Two junkies. He was also a thief. She was on welfare, her three kids in foster homes. When she became pregnant again, she decided she wanted to keep the baby—which meant concealing her pregnancy from the welfare caseworker, who would have moved to place that child, too, after its birth, in foster care. Keeping the baby was what the boyfriend wanted. Junkies in love, Lopez said, know what I mean?

The baby was born addicted. A couple of weeks in the hospital was all she would have needed, Lopez told Devlin and Lord confidently; a couple of weeks was all a baby needed to cry junk out of its system. But then the doctors and nurses wanted the mother to have her blood tested. The baby had AIDS, Lopez said, and now the lovebird parents wanted to kill each other. Lopez thought the woman would be willing to talk to the police about her boyfriend’s burglaries and car stereo thefts. John Lord asked if the mother had had the blood test.

“Oh, no, man,” Lopez said. “Neither one of them. They be sleeping with other people now, too. I don’t think I would have a blood test.” He smiled. “Man, who’d want to know?”

All you needed to know about Lopez, Devlin told himself as he remembered that last crooked smile, a patriotic citizen of the end of the world.…

Lopez was sitting on the bed, the upper half of the mattress cranked up behind his back, his ankle manacled to the white-enameled, curved iron pipe at the foot of the bed. Four other guys were in the room, two in pressed blue uniforms, two in wash-and-wear green. An I.V. ran into Lopez’s left forearm. Lopez looked at Devlin, seemed not surprised to see him, then let his eyes go to Levine. Same expression, the corners of Lopez’s mouth turned up, his eyelids a third of the way down. His eyes looked out of focus, or just uncaring. Goofy.

“What do you think?” Levine asked.

“He’s been this way since the Arabs grabbed him. Too long for a shot of heroin.”

“Cocaine and Quaaludes would do this,” Devlin said. “But coke would have worn off by now.”

“’Ludes and speed,” McQuaid said, rocking on his heels, his hands in his pockets. He grinned at Devlin. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any ’ludes. You old guys must have them all. He could go this long on speed, and Quaaludes would do more than make a rubber chicken out of him. You’re charbroiled over mesquite, right, Joker?” he asked Lopez. “Right now you could fuck a Buick, couldn’t you?”

Lopez blinked dreamily.

“Octavio,” Devlin said, “make life easy for everybody and start telling us about this.”

No reaction. Lopez was looking at one of the doctors. Levine motioned Devlin and McQuaid outside, then pulled the door closed behind them.