Deborah watched the whole performance with growing impatience, and when Luis finally left us she opened up. We need the names of everybody from El Salvador, she blurted out.

Doakes just looked at her and sipped his coffee. Be a big list, he said.

Deborah frowned. You know what I mean, she said. Goddamn it, Doakes, he’s got Kyle.

Doakes showed his teeth. Yeah, Kyle getting old. Never would have got him in his prime.

What exactly were you doing down there? I asked him. I know it was a bit off message, but my curiosity about how he would answer got the best of me.

Still smiling, if that’s what it was, Doakes looked at me and said, What do you think? And just underneath the threshold of hearing there came a quiet rumble of savage glee, answered right away from deep inside my dark backseat, one predator calling across a moonlit night to another. And really and truly, what else could he have been doing? Just as Doakes knew me, I knew Doakes for what he was: a cold killer. Even without what Chutsky had said, it was very clear what Doakes would have been doing in a homicidal carnival like El Salvador. He would have been one of the ringmasters.

Cut the staring contest, Deborah said. I need some names.

Doakes picked up one of the pastelitos and leaned back. Why don’t you-all bring me up to date, he said. He took a bite, and Deborah tapped a finger on the table before deciding that made sense.

All right, she said. We got a rough description of the guy who’s doing this, and his van. A white van.

Doakes shook his head. Don’t matter. We know who’s doing this.

We also got an ID on the first victim, I said. A man named Manuel Borges.

Well, well, Doakes said. Old Manny, huh? Really should’ve let me shoot him.

A friend of yours? I asked, but Doakes ignored me.

What else you got? he said.

Kyle had a list of names, Deborah said. Other men from the same unit. He said one of them would be the next victim. But he didn’t tell me the names.

No, he wouldn’t, Doakes said.

So we need you to tell us, she said.

Doakes appeared to think this over. If I was a hotshot like Kyle, I’d pick one of these guys and stake him out. Deborah pursed her lips and nodded. Problem is, I am not a hotshot like Kyle. Just a simple cop from the country.

Would you like a banjo? I asked, but for some reason he didn’t laugh.