The scent of roses hung in the air. I pushed the door open. A tiny bar of pink soap lay still wet on its white wrapper. A towel was crumpled in the corner near the shower. I splashed some water on my face, examined the faint purple line above my jaw and hurried into my clothes. My strand of pearls was gone.

I ran out. The corridor from our room to the front desk was empty. From elsewhere, another corridor, I heard the whine of a vacuum cleaner. She had ripped me off.

She was probably back in LA having a good laugh. I was surprised she hadn’t lifted my wallet as well; she must have seen how little money I had in it. How was I going to get back to LA? Did they have a car rental in Mexicali? Would I have to take the bus? The desk clerk, the same one we’d talked to when we checked in, didn’t remember who I was. He was reading a movie magazine and had forgotten how to speak English.

The Fiat was still out front. A sigh of relief escaped my lips. Then I saw Lupe leaning against it, laughing and animated, her face tilted up toward the stupid and pimply countenance of the boy who had brought the tequila the night before. He was talking and she was nodding at him. The bitch. She was probably going to take every peso he had for a blowjob. She was wearing my pearls.

“Let’s go,” I said without looking at the boy, fixing her with a black look.

“Whitney, Carlos. Carlos, mi hermana Whitney.”

Blushing, the boy stuck his hand out to me.

“Come on, let’s go, you thief,” I said, ignoring his hand, unable to contain the anger in my voice. “And give me my pearls.” I advanced toward her, ready to snatch the necklace from her throat.

She didn’t move. She acted as if she hadn’t heard this, instead smiling again at the boy. “Carlos was telling me that another man was also here looking for Cathy Vega.”

“What? When?” I demanded.

Lupe nodded toward the boy’s hand, which was now dangling at his side. I took it in mine and pumped it enthusiastically a few times. “Who was the man? What did he look like?” I asked him.

The boy dropped my hand and turned back to Lupe, eager only to please her. Lazily she arched her neck so the sun caressed her hair, which cascaded down her back, and her breasts jutted slightly forward. I thought I heard the boy sigh.

“He says the man was old. Maybe sixty or more. Glasses. A Cuban. “

“How did he know the man was a Cuban?” I thought about the Cuban photographer I’d met at Rudy’s, the men in the restaurant across from Casa Guatemala.