But then the next day he’ll jump up and greet the day with his usual Bandito Enthusiasm, forgetting about his brooding sleeplessness. A strange and complicated savage is my eternal friend.

I think I know the cause of José’s Bandito Angst: Tina’s father. In the last two months we’ve sent at least three dozen messages, each one from a few miles north of the last. A line connecting them and extending north on its own (our protracted path, as any child could see) exactly bisects Sausalito. This precise geometric planning was also José’s idea and we went several mountain ranges out of our way to pull it off. And still Tina’s father has been silent.

José’s obsession with Tina’s father finally got us into some serious trouble. He has been insisting we get a copy of each and every International Trib in order to check for responses. As you can imagine, this has not been easy. Generally, we find a small town, lurk in the jungle until dark, bolt in, swipe a paper (we’ve run out of money), then hightail it for the nearest Bandito Stronghold we can locate. We then sit down and peruse the classified section for ads addressed to “Mr. Quark.”

This technique worked out fairly well until we crossed the border into southern Mexico last week.

Actually, our capture and subsequent incarceration was mostly High Pockets’ fault, but he’s been suffering from a slight case of doggy depression since leaving his girlfriend in Costa Rica, so José and I haven’t come down too hard on him.

Anyway, we came across this small border town called Motozintla one afternoon. José and I climbed a tree and settled in, waiting for dark, meanwhile keeping an eye on the pueblo for unusual activity. High Pockets isn’t too adept at climbing trees, so I told him to stay on the ground and keep a low profile.

I must have nodded out at some point because the next thing I knew José was shaking my arm and whispering excitedly for me to wake up.

He was visibly upset and as soon as I looked in the direction he was pointing I understood why: A platoon of federales was chasing High Pockets around the main square of Motozintla.

“Shit,” I said. High Pockets was tearing around in circles, his tongue flapping ridiculously along his left flank. I was impressed by his broken-field style of running but eventually he tired and was caught by two federales with a blanket. They threw it over him like a net, wrestled him to the ground, handcuffed his front and rear paws, then carted him off to the calaboose.

I looked at José. Seeing High Pockets treated unkindly put him right on the brink of a Bandito Temper Flare-Up. He cocked his Thompson, flung it over his shoulder and clambered down the tree. I heard him jump to the ground, then curse. I looked down and immediately realized why: Another platoon of federales had surrounded the tree and had us both dead to rights.

“Shit,” I said. At this point the branch I was sitting on broke. I paid a very brief homage to Sir Isaac Newton and his equations pertaining to falling bodies, then struck the ground and lost consciousness.⁷⁸

When I came to, José was carrying me through town piggyback-style. Most of the residents had turned out to watch the federales march us to jail. As we entered, I heard a plane roar overhead, its engines misfiring badly.⁷⁹

We were escorted into a small, bleak room and told to sit. José put me down and helped me to one of two chairs set up in the middle of the room. Three heavily armed federales tied José and me to the chairs.

I heard José curse again. When my eyes regained their ability to focus, I realized what he was pissed about: High Pockets was leashed to a leaky waterpipe, his jaws tied shut by a bandana. He was trying to whine but all that came out was sort of a nasal squeak from his nostrils.

This fat greasy colonel with epaulets and about a kilo of medals hanging from his chest leaned over and grinned at me. He was trying to intimidate me, but succeeded only in making my eyes water from the stench of salsa and tequila on his breath.

I broke the silence by inquiring as to how he had managed to capture us.

My question produced the desired effect: He straightened up and began pacing, thereby getting his fart breath out of my face.

Extrapolating from his explanation, I more or less figured out what had happened. As I mentioned, High Pockets had the doggy blues. He missed his Bandito Bitch from Costa Rica so much that he disobeyed my order to lie low under the tree and instead wandered into town, presumably to find a replacement for his lost love.

