"But instead of taking me up on this, you - "

"I'm not interested in dinosaurs," Malcolm said.

"But everyone is interested in dinosaurs."

"Not me." He turned on his cane, and started to walk off.

"By the way," Levine said. "What were you doing in Costa Rica? I heard you were there for almost a year."

"I was lying in a hospital bed. They couldn't move me out of intensive care for six months. I Couldn't even get on a plane."

"Yes," Levine said. "I know you got hurt. But what were you doing there in the first place? Weren't you looking for dinosaurs?"

Malcolm squinted at him in the bright sun, and leaned on his cane. "No," he said. "I wasn't."

They were all three sitting at a small painted table in the corner of the Guadalupe Cafe, on the other side of the river. Sarah Harding drank Corona from the bottle, and watched the two men opposite her. Levine looked pleased to be with them, as if he had won some victory to be sitting at the table. Malcolm looked weary, like a parent who has spent too much time with a hyperactive child.

"You want to know what I've heard?" Levine said. "I've heard that a couple of years back, a company named InGen genetically engineered some dinosaurs and put them on an island in Costa Rica. But something went wrong, a lot of people were killed, and the dinosaurs were destroyed. And now nobody will talk about it, because of some legal angle. Nondisclosure agreements or something. And the Costa Rican government doesn't want to hurt tourism. So nobody will talk. That's what I've heard."

Malcolm stared at him. "And you believe that?"

"Not at first, I didn't," Levine said. "But the thing is, I keep hearing it. The rumors keep floating around. Supposedly you, and Alan Grant, and a bunch of other people were there."

"Did you ask Grant about it?"

"I asked him, last year, at a conference in Peking. He said it was absurd."

Malcolm nodded slowly.