then? Huh?"

Verbanic patted him on the shoulder. "Short," he said.

Gonzalez snorted, and they drove^down a quiet

stretch of highway in silence. "So you like her or what?" Gonzalez said finally.

"Who?"

"The chippie on the road."

"Why do you want to know if I like the way she looked?" He rolled down the window and spat outside.

" 'Cause Rosa's got a friend looks kind of like her. Only she ain't no chippie. A good Mexican girl, come over last week from Tijuana with her family." He shook his head sadly. "They come over the barbwire. Had to leave everything behind. Her mother's casserole dish, everything. Big house, too. Almost three rooms." He brightened as his mind veered back onto the subject. "You wanna meet her? Rosa says she's real hot."

"What's wrong with her?"