"The food. The gardens."

The divorce, she tells Keller, was more her fault than her husband's. He thought he knew what he was marrying, and so did she. In all fairness, he gave her the life she thought she wanted-a two-professional household in a trendy neighborhood, successful friends, dinners out at the best places...status.

"He was exactly what I wanted him to be," Marisol says, "and I punished him for it. Anyway, that's what my therapist said. I was a real bitch toward the end-I think he was quite relieved when I moved out.

"I always thought that Valverde wasn't enough for me," Marisol continues. "Then it turned out that it was Mexico City that wasn't enough for me. I was bored and boring-I was just a consumer. I need to...I don't know...contribute something. So what's your story?"

"The usual cop story," Keller says. "I was married more to my work than to my wife. You've seen it in a dozen movies. It was my fault entirely."

"Well, we're both just guilty bastards, aren't we?"

They finish the linguine.

"Do you want to escape?" Keller asks. "Or would you like dessert?"

"I'd very much like dessert," Marisol says, "but I'd also like to walk this meal off. Perhaps we could go for a stroll and find a place?"

"Sounds great."

Keller pays the check, likes that she doesn't offer to split it, and they walk down to the Pendulo bookstore. He enjoys watching her prowl the aisles, seriously perusing the volumes on the shelves.

She looks good in glasses.

"I love doing this of an evening," she says. "Looking at books, having a coffee. This is a very nice date, Arturo."

"I'm glad."

Marisol picks out a volume of Sor Juana's poems and they sit at a table in the little cafe and have coffee and pan dulce.

"There's a bakery in Valverde," she says. "Best pan dulce in the world. Maybe I'll take you there sometime."

"I'd like that."

Afterward, they stroll down Avenida Nuevo Len.

"This is what they did in the old days," she explains. "A courting couple would walk on the paseo in the evening. Of course, the watchful tas would walk behind-out of earshot but within sight-to make sure that the boy didn't try to steal a kiss."

"Are there any tas behind us now?" Keller asks.

She turns around. "No."

Keller bends down and kisses her. He's just about as surprised as she is, and he doesn't know where he found the nerve to do that.

Marisol's lips are soft and full and warm.

- Two days later, Keller answers his phone to hear Yvette Tapia say, "Please tell me that you're free on Sunday."

"I'm free on Sunday."

"Good," she says. "And do you like polo?"

Keller laughs. Polo? Seriously? "I've never been asked that before."

"Martn plays," Yvette says, "and we're getting up a group to go watch and then a little party at our place afterwards. Shall we say Campo Marte at one?"

We shall, Keller thinks.

But he doesn't know why.

- Campo Marte sits on a plateau in Chapultepec. A rectangle of green field with the high-rises of the city looming in the background.

Keller sits with Yvette Tapia in the shell of an amphitheater that makes up the spectators' section. She's resplendent in a white summer dress that shows off her legs and a white bonnet that sets off her jet-black hair.

The rest of the hundred or so spectators are equally well-heeled-the rich, beautiful people of Mexico City-sipping champagne or mimosas, nibbling on hors d'oeuvres served by white-liveried waiters.

"Explain polo to me," Keller says to Yvette.

"To the extent that I understand it myself," she answers. "Martn just took it up about two years ago, but already I think he is quite good, a 'one' handicap, whatever that means."

"Do you own the ponies," Keller asks, "or rent them like bowling shoes?"

"You're making fun of us," Yvette says. "That's all right. It is a bit much, isn't it? But Martn's passionate about it, and a wise wife never denies her husband his passions if she wants to stay his wife for long."

"And a wise husband?" Keller asks.

"Lo mismo."

The same.

"Some husbands buy sports cars," Yvette says, "or planes, or whores for that matter. Martn buys horses, so I'm lucky. The horses are very pretty and we meet some very nice people."

Which is the point, isn't it? Keller thinks. Golf and tennis place you in one social circle, polo takes you into another stratum altogether.

Keller sits back and watches the flow of play, a swirl of color with the riders' bright green or red jerseys, and the horses themselves-varied shades of white and brown and black. He barely understands what's going on-four riders on each side try to knock the ball into the opponents' goal-but it's fast and dramatic.

And dangerous.

