Today about a dozen early surfers, all of them in their teens, wearing full wet suits, booties, and gloves. Half of them female, a new feature of the scene in the city. None of them looked like Kit, the surfer girl I’d been forced to kill in Maine a long time ago, but they all reminded me of her-I mean, that’s the sort of thing you never get over.

I sipped the coffee, frowned at the sound of a power drill. This particular morning, much to my annoyance, it was not quiet up here. There were a score of grips and roadies building the set for a free concert by the Indian Chiefs. They were working with un-Peruvian noise and diligence and it didn’t surprise me at all to see that their supervisor was an Australian.

Hector blinked at me in that obvious way of his, to prod me into action.

“Thanks for the note, Hector, you go on home,” I said.

“Is everything ok, boss?” he asked.

“No, but I’ll take care of it,” I responded.

Hector nodded. He was still only a kid. I’d been training him for about three months and he didn’t look at all uncomfortable in the suit and tie that I’d bought for him. I’d taught Hector to be polite, calm, well mannered and now he could be employed as a bouncer anywhere in the world. I’m sure the customers at the Lima Miraflores Hilton had no idea that Hector lived in a house he had built himself in the pueblos jóvenes slums to the east of here, where the walls were corrugated metal sheets, where water came from a stand pipe and sewage ran in the street. Displaced from his shanty, Hector appeared elegant, poised, and aristocratic. The marriage of a conquistador bloodline with Inca royalty. And he was smart and he had compassion. He was an ideal lieutenant. He couldn’t be more than twenty-one or twenty-two; he’d go far, probably have my job in five or six years.