This man was what can only be described as a mean-looking motherfucker. He was about thirty-five. Muscles on top of muscles burst out of his cut-out T-shirt. A mosaic of black jailhouse tattoos covered his arms. He was balding and had a red bandanna wrapped around his forehead. Pete Manzo didn’t look surprised to see him, but he didn’t look real happy either. They went through a fairly elaborate soul handshake that involved wrist grasping and heavy horizontal motion. The man looked for a chair, but there wasn’t one. Pete Manzo kept eating and looking at the mariachis while the man talked into his ear. The man was talking softly, then louder, starting to get annoyed, but Pete Manzo kept shaking his head no. Finally Pete Manzo said something real fast, crumbling his napkin into the bowl of stew and pushing his chair back.

I tried to stay close to the railing so I could follow him, but the crowd between us swelled as the band lurched into an energetic rendition of “Guadalajara” and fat ladies danced in the aisle. I saw him hurrying down the stairs I had come up. I launched myself through the crowd by pushing an old lady.

“Excuso, excuso. “

I slipped on the stairs in my high heels. It was the same cat-and-mouse game. He hadn’t seen me yet, but he must have been worried about whatever it was the muscleman had said to him. By the time I got to the ground floor, he was disappearing down the narrow corridor like the white rabbit into Wonderland.

Out in the parking lot the scene was quiet. No one arriving, no one leaving. No green VW. I cut diagonally through the parking lot, heading for the driveway closest to where I had left my car. The striking of a match and then the laughter of four teenage boys smoking dope in an old Chevy startled me as I walked past them. The street too was deserted. I heard an engine start up in the distance and hurried on thinking it was the Volkswagen, but it was only an old coupe that chugged past me, its lights shining up the hill toward First Street.

I had lost him.

I didn’t know what to do but get in the car and go back to his house to wait for him. In the distance I heard norteño music. I was getting my keys out of my purse when I was grabbed from behind, two strong hands locking onto my upper arms close to the elbows.

I stomped down hard with my right foot, catching the heel of my black Charles Jourdan pump in the toes of a tennis shoe. There was a little groan; he sounded more surprised than hurt. I looked over my shoulder. It was the man in the blue baseball cap.

“Let go of me.” I struggled to get my arms free.