"Yeah, yeah. You think you're funny. What if I take this money and buy an air ticket back to L.A.?"

"You won't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because the goons you want to kill ain't in L.A., that's why."

"You got it. Adios, amigos."

Lyons and Coral hiked out of the arroyo. In the distance, across the rolling desert, they saw a gray smear: the smoke and auto pollution of Culiacan. Lyons checked his watch.

"Four o'clock. Think we can walk into town before night?"

"We will be there very soon. We could be done before night, but it is probably better that we come back with the truck after dark. To avoid questions."

They followed the dirt road toward the highway.

As they walked, Coral tutored Lyons in basic Spanish. The Mexican gangster taught the North American justice warrior numbers and directions and distances. He taught him nouns and the present tense of common verbs.

After a half hour's walking, they came to a sprawling dump. Plastic bags and broken glass littered the sand. Along the road, several families lived in jacals— shacks made of discarded sheet metal and plywood. Teenage boys looked up from sorting scrap metal and saw the two strangers. Children watched from the doorways of the shacks.

Coral called out to the teenagers. A boy pointed. A young man wearing oil-stained coveralls walked out to the strangers. He talked with Coral for a minute. Coral turned to Lyons.

"We can hire him to take us into Culiacan," he said.

"Sure," Lyons said.

Coral negotiated the price and then the young man left.

"I told him our truck broke down in the mountains, and we're going in for some parts. He wanted to repair the truck, but I told him it was a new American truck with computerized ignition and that's what went wrong."

A battered Chevy pickup, assembled of mismatched body panels, rattled out. Lyons saw packing cases in the cargo bed. Each box contained different metals: aluminum, copper, brass, iron. A chicken fluttered about, finally flying off the truck.