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she’d sat, then drove on toward the big house.
    The road turned and moved up the hill as it passed other shacks, some abandoned. Mahler had told him that the plantation was barely being worked, since the collapse of coffee prices.
    Another long peal of thunder rolled over him. He saw Mahler’s old blue Toyota Land Cruiser, with its ladder and steel baggage-rack welded to the top, parked in front of the big house. The top of the old Land Cruiser was covered with netting and blue plastic. Russell parked alongside it.
    A maid appeared on the veranda, came down the steps with a large golf-style umbrella, and ran to his side of the jeep. Russell saw a tall white man, the Frenchman called Don Pinkie, come out onto the veranda. The Frenchman stood on the porch, a solid curtain of rain between them. Russell stepped out of his car, the thunder breaking again, and ducked under the maid’s umbrella.
    “Buenos tardes, Patron, ” the maid said to him. She must have heard that he was there to buy the place. He had the first payment in his wallet, a cashier’s check for thirty-thousand dollars drawn on his account in the States. He’d sold everything he’d had left back in the Bay Area: a few landscape paintings he’d collected when he’d been a stock trader, a ski boat he’d kept in storage. He’d maxed out his credit cards too, but he’d gotten the first payment together.
    The word patron slapped him in the face. Always before when he’d heard “patron,” it was addressed to some rich Guatemalan. The expression had always embarrassed him a little.
    “Thank you,” he said. He and the maid moved quickly toward Don Pinkie standing on the porch. As Russell went up the stairs, still under the umbrella, he saw Mahler come out of the house. The two men spoke in French and then Mahler turned toward Russell and smiled, his narrow face white and cold-looking.
    “How was the trip, amigo?” Mahler asked.
    “No problem,” Russell said. He shook hands with both men.
    “We’ll start tomorrow,” Mahler said. They were sitting in the living room, which had an incredible view of a garden. There was a giant Olmec head, and three small stone jaguars and a stone lizard, all antiquities found on the plantation over the years and now displayed in the front yard. Don Pinkie had moved out and was staying in the guest house with his wife and children. Russell had agreed to let them stay on until their house in the capital was ready.
    “Don’t know how I’ll make the second payment,” Russell said. “You should know that I might not even be able to. I’ll try and see if we can sell the coffee to a broker, but with the price the way it is right now, it won’t be much. So we don’t have much time. The Frenchman will want his place back if we don’t make the second payment on time.” He was nervous about owing so much money.
    “I’ll find it,” Mahler said. “Don’t worry, amigo.” Mahler was wearing American army fatigues and dirty boots with red mud trapped in their heavy lugs.
    “There’s a hundred and ten acres,” Russell said. The realization of what he’d done and the stupidity of the search crashed in on him. He looked around the poorly-lit living room. As was customary, all the furniture had been included in the price of the plantation. The French family had bought Tres Rios just before coffee prices had collapsed; they’d been in Vietnam before that. The descendants of the original Irish family that pioneered the place had been killed during the war, driving over a land mine on their way to church.
    “Let’s start right after lunch,” Russell said. “I have to go back to the city day after tomorrow. I want to look with you while I can. Maybe I’ll relax if I start looking.”
    “I’ll need money for food and for a few things,” Mahler said. He was sitting in one of those soft mid-century American easy chairs, mustard-colored. He looked tired.
    “How much?”
    “A thousand Q should do it,” Mahler