Quarry Country. Miles upon miles of limestone mountains, rising and falling like scoops of toffee ice cream. The sky had turned endless and virginal with puffs of crystalline cloud. No-man’s-land. The area held electrical lines, telephone lines, smooth ribbons of asphalt, and not much else. Up close, the rocky hillsides nurtured lots of life—copses of chaparral, carpets of yellow and pink flowering weeds, gnarled oak, wizened Podocarpus, and thickets of oleander, shimmering silver with its thin, poisonous leaves. A sizable breeze rustled through the flora, blowing sand and loose gravel from recently tarred roadways.

Webster rolled up the cuffs of his Hawaiian shirt as he raced the ’Cuda through the sinuous turns. “Y’all think I should stuff a cigarette pack in the fold of my sleeve?”

“It would be authentic,” Martinez said. “I like the grease spots on the denims, Tom.”

“Quite the verité. From DW-40ing my daughter’s tricycle.” Tom chewed briskly on a stick of gum. “Me? I like the sunglasses hanging from my pocket. Thought that was a good touch.”

“Nice shades. What are those? Porsches?”

“A knockoff. But they are UV protected.” Webster changed the car’s CD from Bizet to ZZ-Top. “Like the shitkicker music? Bought it yesterday for the assignment.”

“Fits like a glove,” Martinez said. He had donned an oversized denim work shirt and a pair of torn, saggy jeans. On his feet were black biking boots. His hair was slicked back, and he hadn’t shaved that morning. “What kind of piece are you carrying?”

“Beretta, nine-millimeter. You?”

“Smith and Wesson six eight six.” Martinez picked up the Thomas guide. “You know where the hell we are?”

“I was wondering that myself. Guy at the dealership where Grease Pit worked told me to stay on Placerita, but I b’lieve I took a wrong turn somewhere. What intersects Placerita?”

Martinez skimmed through the map. “Bear Canyon, Coyote Canyon, Rabbit Canyon…oh, here’s a good one. Cougar Canyon.” Martinez sniffed exaggeratedly and wiped his nose with the back of his arm. “Want to hunt some cougar, boy?”

“Just let me get my rifle and dawgs.”

“What kind of dawgs you got, boy?”

“A pit bull and a Tree Walker Coonhound.”

“A what?”

Webster smiled. “A Tree Walker Coonhound. From Kentucky, indigenous to the South, suh. Anything illuminating on our map as to our whereabouts?”

“First we gotta find a landmark.”

“I’d settle for a crossroad.”

“How about a canyon? We’ve got plenty of canyons. We got Oak Canyon, Wilson Canyon, Maple Canyon, Ant Canyon, Bee Canyon, Tick Canyon…” Martinez looked up from the atlas. “Tell me something, Tommy. How do they know that the bees stay in Bee Canyon, the ants in Ant Canyon, and the ticks in Tick Canyon.”