At that moment, all the clocks in the room struck six. I held out my hands, let them drop. "That's cutting things way too close. I say we go now."

"Let me take a shower first, if I may," Victor said, and looked at Fritz, who lowered his regal head with the finality of judgment.

"Sho' 'nuff," I said. "But save your w.a.n.king till later, get me?"

Despite their open hostility, the grandsons grinned at each other. Helena blushed and looked down at her half-eaten cake.

"Can I, too?" Aurora asked.

"What, w.a.n.k?"

"No, shower. Nong."

"For crying out loud."

"I'll be quick," Victor said, and went off in search of a clean towel.

"We're on a deadline to stop a war and you want to take a shower?" I said. "This is important."

Aurora sniffed my neck loudly. "So is being clean." She turned to go.

"Yeah, well." I slapped her on the a.s.s. She delayed her public outrage long enough to show me she didn't mind.

"I stink," I said. "No amount of soap can change that fact."

We were loading the jeep when Manuel caught me by the elbow, drew me aside. "You know what you're getting yourself into?"

"Not a f.u.c.king clue," I said.

He jabbed a gun into my ribs. The thin equatorial twilight cut his face into dark shards. His whisper was hot on my cheek.

"Grandfather has Alzheimer's," he said.

I shook my arm free. "Is that all?"

He grabbed my ear and lifted. "No," he said. "You bring me back this jeep. Not a scratch. Or I come looking for you. Hear?"

He pressed the gun into my hands. The barrel was enormous. It was a flare gun. He pulled harder on my ear, and I lifted myself on tiptoe.

"I said, 'hear?'"

"I hear you," I said. "Message clear. Understood. Absolutely crystal. f.u.c.k! G.o.ddammit. Thank you."

TWENTY-THREE.

The jeep crunched across the salt flats. We drove without headlights. The full moon reflected off the crystallized former lake bed. Isla de los Pescadores rose on the horizon, a deformity on the otherwise flat surface.

It had been a long night of driving. We'd left La Paz after dinner and made it to Oruro before midnight. Around four in the morning we sped through the outpost of Uyuni, heading our way southwest into the heart of the Salar. We were ahead of schedule. At this rate, we could expect to reach the mine just after dawn. Plenty of time to poke around, see what there was to see. Record the bombing when it happened.

We stopped every few hours to take a leak, our urine rising hot on the night-frozen salt. It was cold in the jeep, and I had no gloves. Victor and I took turns driving, and each time we stopped to swap seats, I had to pry my fingers from the steering wheel.

Staring at the night sky, at the dome of the heavens ancient and haunting, I was reminded of my smallness, the pointlessness of all existence. And as the urine dribbled from my body, my d.i.c.k in my cold fingers, I thought of Pitt. Those empty eye sockets, the skin crumpling and flaking under my fingers, his flesh cooked to a soggy medium rare.

Pitt is dead. It sinks in now. He's gone. He isn't coming back. Aurora understood that, I realized. Nothing I can do, no revenge, will bring him back to life.

"No woman will ever understand you the way another man will," Pitt said.

We were sitting on the beach, watching the sun set, beers in hand, a chaste distance between us. In Huanchaco, the night before the blackmail. Before the rope. Before everything between us changed.

"To friendship," I said, holding out my can of Cusquena.

We clinked our beers and drained them. Sighed at the same time, and exchanged glances of shared happiness. Together we leaned back in the sand. Across the waters of the Pacific Ocean, a ball of fire ninety-three million miles away said goodnight. Or was it goodbye?

And he was right. I've had many lovers, but only one friend. He didn't understand me. Not really. But he didn't judge me, either. In his eyes I had done nothing wrong. Whenever I was with him, I could lay down my burden. I felt the loss more sharply than any failed infatuation.

But he betrayed you.

Was it betrayal later that night, when I sobbed on his shoulder, called out for my missing girl, my dead child, mourning to the heavens, cursing all existence and the fates who gave me life?

"It's not your fault," he said. His hand on my ear guided my tearless eyes to his shoulder.

"You must think I'm a wuss to go on like this." I tried to free myself, but he held me tight.

"We have all sinned." He talked over my head at the waves. "We are all human. We are all guilty." He stroked my hair. "Sometimes I wonder how I'll ever cope."

I pulled away. "Since when do you have guilt?"

He didn't look at me. "Since always. It's just taken a while for me to know that's what it was."

"What's the worst thing you've ever done?" I asked.

