Around 2 a.m., as we were crawling through a stucco-and-cinderblock barrio, the kid leaned forward so suddenly, I threw my arms up to protect myself.

“There!” he said.

He pointed at a Mexican wearing a black cowboy hat and ostrich-skin boots. The man’s unsteady gait showed he was drunk. He nearly toppled over stepping off the curb to cross the street.

“Get out and tail him,” Czarnecki said to me.

“What?” I replied.

“I’ll circle the block so he doesn’t get wise.”

Caught up in the moment, I hopped out of the truck and fell in behind the man, keeping a careful distance. Czarnecki drove past and disappeared around the next corner.

The street was deserted, all the stores shut up behind steel gates. The only place still open was a beer bar with a cracked plastic sign, CLUB TANGO. Mexican music oompah-pahed from behind a heavy curtain drawn across the doorway. The man I was following paused out front, stood there swaying like a palm tree in the wind, then suddenly continued on his way, stumbling as if an unseen hand had shoved him. The lights of a passing bus pinned his shadow to a brick wall, his hat enormous.

A couple blocks later he came to a two-story fleabag motel fronting a parking lot full of dusty, dented cars and trucks. After a few fumbling stabs with a key, he let himself into a ground-floor room.

I turned to look for Czarnecki’s pickup. Parked down the street, the old man flashed his headlights.

“What room?” he said when I rejoined him and the kid.

“Eight,” I said.

“Ha!” he said, as if addressing the Mexican. “Got you, you sonofabitch.”

“What happens now?” I said.

“We wait,” Czarnecki said.

“How long?”

“Till daybreak. They’re weaker then.”

I could have ended the hunt at that instant, forced the old man to take me back to his place, gotten into the Econoline, and put this madness behind me. I could have, but I didn’t. You see, baby, Czarnecki was right: I do hear Benny demanding vengeance. I’ve heard it every day since learning of his death, and to have shied away from a possible lead to his killer because of my own fear would’ve been another betrayal of him and made me even more of a failure as a father than I’ve already been.

So.

Czarnecki got out of the truck. I stood behind him as he drew his .45 and threw the kid the keys. The kid freed himself from the bolt on the floor, slid out of the cab, and walked back to the camper.