I sit next to him on the ice and open the backpack.

I take out the Ziploc bag I found in his nightstand. Inside there’s six rolls of hundreds, a key of scag, and enough crank to animate half the corpses in Colorado. I suppose it’s some kind of emergency treasure. About a hundred thousand in currency and convertibles.

I catch his eye and make sure that he sees what I’m doing. I place the heavy bag in the water in front of him and we watch it sink to the bottom of the lake.

Does that help you understand? This isn’t about money.

In fact I can illuminate this even better for you now that you’re cuffed and in the goddamn hole. I take off the ski mask.

Recognition dawns immediately, recognition and amazement.

Good. And now for the most important part of all. This is the bit I’ve been dreaming about. For this I want your full attention.

I lean forward, crawl toward him, and turn his face so that he’s looking at me. When his eyes meet mine, I raise the gun, tip it vertical to show him the empty chamber, and then I click the magazine release and show him the empty clip.

Do you get it now, compañero?

Who did this to you? A girl. A wetback armed only with an unloaded pistol. At any time you could have run away and, my friend, when you had that hammer you could have ended this whole thing. But you didn’t. She bluffed you out. This girl, this perra latina.

He looks at the gun, says nothing.

I’m a little let down.

Where’s the fireworks? The fury?

Nothing. Well, you can’t have everything.

He saw and he knows.

His legs continue to kick furiously but his feet, in the cold currents of the hypolimnion, are beginning to tire already.

I nod, slide back from the hole, stand, retrieve the hammer, and put it, the gun, and the ski mask into the backpack.

“Help me! Help me! Help me!” he begins to yell.

I scan the shore. Nobody.