"Yes!"

Keller takes the needle away. "Where do we find Carrejos?"

"I don't know! Please, give me something..."

Keller unties Wagner's left hand and then gives him the cell phone he took from him. All the numbers and contacts have already been downloaded. "Call him."

"What...do...I...say?"

"I don't care. Just keep him on the line."

Wagner finds the number and hits it. "Chavo, it's me, Mikey...No, I'm good, I'm just high is all...really jacked up, 'mano. Hey, do you guys need any more stuff? I just moved that...that...two pounds and I...I..."

The FES technician gives Keller a thumbs-up.

They have Carrejos's location.

Keller grabs the phone and clicks it off. He turns to the medic. "Take care of him. Ease him down."

The medic looks at Keller, like, Why? But he does it. Half an hour later, Mikey-Mike Wagner is in the front seat of Keller's car, sound asleep, when they cross back over the border. Keller drives him to the bus station in El Paso and then shakes him. "Wake up."

Wagner looks bleary.

Keller hands him a bus ticket. "Chicago. It's Sinaloa cartel turf-the Zetas can't get to you there. If you ever come back here, the Z Company will kill you. If they don't, I will. Now get out."

"Thank you."

"Fuck you. Die."

Driving away, his phone rings. It's one of the FES guys, they already have Carrejos, and he's already talking.

Keller doesn't doubt that. They're holding a Mexican citizen on Mexican soil and there's nothing stopping them from doing what they're going to do-track down the men who killed their comrade's family.

They'll strip Carrejos of everything he knows and then, if he's lucky, put a bullet in the back of his head and dump his body out in the desert.

Keller doesn't care-he just wants the information, even as he knows that the hunt for the Zeta killers takes him further away from his search for Barrera. It's the principle of a river-the deviation of even an inch at the source takes that river on a new course, farther and farther from where it started to go.

Now he drives to meet Marisol.

They're going to a New Year's Eve party.

- It turns out to be not a bar or a restaurant but a bookstore cafe. And she's right, Cafebrera has that feel of a meeting place, a cultural center, a refuge from the insanity that's taken over so much of this city.

Marisol introduces him around. Her friends are nice but he feels out of place, clearly a stranger, a gringo, a North American government official and therefore a curiosity and a little bit of a threat among a crowd of writers, poets, activists, and unironically self-proclaimed intellectuals.

Still, even though he's standing on the periphery, there's a warmth to this circle that he hasn't seen or felt in a long time. The affection is palpable and genuine, the humor of a gentler sort than he encountered in Cuernavaca, and there seems to be no other agenda than friendship and a shared cause, even if he thinks that cause is too inchoate and impractical to ever be realized.

A woman friend of Marisol's, a reporter, invites them over to her house afterward, and as Marisol seems keen to go, Keller agrees.

It's the usual suspects-intellectuals, activists, writers, poets-cheap wine, and cheaper beer, and Keller gets the feeling that joints would be passed around if he weren't there, and he wants to tell them that he just doesn't care, but doesn't know how to broach the subject.

He's standing in the little backyard sipping a beer when a somewhat plump man with long black hair and a day-old beard comes up to him.

"Pablo Mora."

"Art Keller."

"I write for El Peridico," Pablo says. He's clearly had more than one beer, and he says, "Some of us have been talking and the consensus is that you're some kind of a spy. If that is the case, what kind of a spy are you?"

"I'm with the government," Keller says, "but I'm not a spy."

"That's disappointing. It would be more fun if you were a spy," Pablo says. "So why are you here?"

"Marisol asked me."

"We love Marisol," Pablo says. "We all love Marisol. I love Marisol. I mean, I love her."

"I don't blame you."

"Well, I blame you," Pablo says. "How can she love a gringo?"

"Well, I'm only half gringo," Keller says. "Half gringo, half pocho."

"A pochingo."

"I guess."

"I just made that word up," Pablo says. "I'm a Juarense. Born and bred."

Marisol walks over to rescue him. "Pablo, I see you've met Arturo."

