Kitty pulled a six-foot power cord from the crate of junk and used it to tie Ramón’s hands behind his back. “Make it tight,” Luke had said, and she did, wrapping it four times around Ramón’s wrists, then tying a double-knot that pinched his skin. Luke kept the revolver to his head the entire time. He’d lowered the hammer, though.

They grabbed an armpit each and heaved Ramón to his feet. Luke kicked the seat of his pants, not as hard as he wanted to.

“Okay, muchacho. Move your ass.”

They walked to the house. The rottweiler’s howls and remonstrations followed them. (The shepherd had fallen silent at last.) Kitty pulled Ramón’s keys from his front pocket and used them to unlock the door. An alarm sounded—a rapid-fire synth blast, like something from a sci-fi movie. Luke gestured at a keypad beside the door that looked like it had been made from an old push-button phone.

“Code,” he snapped.

“Five-six-four-two-six.”

Kitty punched it in. The alarm fell silent. They continued through the house, Ramón leading the way, all of them limping and wheezing. They passed through the dining area where the Venezuelan flag hung, into the kitchen—clean, with lingering aromas of garlic and cooked meat—then through to a small room stacked with old Spanish-language newspapers and magazines. A desktop computer hummed on an antique bureau. There was a portrait on the wall of an elderly Latino with distinct angular features. Papi, perhaps. Dried garlands and a rosary drooped off the frame. Luke looked at it briefly, but his attention was on a door in the wall opposite. An austere door, with steel plates riveted across the front and thick bolts set top and bottom.

“The basement, I presume,” Luke said.

Ramón nodded, slumping dejectedly. Luke pulled him upright, tapping the back of his skull with the revolver to let him know it was still there. Kitty stepped forward. She threw the bolts. There was a dead lock beneath a short strip of chain that served as a handle. Kitty rattled the keys in front of Ramón’s face.

“Save me some time,” she said. “Which one?”

“Bronze-colored,” Ramón mumbled. “Schlage stamped on the head.”

She found the key, pushed it into the lock. It turned easily. She grabbed the chain and pulled. The basement door opened slowly, heavily.

Kitty went first, taking each step down with a degree of trepidation. Ramón followed, with Luke clutching his arm from behind, the gun in his other hand.