Using the ruse that Pepe Renaldes owed my father, the boss man, a considerable sum of money—something that the men we talked to found very easy to believe—we came away with a half-dozen addresses in the right neighborhood. All it took was two hours of our time and two hundred bucks in twenties. Neither one of us had that much play cash, so Dad withdrew money from his ATM. I asked him if he really thought it was worth the effort, and he retorted by asking me exactly how much did I think my life was worth? He was overstating the case, but after his lecture on threat, I felt it best not to challenge.

The first address didn’t exist and the second one was a Kinko’s. The third was one of those squashed stucco houses. That looked promising, although the occupants’ last name was Martez. Inside were a mother and her two sullen teenage daughters, who were polishing their toenails, mixing the smell of acetone with the odor of bacon grease. She insisted that there was no Pepe Renaldes in residence, but since she was less than convincing, Decker searched the house. She let him do it because Decker was big, and Decker was authoritative, and Decker must have said something to her in Spanish that scared the bejesus out of her.

By the time we hit the fourth address—a dingbat apartment building—it was almost ten and the hopes of finding Pepe Renaldes in bed were fading fast. It was a two-story building of brown stucco, fronted by a patch of straggly lawn that had a couple of full-size palm trees dropping premature palm nuts. The little black balls littered the sidewalk and poked into the soles of my shoes. The place had no lobby, but it did have a directory—twelve units with number four looking very promising because the occupants were listed as R and nothing else. This little bit of Heaven was toward the back and secured by iron grilles on the front door and windows. As we approached the unit, I could hear ferocious barking in the midrange level coming from inside. I had reservations about dropping in, but Dad had other ideas.

“Okay,” he whispered. “You stay out of sight.”

“It’s got bars and a dog, Dad. How do you propose we get in?”

“You leave that to me.”

“You can’t push in the door. And even if you did, there’s a dog—”

“Just stay back and let me handle this.”

“Do you have another gun?”

My father smiled at me. “Aw … you care.” His face turned grave. “Stand over there, all right?”

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Very much so.” He knocked on the door.

The dog went wild. I could picture my father charging in and the dog responding by going for his throat. I was naked without my gun and didn’t like that feeling at all.

We waited … thirty seconds … a minute.