But here the man was, sitting right in front of him. Pompeo, as conscientious as ever, had made his official report of the detention, and unless the chief wanted to tear it up and erase it from the log, he was stuck with it. But this Sandoval would not do. Despite his many and varied self-acknowledged deficiencies, he was a man who was faithful to the regulations and to his responsibilities, as he understood them to be.

Besides, what if Pompeo found out?

So far the stranger had told Sandoval that his name was Manuel Garcia (a likely story; if there was a more common, less traceable name in Mexico, Sandoval would have liked to know what it was), that he was from the village of Santiago Matatlan, and that he was on his way to Oaxaca to look for work, but the second-class bus that he’d thought would take him to the city didn’t go there after all, and had dropped him off in Teotitlan to catch a bus that did.

Pompeo was right. None of it added up. Sandoval didn’t like the man’s story, and he certainly didn’t like the man. It wasn’t that this Garcia was belligerent exactly, but he wasn’t what you’d call cooperative either, and there was an indefinable air of sleepy menace about him. Sandoval was ill at ease being in the same room with him. Ask a question and Garcia would answer, but at his leisure, with a weary, downward curl on his lips, and sometimes even a sigh, as if he’d been through this a hundred times before, and his patience was being sorely tried, and would you mind getting on with it so he could go on his way, since you were just going through the motions, and there was nothing you could do to him. Surly, that’s what he was. Contemptuous. He’d dealt with the police before, Sandoval had no doubt about that. Probably he’d been in prison-that face, those tattoos-maybe even in the United States.