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at the Parque Central at five p.m. No, six.”
    “Why don’t you just tell me where you live? Or are you being difficult because you’re annoyed Vinny’s not here?”
    “My men will pick you up. No weapons, please.”
    Words that made Wells want a pistol more than ever. He hung up, called the front desk. “Can you call me a cab to the nearest Walmart?”
    “You’re sure you want a Walmart, sir? We have excellent shopping nearby.”
    “I’m on a budget.”
    —
    Officially called the Plaza de la Constitución, the Parque Central had once been Guatemala’s government and religious center. Now the president worked elsewhere, and the palace on the park’s northern end served as an art museum. But the cathedral on the east side, which had survived multiple earthquakes, remained home to Guatemala City’s archbishop.
    “Don’t go after dark,” the desk clerk said, when Wells asked about it. “Better to stay in the Zona Viva. Here, it’s patrolled.”
    “Even around the palace?”
    “Especially there. They look for tourists.”
I know you won’t listen,
the clerk’s face said.
You want to find out for yourself. The foolish privilege of the foolish privileged.
    Wells stowed his wallet and passport and ring in the room safe and left the hotel at 5:30, the winter sky nearly dark. Even in the patrolled area
,
the Zona Viva, the streets were nearly deserted. The cab turned onto Avenida 7A and rolled north past long, low concrete blocks, pockmarked and covered with graffiti. Guatemala City reminded Wells of a boxer, a lightweight with a losing record and prison tats that didn’t quite cover his acne scars. The cab stopped for a light beside a drugstore marked with a green neon cross
.
A chubby man in a white coat pulled down a steel gate as two guards flanked him. They were armed like a police tac team, shotguns and bullet-resistant vests.
    “
Farmacias
, many robberies,” the cabbie said.
    Ten minutes later, the cabbie turned left through an archway and stopped outside a squat stone building topped by two low bell towers. “Cathedral. Parque Central.” The square was smaller than Wells expected, with a dry fountain in the center protected by a low wall. A grove of trees shaded the southern side. The final strips of daylight were fleeing the sky. A dozen teenage boys sat on the wall beside the fountain. Others squatted on their heels around the plaza. Two leaned against the cathedral, chins lolled to their chests, tongues dangling.
    “They take glue,” the cabbie said. Liquid cement was the drug of choice for the poorest kids in Latin America. Glue was a strange drug. It didn’t bring the euphoria of heroin or the stimulation of cocaine. It made time vanish and obliterated the mind. Huffers rarely lasted much past their teens. The freefall wasn’t a side effect, Wells figured. It was the point.
    He reached for his door, found it locked.
    “You see, now back to hotel, yes?”
    “I’m meeting someone. Can you wait?”
    “Too many gangs.”
    “How about at the corner of Calle Ocho, Avenida Cinco?” Two blocks away.
    “How long?”
    “Half hour.” Wells passed the cabbie two twenty-dollar bills, way more than the fare. “I’ll give you one hundred U.S.”
    “Fifty now. You come by six-thirty, hundred fifty more. Otherwise I leave.”
    Wells handed over fifty dollars from the loose cash he was carrying in his baggy black Walmart sweatpants. The real prizes from his shopping trip were hidden under the sweats. Wells had taped a metal flashlight to his right calf, sheathed a four-inch knife to his left. He would have preferred a pistol, of course, but the knife and light were the best he could do on a few hours’ notice.
    In movies, no one ever had a problem getting weapons. In the real world, people who tried to buy guns illegally were apt to be arrested, or worse. A would-be buyer had to find someone who already had a firearm—while advertising that he had money but no weapon of his own. A more obvious