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When you came to see my father about the Mexican?”
    _The Mexican.__ Suddenly the man's face floateing aface flod up again to press at the edges of Delaney's consciousness, fill him up like some pregnant ghost with images of rotten teeth and stained mustaches. The Mexican. What with Sacheverell, he'd forgotten all about him. Now he remembered. The boy had been stretched out on the sofa like a recumbent monarch when Delaney had gone over to Jack's to confer with him about the accident, and Delaney had thought it odd that Jack didn't offer to take him into another room or out on the patio where they could talk in private. Jack took no notice of his son--he might just as well have been part of the furniture. He put an arm round Delaney's shoulder, made him a drink, listened to his story and assured him that he had nothing to worry about, nothing at all--if the man was legal, why would he refuse aid? And if he was illegal, what were the chances he'd find an attorney to represent him--and on what grounds? “But Jack,” Delaney had protested, “I didn't report the accident.” Jack had turned to him, calm and complicitous. “What accident?” he said, and he was the most reasonable man in the world, judge, jury and advocate all rolled into one. “You stopped and offered to help--the man refused assistance. What more could you do?”
    Indeed. But now Jack Jr. wanted to know, and the thought of it made Delaney's stomach sink. There were five people in the world who knew what had happened out on that road, and by luck of the draw Jack Jr. was one of them. “Yeah?” he said. “What of it?”
    “Oh, nothing. I was just wondering where it happened--you said they were camping and all.”
    “Out on the canyon road. Why?”
    “Oh, I don't know.” Jack Jr. kicked at something in the dirt. “I was just wondering. I see an awful lot of them down there lately. You said it was down below the lumberyard, right? Where that trail cuts off into the ravine?”
    For the life of him Delaney couldn't grasp what the boy was getting at--what was it to him? But he answered the question almost reflexively--he had nothing to hide. “Right,” he said. And then he got to his feet, murmured, “Well, I've got to be going,” and strode off into the darkness fingering the sorry lump of flesh in his jacket pocket.
    He made a mental note to put it in the freezer when he got home. It would begin to stink before long.

The Tortilla Curtain

4
    THE MORNING AFTER AMéRICA CLIMBED UP OUT OF the canyon to offer herself at the labor exchange--futilely, as it turned out--she insisted on going again. Cándido was against it. Vehemently. The day before, he'd waited through the slow-crawling morning till the sun stood directly overhead--twelve noon, the hour at which the labor exchange closed down for the day--and then he'd waited another hour, and another, torn by worry and suspicion. If she'd somehow managed to get work she might not be back till dark, and that was almost worse than if she hadn't, what with the worry--and worse still, the shame. He kept picturing her in some rich man's house, down on her knees scrubbing one of those tiled kitchens with a refrigerator the size of a meat locker and one of those dark-faced ovens that boil water in sixty seconds, and the rich man watching her ass as it waved in the air and trembled with the hard push of her shoulders. Finally--and it must have been three in the afternoon--she appeared, a dark speck creeping over the sun-bleached rocks, and in her hand one of those thin plastic market bags the _gringos__ use once and throw away. Cándido had to squint to see her against the pain that filmed his eyes. “Where were you?” he demanded when she was close enough to hear him. And then, in a weaker voice, a voice of apology and release: “Did you get work?”
    No smile. That gave him his answer. But she did hand him the bag as an offering and kneel down on the blanket to kiss the good side of his face like a dutiful