The Tortilla Curtain

retired first-grade teacher, gray hair in a bun, silver-framed glasses, her fingers fat and elegant atop the display case. She sold Delaney the same model handgun she carried in her purse, the one she'd used to scare off the would-be muggers in the parking lot at the Fallbrook Mall after the late movie, and she sold him a lightweight Bianchi clip-on holster made of nylon with a Velcro strap that fit right down inside the waistband of his pants as comfortably as a second pocket. When he got home, he felt ashamed of himself, felt as if he'd lost all hope, and he'd locked the thing away in a chest in the garage and forgotten all about it. Till now.
    Now he came in the front door, water puddling on the carpet, fished the key out of the desk drawer in his office and went directly out to the garage. The chest was made of steel, fireproof, the size of two reams of paper, stacked. There was dust on it. He fit the key in the lock, flipped back the lid, and there it was, the gun he'd forgotten all about. It glowed in his hand, flashing light under the naked bulb that dangled from the ceiling, and the rain crashed at the roof. His mouth was dry. He was breathing hard. He inserted the bullets in the slots so ingeniously designed to receive them, each one sliding in with a precise and lethal click, and he knew he would never use the thing, never fire it, never--but he was going to draw it out of the holster in all its deadly flashing beauty and hold it there over that vandalizing alien black-eyed jack-in-the-box till the police came and put him away where he belonged.
    Delaney tucked the gun into his holster and tucked the holster into his pants and then a spasm passed through him: he was freezing. Shivering so hard he could barely reach a hand to the light switch. He was going to have to change, that was the first thing--and where was Kyra, shouldn't she be home by now? And then the film, and maybe something to eat. The lights had been out at Jack and Selda's as he passed by on the street, but he knew where they kept the spare key, under the third flowerpot on the right, just outside the back door, and he was sure they wouldn't mind if he just slipped in for a minute and used the darkroom--he had to have those photos; had to catch the jerk with the spray can in his hand, catch him in the act. The other picture, the first one, was something, but it wasn't conclusive--they could always say in court that it didn't prove a thing except that the suspect was out there on public property, where he had every right to be, and who was going to say he wasn't, on his way to the gate to visit friends in Arroyo Blanco or that he wasn't there looking for work or delivering fliers? But these new photos, these six--Delaney would have them printed and blown up and lying right there on the counter in the kitchen when the police came in...
    But first, his clothes. His body was seized with an involuntary tremor, then another, and he sneezed twice as he set the gun down on the bed and kicked off his shoes. He would take a hot shower to warm up, that's what he would do, then he'd check the message machine--Kyra must have taken Jordan out for a pizza--and then he'd sit down and have something himself, a can of soup, anything. There was no hurry. He knew now where to find the bastard--up there, up in the chaparral within sight of the wall--and he'd have to have a fire on a night like this, and the fire would give him away. It would be the last fire he'd ever start--around here, at least.
    While the soup was heating in the microwave, Delaney pulled a clean pair of jeans out of the closet, dug down in back for his High Sierra lightweight hiking boots with the half-inch tread, laid out a pair of insulated socks, a sweater and his raingear on the bed. The shower had warmed him, but he was still trembling, and he realized it wasn't the cold affecting him, but adrenaline, pure adrenaline. He was too keyed up to do much more than blow on the soup--CampbeH's Chunky Vegetable--and then he was in the hallway, standing before the full-length mirror and watching himself tuck the gun into his pants and pull it out again while listening to the messages on the machine. Kyra was going to be late, just as he'd thought--she'd got involved with some house in Agoura, of all places, and she was late picking up Jordan and thought she'd just maybe take him out for Chinese and then to the card shop; he was collecting X-Men cards now. Delaney looked up, dropped the film in his