He drank his beer. "I once poisoned a river. Killed thirty thousand people." He held out his open palms and laughed. Or tried to. "In the jungle, no one cares."

I sat up. He let me. I slapped at the tear stains on his shirt. They weren't mine. I said, "Sorry, man."

He blew his nose on his shirt. "It'll wash out."

"So," I said, "what happened to mister sociopath, I don't have a conscience, I make 'smores out of dissidents' t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es? Since when did you go all gooey?"

"Gooey," he said. "Is that what I am?" He looked at the full moon. He reached for another beer. Cracked it open, poured the entire can down his throat. Dropped his head to his chest.

When he looked up, he held a clove of garlic between thumb and forefinger. He rubbed it in one eye and grinned. "Just f.u.c.king with you, man."

I turned away. "Christ, you're an a.s.shole."

He laughed. "Dude... Don't take it so seriously."

In spite of myself, I found myself grinning too. "That's the Pitt I know and love."

"What was that?" Aurora gasped from the backseat. She huddled in a blanket against the severe cold.

"What was what?" I said.

"That sound. Listen."

A clunking noise from the engine. A grinding sound. The engine sputtered and went silent. Victor coasted to a halt. He reached over and removed a flashlight from the glove box. Gave it to me. He said, "Come on."

We stepped out onto the salt. Victor hefted a metal toolbox from under the seat. Lifted the hood and propped it open, immersed himself in the innards of the jeep.

I looked down at the engine. I was lost. I'm one of those overeducated morons American universities churn out every year, men without any discernible ability or skill, except perhaps for drinking beer, doing drugs and licking p.u.s.s.y.

"Well?" I said at last.

Victor pointed. I looked. I shook my head. "So?"

"So?" he said. "Somebody sabotaged the engine. And I have a pretty good idea who it was, too."

"Manuel."

"Who do you think?" He threw a heavy wrench on the ground.

The moon hung high in the sky, taunting us with its glimmer of reflected warmth. I pulled my woolen hat down over my ears, crossed my arms and hugged myself.

"Now what do we do?" I asked.

"We wait."

I peered at my watch. It was many hours before dawn. The danger of freezing to death was real. Insulated by the jeep, and warmed by the heater, we had pa.s.sed the night without too much discomfort. Until now.

I got into the backseat and closed the door. "Share that blanket with me?" I asked Aurora.

"Sure."

She snuggled close. She laid her head on my chest. I pulled the blanket up to cover us both. She shivered.

"We could both die here," I said.

"I'll be seeing Sven soon, then."

I stroked her hair, pulling it away from her face. I lifted the flap of her woolen Andean hat to expose an earlobe.

"And if we live?"

She nuzzled closer. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

She got back into the jeep after taking a p.i.s.s. I could hear her urine splashing against the hard-packed salt. The rustle of her pants. The zipper of her jacket. She closed the door, cuddled next to me under the blanket. Somehow she looked different. Then I realized what it was.

"Is that lipstick?" I asked.

"What? No."

I rubbed my thumb against her lower lip, and she flinched. I held my hand up to the window. The moonlight showed a darkened smudge.

"OK, so it is," she said. "What about it?"

"I just think it's strange, that's all," I said. "Why would you wear lipstick out here in the altiplano?"

I knew exactly why. She wanted to play, we could play. But by my rules, not hers.

She shrugged. "No reason."

"Where did you get it?" I asked her. "You travel with lipstick in your pocket?"

"No. Of course not."

"Then who gave it to you?"

"What is this, an interrogation?"

"I'm just asking," I said.

"Fine," she said. "Helena did. The Swiss-German girl. She gave me one of hers."

I shook my head. "I don't understand," I said. "Why would you want to wear lipstick in a place like this?"

She frowned. "Well, why not?"

"Lip balm, maybe," I said. "Against exposure. But lipstick?" I looked at my thumb again. "Much less red lipstick?"

"G.o.ddammit!" she said, and sat up straight. "Because I wanted you to kiss me, alright?"

"Try to keep it down back there, will you?" Victor said from the front seat, where he'd curled up in his jacket to try to keep warm. Fritz had given him a new sweater, some hefty mittens and a down parka.

"You wanted me to what?" I asked, feigning astonishment.

She sat back against her seat. "Well I did, anyway."

"No, no, no," I said. "That's...fine. It's just, that's...the last thing I was expecting, is all."

"Forget about it," she said. She tucked her chin to her chest. "Never mind."