“Thanks,” I said, reaching for it.

“Five dollars,” the kid said.

I smiled and shook my head.

“Four,” the kid persisted.

“You’re kidding.”

“Three.”

But I was done talking to this Nicaraguan street punk, this half-chingla trash. Clearly he was a mother of the first order. Give him a taste of this and a year from now he’d be coyoteing grandmas in meat lockers, leaving them to fry on a salt pan at the first sign of the INS.

I leaned back against the side of the vehicle and continued staring out the window.

A cerulean sky.

Cloud wisps.

Tardy moon.

I wondered where we were. The brief hint of mountains was over. The desert was becoming white.

“One dollar,” the kid said, tapping me on the leg. I looked at the long-fingered, grubby-nailed paw resting on my knee. I removed it with my left hand and replaced it on the kid’s lap. I stared at him for another sec. High cheekbones, coffin-shaped face, and a kind of faux menace in his sarcastic grin. I could tell that he thought of himself as a heartbreaker. Shit, he probably was back in Managua. Girls under sixteen or widows over fifty would be susceptible but everyone else would see right through him.

He was wearing an oversize black T-shirt and blue Wrangler jeans that had been hemmed by a tailor. His shoes were interesting. White Nike Air Jordans that seemed to have two different soles. He was dressing up, but he was dirt poor-in his brother’s pants and someone else’s used sneakers.

Still, that was no excuse.

“One dollar for a refreshing drink,” he insisted.

I decided to work him a little.

“Where I’m from, güey, we have a saying: ‘Refuse a man a drink and he’ll refuse to speak for you at the Gates of Heaven.’ But maybe you don’t believe in Heaven. That’s ok. Most people don’t, these days,” I said icily.