Immediately, a scorched wind filled the Dodge. Webster sighed and unbuttoned his shirt. “When you think about it, we work in a division that has all ends of the spectrum. Some very wealthy live in the area, some not so wealthy…”

“Go on,” Martinez said.

“Sometimes, I go to a house…like Alice Ranger. She’s living in this spanking-new mansion with every kind of amenity, drinking herself comatose. Here I am, a college graduate working my ass off, sweating like vegetables in a frying pan for fifty-two grand a year.”

“Plus benefits.”

“I’m not complaining,” Webster said. “I reckon there were lots of ways I could have gone, but I chose this, and I’m not complaining—”

“You already said that.”

“So it sounds like complaining?” Webster smiled. “I’m all right. But I do wonder what the hell people like Alice have to bitch about. And we don’t only see women like Alice Ranger. We deal with lots of working stiffs. So what must it be like for a macho, hyper-American Marine like Hank Tarpin to work with the rich day in and day out? It’s got to eat at you.”

“Not if you never aspire to it.”

“C’mon, Bert. No one ever aspires to grow up average.”

“Tommy, if your life was below average growing up, average can look pretty damn good.”

Webster didn’t say anything.

Martinez hesitated. “Being poor isn’t the reason that these buttholes wind up racists.”

“It’s one of the reasons.”

“It’s one of the excuses,” Martinez answered. “One among many.”

“Our exit is coming up. It’s right past the Honor Farm.”

Martinez moved over into the right-hand lane, then got off into a land of hay-colored, parched hillside undulating in the distance. Heat radiated off the asphalt. Scrub oak—gnarled and bent—thrived in the baked earth. Tall eucalyptus trees shimmered silver while exhaling fiery, menthol breath. Chaparral had managed to sprout and grow from the cracked ground below. The Dodge pitched through the lonely terrain, through air that was hot and still. But the visibility was better. Out here, even the smog had retreated, burning away in the unforgiving sunlight. Sweat was pouring off skin surfaces that Webster shouldn’t have been aware of.

Martinez said, “How far is this place?”

“Canyon country.”

“Which canyon?”

“Sierra Canyon. Next to Placerita Canyon—the nature reserve. Y’ever been there?”

“No.”

“I was there about five years ago. Not in this heat, but in the springtime. My hay fever went haywire.”

“You really are a city slicker.”

“So far as I know, no one’s allergic to cement.”

“How do I get there?”