“That looked just like Bela Lugosi!” Lupe exclaimed, swerving slightly as she turned back to look at the man.

“He’s dead.”

“Remarkable what they can do with makeup,” murmured Lupe more to herself than to me. “Look, there’s Adolph Menjou. Best dressed man in Hollywood.”

“He’s dead,” I said, feeling annoyed. It was hotter than hell despite all the trees.

“Of course he’s dead; that’s where he’s buried. Those Guatemalans might have Joey, but I don’t think he killed Monica Fullbright.”

Suddenly I remembered being a little kid and driving on a Saturday afternoon with my Grandaddy Al in Tennessee to the local VFW where they sold bootleg and homemade hooch because Cumberland County where he lived was dry. Never go anywhere without your own bottle or your own car, he had told me. Now I understood what he had meant. Why on earth had I agreed to depend on her? “Who are you talking about?” I snapped with irritation.

“Guerrero.” She put up her hand to silence me. “Oye. None of the Guatemaltecos knew about Monica Fullbright and the money. If they did, they would have taken it from Cathy. When they sent her to Mexico, she was only supposed to pick up the video. They were testing her. No way they’d let her hold money for them. That’s the way it is on the streets; you gotta prove yourself first.”

I nodded at Lupe, some of my anger dissipating. It was good reasoning. Socratic, just like they’d taught us in law school. But still, it overlooked several possibilities. “Wouldn’t Guerrero know about the money? After all, he was her lover. Or maybe he wanted to move in a different direction from the rest of the group and thought he could use innocent little Cathy to help him do that. Or, possibly, Guerrero, like Cathy, isn’t who he says he is.”

She frowned skeptically at me.

“What if Guerrero’s a double agent?” I pressed. “CIA? FBI?” I had read about the FBI infiltrating another Central American group. Maybe he’d been watching Armando Diaz. Maybe he had tried to use Cathy as bait.

“A double agent?” she sputtered with laughter. “This isn’t TV. This is real life. Don’t you think people can do something just ‘cause they believe in it? You keep saying that’s why you went to law school. It’s not Guerrero. It’s someone else, isn’t it?”

I hadn’t had time to tell Lupe about the calendar, needles, camera and defaced photos I had found at Armando Diaz’s studio. There would be time to tell her; now I didn’t want to. I wanted to test her and hear how she had reasoned it out. “Why do you think it’s not Guerrero?”