The horses bump each other or flat-out collide, and several times-to the gasps of the crowd-it looked like one or both were going down.

Martn does look like a good player, a graceful rider, and aggressive in going after the ball. Keller learns that he's a "number two" on his team, responsible for feeding passes to the leading scorer and also for defense. It's the most "tactical" role on the team, Yvette tells Keller, who's not surprised.

The score is tied 44 at the end of two chukkers-halftime.

Yvette stands up. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"It's a tradition."

With the rest of the crowd they walk onto the playing field for the "divot-stamping," replacing the sod that the horses' hooves kicked up. Everyone does it to make the field clean and safe for the second half, but also to socialize.

Yvette introduces him.

Keller meets bankers and their wives, diplomats and their wives, he meets Laura Amaro.

Laura and Yvette are good friends.

"Where is your husband today?" Yvette asks.

"Working."

"Poor man."

"The president keeps him busy." She turns to Keller. "My husband, Benjamn, works in the administration."

"Ah."

"I barely see him anymore," Laura says with a pout. "I live at Yvette's house more than I do at mine."

"Can you come to the house after?" Yvette asks.

"There's nothing stopping me," Laura says. "Maybe Benjamn can join us."

"Call him and say that I insist," Yvette says.

"Well, that should scare him."

They walk around, replacing divots and talking. Then Yvette points out a striking woman chatting with a tall, broad-smiling man in an impeccably cut Italian suit.

"Do you recognize the woman?" Yvette asks.

"No."

"The president's wife," Yvette says. "The first lady."

"Do you want to go over?"

Yvette shakes her head. "I'm not there yet. Anyway, there'll be a new first lady soon, won't there? God send her husband is PAN."

Halftime ends and they go back to their seats.

The second half is more intense than the first. The sporting atmosphere becomes more competitive, the play more physical. Once, when it looks like Martn's horse is about to topple, Yvette reaches over and grabs Keller's hand.

She keeps it there for several seconds, squeezes, and then lets go.

The match is a 66 tie when Martn bursts his gray horse forward, "hooks" the mallet of the opposing player, and blocks it. Shouldering the other player aside, he takes the ball and drives down the field.

Keller sees the intensity in Yvette's eyes as her husband gallops ahead.

One opponent stands between him and the goal.

Martn raises his mallet over his head, swings it down, and, at the last second, passes to his teammate, who scores the winner.

- Laura Amaro's overworked husband doesn't show up at dinner, so Yvette sits Keller next to her at dinner as her "date."

"Benjamn books the president's travel," Laura explains, "so it's a seven-day-a-week job."

"Important, though," Keller says.

"Oh, yes, we're all very important," Laura answers. "Just ask us. Of course he might be out of a job soon."

"Do you really think PRD can win?" Keller asks. PRD is a left-wing coalition that basically replaced PRI as the main opposition party. Its presidential candidate, Manuel Lpez Obrador, was the mayor of Mexico City and had seen a commanding lead in the polls fade against the PAN candidate, Felipe Caldern.

"I think it's going to be close," Laura says. "So does Benjamn. It would be a disaster for the country, though, if we lose. I think your people in Washington share this opinion, don't they?"

"I think so, yes."

Keller also thinks this-the center of the Mexican drug trade isn't in the frontline border cities of Tijuana, Jurez, or Laredo.

Or even in the heartland of Sinaloa.

It's here, in Mexico City.

- "You're kissing a cobra," Martn Tapia says as he climbs into bed next to his wife.

"But it's so much fun."

"If Adn knew that Keller was a guest here..."

"'Adn, Adn, Adn,'" Yvette says, "'Upon what meat does this our Caesar feed that he is grown so great?'"

"Diego is devoted to him."

"I know," Yvette says, turning to her husband, "they were boys together. Diego's problem is that he doesn't see his own worth."

"He's loyal."

"Loyalty should extend both ways."

"Meaning?"

"Adn's getting closer and closer to Nacho Esparza," Yvette says. "First he gives him Tijuana, now he's sniffing around the daughter."

"She's seventeen."

"There's no harm in keeping Keller close," Yvette says. "He might come in handy for us, and if not, he's always worth two million on the hoof, isn't he? Not to mention the Emperor's undying gratitude."

Yvette slides down in the bed.