Czarnecki opened the door. Inside was a plywood crate resembling a crude coffin. The kid climbed into the camper, opened the hinged lid of the crate, and lay down inside. Czarnecki closed the lid and secured it with three padlocks. He covered the crate with a canvas tarp. Winded by even this bit of exertion, he sat at the camper’s small table to catch his breath.

“You stick him in here if you’re gonna be out during the day,” he said, patting the crate. “Keeps him out of the sun.”

We returned to the cab, and Czarnecki moved the truck so we had a clear view of the Mexican’s room. The motel had quieted for the night. There were no lights anywhere except for the flicker of a TV in the office. Czarnecki lit a cigarette, blew the smoke out his window. He asked if I’d been in the military.

“The Army,” I said. “From ’51 to ’55.”

“So you’re used to blood and guts.”

“I was a clerk, a typist.”

“What do you do for a living now?”

I laughed. For the first time in a long time, I laughed.

“I teach typing,” I said. “I’ve come far.”

“You must be fast,” Czarnecki said.

“A hundred and twenty-two words a minute.”

The old man whistled, pretending to be impressed.

“I was in the Army too,” he said. “Enlisted at eighteen and stayed in until I was thirty.”

“Long haul,” I said.

He shrugged. “The pay was decent, and I learned a trade. I was a mechanic after I got out, before Mr. Otto came along.”

“Did you like that kind of work?” I asked.

“It made sense,” he said. “This part does this, that part does that. You figure out what’s not working, replace it, and you’re back in business.”

He slipped two fingers under his eye patch and scratched while staring with his good eye at what we could see of the night sky through the windshield.

“Do you know the constellations?” he said.

“I knew some when I was a kid,” I replied.

He pointed. “There’s Hercules. His arms, his legs, his club. Scorpius, the scorpion. Cygnus, the swan. Those four in a square there with the bright one on top? That’s Lyra, the lyre.”

“Well, well,” I said, impressed.

Czarnecki tossed his cigarette out the window and opened his door.

“I’m gonna grab a couple hours of shut-eye,” he said. “There’s another bed in back if you want to sleep too.”

There was no way I was going to be able to sleep, especially not lying five feet from the kid, no matter how many locks were on the crate. I told Czarnecki I’d stay up front, keep watch. He gave me a mocking salute and said, “Blow reveille at sunrise if I’m not up already.”