"The pochingo spy."

"Pochingo?" Marisol asks.

"I'll tell you later," Keller says.

"You're okay, pochingo," Pablo says. "I'm going to get another beer. You want another beer?"

"I'm good."

"Okay."

Pablo walks away.

"He's a little over-refreshed," Keller says.

"Kind of a sad story, Pablo."

"I like him," Keller says. "He has a crush on you."

"A small crush," Marisol says. "He'd be in love with Ana if he had any brains. Are you having a good time?"

"I am."

"Liar."

"No, I am."

"Let's go talk with Ana," Marisol says. "I'd love for you to be friends."

They go and sit on the steps with the petite black-haired woman who's in an intense discussion with a bespectacled middle-aged man with a cane. Keller figures that this has to be the famous scar Herrera, the eminent journalist whom the Barreras tried to assassinate back in the day.

"Tell me how it's different, scar," Ana is saying. "Tell me how this isn't an army of occupation."

"Because it's our own country's army," scar answers.

"Still, it's martial law."

"I'm not disputing that," scar says. "I'm disputing your notion that it's an army of occupation and I'm also asking, what are the other options? We have a police force that either cannot or will not enforce the law, that is afraid to come out of its precinct houses for fear of being killed, so what is the city government supposed to do? Just surrender to anarchy?"

"This is anarchy."

"I'm sorry to interrupt," Marisol says. "I wanted to introduce you to my friend. scar Herrera, this is Arturo Keller."

"Mucho gusto."

"The pleasure's mine."

"We were just discussing the sad condition of our city," scar says, "but I, for one, am glad to be interrupted. You're a North American, Seor Keller."

"Art, please. And yes."

"But you speak Spanish so well," scar says. "Do you read it, too?"

"Yes."

"Who do you read?"

Keller mentions Roberto Bolano, Luis Urrea, and Elmer Mendoza, among others.

"Dr. Cisneros!" scar exclaims. "You have done it! You have found a civilized North American! Sit down, Arturo, sit down next to me."

Keller squeezes in next to scar, who moves his cane to make room, and they talk about The Savage Detectives, The Hummingbird's Daughter, and Silver Bullets until scar gets up and announces that he needs to leave the late night to the young people.

Marisol walks him out to help him find a cab.

Ana wastes no time. "She's in love with you, you know."

"I hope she is," Keller says.

"I'm not sure you're the man I would have chosen for her," Ana says. "A North American, and...well, we joke about your being a spy, but the joke isn't that far off, is it?"

Keller doesn't answer.

"You be good to her," Ana says.

"I will," Keller says. "What about you and Pablo?"

She looks over at the reporter, who is standing and laughing with Giorgio. "I don't know that there is a 'me and Pablo.'"

"He seems like a nice guy."

"Which might be his problem," Ana says. "He's a nice guy with a soft heart, and he's carrying a torch for his ex-wife, his son, and Marisol."

"Just a crush."

"Oh," she says, "she's so far out of his league it isn't funny. No, the problem with Pablo and me is that we work together and maybe know each other too well."

"It's not a bad basis for a relationship."

Ana's voice turns serious. "If you have any influence with Mari, get her out of this political stuff. It's too dangerous."

"I was going to ask you the same thing."

"She doesn't listen."

"Well, maybe if we both keep trying."

"Deal."

They shake hands. Marisol comes back out. "What are we shaking on?"

"A newfound friendship," Keller says.

"That's good," Marisol says. "I was hoping for that."

She goes back with him to the Candlewood Suites in El Paso, where DEA keeps a room for him, rather than risk a late-night drive back to Valverde. It's one of those extended-stay hotels, hardly luxurious but not so depressing. As they get into the room, she asks, "By the way, what's a pochingo?"

"Half pocho, half gringo."

"I see. Which half would like to make love to me?"

Both, as it turns out.

- New Year Day 2010 is the bloodiest day in Jurez history.

Twenty-six people are murdered in twenty-four hours.