Tomas buys a couple of drumsticks for the dogs and lets me feed them once we get into the car. As we roll up Twenty-sixth Street you can see the Santa Monica Mountains up ahead. Their sadly wrinkled sides face south, sunbathed in worn shades of purple and blue. My fingers are covered with slobber and sticky, plum-colored barbecue sauce that does not come fully off onto a napkin. We pull off San Vincente, and immediately it is as if we are in the countryside. There are mailboxes here, on the streets. There are no sidewalks. On some blocks you can see huge lawns leading to houses that look like they belong in the countryside or on some farm, but on other blocks the houses are barely visible, surrounded by fences and trees and gates with intercoms and video cameras.

This is a cool neighborhood, I say. It’s just like being out in the countryside.

Tomas ignores me. He concentrates on the road. From the way his tendons rise on the back of his hand, gripping the wheel, I can see how tense he is, though he tries not to show it. Probably it is his car which makes him nervous, a white Oldsmobile, the type Mexican gangsters prefer because they can pile so many people into the backseat. He studies the houses and gates and fences and intercoms, the manicured lawns and cobblestone driveways. Strangely there are no cars parked on the curbs here; they are parked beyond the gates in the driveways, Mercedes, BMWs, and some utility vehicles too. The dogs circle about the backseat, worry in their eyes. It could be they have picked up my anxiety, or maybe they sense that something will soon happen to change their lives forever.

Look for the address, Tomas says.

I can’t make them out, I say. None of them have numbers on the curbs and you can’t see past the fences into the houses.

Sometimes we pass iron gates, and I get a glimpse of a house and then only trees and fences again.

I tell him to slow down.

He looks at me, the amused asshole grin of this morning on his face again. You nervous or something?

No. I just can’t read the numbers.

You can’t read numbers? A lot of good it does you to bury your face in those books you read.

I could read them if you’d slow down.

We round a corner and enter a canopy of tree branches that tunnel above us like interlaced fingers—between its knuckled branches, the sun is nervous and flickering. The lawns appear brighter from this shade.

Just cool down and relax, Junior. I cleaned out the car in case we get pulled over.

I told you, I say. I just can’t read them.