The Tortilla Curtain

What would you do in their place?” Jack, ever calm, ever prepared, ever cynical, drew himself up and pointed an admonishing finger. “Don't act surprised, because this is only the beginning. We're under siege here--and there's going to be a backlash. People are fed up with it. Even you. You're fed up with it too, admit it.”
    And now Kenny Grissom. Business as usual. A shoulder shrug, a wink of commiseration, the naked joy of moving product. From the minute Kyra had dropped Delaney off at the lot--he was determined to replace his car, exact model, color, everything--Kenny Grissom had regaled him with stories of carjackings, chop shops, criminality as pervasive as death. “Don't get me wrong--I'm not blaming it all on the Mexicans,” Kenny said, handing him yet another page of the sales agreement, “it's everybody--Salvadorians, I-ranians, Russians, Vietnamese. There was this one woman came in here, she's from Guatemala I think it was, wrapped up in a shawl, bad teeth, her hair in a braid, couldn't have been more than four and a half feet tall. She'd heard about credit--'we don't refuse credit' and that sort of thing, you know?--and even though she didn't have any money or collateral or any credit history whatever, she just wondered if she could sign up for a new car and maybe drive it down to Guatemala--”
    The broad face cracked open, the salesman's laugh rang out, and Delaney imagined how thoroughly sick of that laugh the other salesmen must have been, not to mention the secretaries, the service manager and Kenny Grissom's wife, if he had one. He was sick of it himself. But he signed the papers and he got his car and after Kenny handed him the keys, slapped him on the back and told him the story of the woman who'd wrecked two brand-new cars just driving out of the lot, Delaney sat there for a long while, getting used to the seats and new-car smell and the subtle difference between this model and the one he was familiar with. Little things, but they annoyed him out of all proportion. He sat there, running sweat, grimly reading through the owner's manual, though he was late for his lunch date with Kyra. Finally, he put the car in gear and eased it out onto the road, taking surface streets all the way, careful to vary speeds and keep it under fifty, as the manual advised.
    He drove twice round the block past the Indian restaurant in Woodland Hills, where they'd agreed to meet, but there was no parking at this hour: lunch was big business. The valet parking attendant was Mexican, of course--Hispanic, Latino, whatever--and Delaney sat there in his new car with thirty-eight miles on the odometer, seat belt fastened, hand on the wheel, until the driver behind him hit his horn and the attendant--he was a kid, eighteen, nineteen, black shining anxious eyes--said, “Sir?” And then Delaney was standing there in the sun, his shirt soaked through, another morning wasted, and the tires chirped and his new car shot round the corner of the building and out of sight. There were no personalized license plates this time, just a random configuration of letters and numbers. He didn't even know his own plate number. He was losing control. A beer, he thought, stepping into the dark coolness of the restaurant through the rear door, just one. To celebrate.
    The place was crowded, businesspeople perched over plates of _tandoori__ chicken, housewives gossiping over delicate cups of Darjeeling tea and coffee, waiters in a flurry, voices riding up and down the scale. Kyra was sitting at a table near the front window, her back to him, her hair massed over the crown of her head like pale white feathers. A Perrier stood on the table before her, a flap of _nan__ bread, a crystal dish of lime pickle and mango chutney. She was bent over a sheaf of papers, working.
    “What kept you?” she said as he slid into the chair across from her. “Any problems?”
    “No,” he murmured, trying to catch the waiter's attention. “I just had to drive slow, that's all--you know, till it's broken in.”
    “You did get the price we agreed on? They didn't try anything cute at the last minute--?” She looked up from her papers, fixing him with an intent stare. A band of sunlight cut across her face, driving the color from her eyes till they were nearly translucent.
    He shook his head. “No surprises. Everything's okay.”
    “Well, where is it? Can I see it?” She glanced at her watch. “I have to run at one-thirty. I'm closing that place in