“The two men didn’t come downstairs. The only others to enter were an old man and his dog. The only one to exit was a man who drove out of the back of the building a minute ago.”

“Ask them if he had a dog!”

Gregory did. He waited. Amy chewed a fried chip.

“Yes,” Gregory told Chino sheepishly.

Chino threw his hands in the air. “The only thing wrong with a life of crime is having to put up with other criminals.”

Gregory turned to Amy and touched his temple, flashing a wild grin that seemed to say, See? He’s amazing!

Chino tapped him on the shoulder. “Tell them, please, that for now, to follow the fucking dog.”

Merrill waited until they were back in the center of town before he sat up in the car and told the old man to pull over and get out. Merrill slid into the driver’s seat and gave the old man a handful of cash. “Taxi. Take a taxi home.”

The old man pulled the cigar from his mouth. “Is my car. Good car. Muy best car.”

It was a recent vintage Honda accord, with a leather interior and sunroof. “Don’t worry,” Merrill said. “I will take care of it.”

“Por favor.”

“I will,” Merrill said. “I promise.” In the rearview mirror a white Mercedes swung out of the traffic lane and bore down on them. Merrill stepped on the gas and took a hard right at the next corner. Then a left onto a road he recognized, the one that ran out by the airport. The gas gauge read nearly full. What he knew abut these cars was that if you wanted them to hustle, you had to shift down, cut out the overdrive fourth gear, and keep the revs up. The mirrors gave no view of a Mercedes yet, but Merrill had seen enough of the map of the city to know there were only a few routes up to the hills, and probably several that were quicker than this.

And Chino was running the show. On the strength of the evidence available to him, he had figured out that Merrill would go to Ruiz’s place. All that Merrill had got right was that more than one man would come upstairs for him.

To keep from making targets of themselves, the two hadn’t turned on a light. One backed into the kitchen without checking it first. Merrill buried the rim of a twenty-eight ounce can of tomatoes into his skull. Hearing the awful noise, but not knowing what it meant, the other bolted for the door. Merrill caught up with a man at the elevator, hit him with a can of garbanzo beans, and dragged his body back into the apartment.