“It seems a bit early for this kind of nonsense,” he said with a resigned shake of the head. He was talking about the contents of the note.

“It’s either very early or very late,” I agreed.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to deal with it, I don’t mind,” Hector said with another look of sympathy.

He knew I’d had a rough night of it. A kid from Sweden had taken an overdose and I’d had to see him to the hospital, then I kicked some whores out of the lobby, and then we’d dealt with an elderly American couple who claimed they couldn’t breathe in the polluted air and wanted an oxygen machine. Later today the Japanese ambassador to Peru was coming for an informal breakfast talk on the possibility of extraditing disgraced Peruvian ex-president Fujimori from his bolt hole in Tokyo. The talks wouldn’t go anywhere but it was good for all parties to be seen looking for a solution. Good for the hotel especially. The ambassador had his own security people, but we didn’t need a disturbance wrecking the tranquility of the visit.

“No, I’ll fix it, Hector, you can go on home,” I said.

Hector nodded, walked back across the street to change into his jeans and T-shirt for the scooter ride to the slums. He’d been on the night shift, too, and was bound to be tired.

The surfers were doing lazy cutbacks and the sun was inching over those high, dry mountains that someday I’d go and visit. A blind man had recently climbed Everest, so surely I, a man challenged merely with an artificial foot, could hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.

I took a big swig of the coffee and set down the cup.

A few schoolgirls had come by to see if the roadies could give them backstage passes to the Chiefs; the roadies had none to give away but they chatted up the girls anyway.