He was spotted sniffing behinds by the local constable, who recognized High Pockets from mug shots that had been circulated all over South and Central America. He immediately called the federales.

Colonel Stink Bomb then bragged that he had figured if High Pockets was in the area, it was likely José and I were also.

He didn’t notice the sarcastic edge to my voice when I complimented him on this brilliant deduction.

He nodded, then rambled on. He explained he had his men fan out in the jungle to find us. They probably never would have succeeded (we were high up and well hidden in the tree) if High Pockets hadn’t left one of his patented meat-loaves directly below us.

I looked at High Pockets. He was staring at me apologetically. He knew he’d fucked up.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said in English.

High Pockets tried to whine in response but, again, hardly anything came out.

Colonel Burrito Breath demanded to know who I was talking to and what I had said.

When I told him I was talking to High Pockets and that I had told him not to worry about it, he whipped out a rubber hose and waved it in front of my face, meanwhile cursing me, Johnny Carson, the devaluation of the peso, his fat, lazy wife and, for some reason, the Pacific Ocean.

At this point, José began to sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” Colonel Tarantula Tonsils stopped in midtirade and squinted at him.

I suppressed a grin. I knew what José was doing: He was attempting to conjure up his Bandito Buddy from the O-Zone, figuring that if anyone could get us out of this mess, it would be a Quantum Bandito.,

The three federales started yelling at José to shut up but he was too busy scouring Alternative Branches of Reality to deal with threats from the Here and Now.

Colonel Trench Mouth had one of his men plug up José’s mouth with a banana. It’s difficult to carry a tune with a banana stuffed in your mouth, but José was on autopilot and continued. “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” now sounded sort of like “Oh, Oh, Oh Er Oat.”

It was obvious that neither José nor High Pockets was in any condition to be interrogated, so Colonel Menendez (he finally introduced himself) turned his full attention on Yours Truly.

He rattled off questions like an AK-47 stuck on full automatic: Who did we come to Mexico to assassinate? How many terrorists did we bring with us? How many Cubans were involved? How do we communicate with the Kremlin? How many nuclear weapons did we have and where were they?

At this point I interrupted Colonel Menendez and told him I would confess everything if he’d shut his trap for a minute.

He grunted in satisfaction, informed one of his men that we weren’t as tough as was rumored, then told me to go ahead.

I started at the beginning, with José’s mugging of Tina’s family. I reviewed the concept of Tina’s nymphomania and how it related to all of our Space-Time Coordinates (I made sure to mention that Colonel Menendez himself was now linked forever to Tina, her nymphomania, the concealed diaphragm and her betrayal of Tom and Gary), and how, more than anyone, Tina’s father was at the bottom of all this.

I then began one of my crash courses on the Underlying Nature of Reality.⁸⁰

“Silencio!” Colonel Menendez roared at the mention of Schrödinger’s Bandito. He ordered his men to take us outside and have us shot.

Ten minutes later I was tied to a stake in the courtyard. High Pockets was leashed to another stake on my right and José to one on my left. He still had the banana sticking out of his mouth and continued his “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” mantra.

Ten or twelve soldiers were lined up in front of us, rifles at the ready. The Captain of the firing squad asked me if I’d like a cigarette. I told him no, I had quit recently, but thanks anyway. He asked if I wanted a blindfold. I said no, give mine to José. The guy looked at José, then remarked that he didn’t think José needed one since his eyes were closed.

A short argument ensued. We were interrupted by Colonel Menendez. He was bellowing from inside the jail to hurry up and get it over with and to make sure the lunatic in the middle (me) got a few extra rounds on general principle.

I yelled back that he probably wasn’t such a big shot in a few Alternative Branches of Reality.

I then realized the men in the firing squad had cocked their pieces and were aiming at High Pockets.

“Wait a fucking second!” I yelled in Spanish. “What about his blindfold!”

Another argument ensued but the Captain finally backed down and fitted both José and High Pockets with blindfolds.

“That’s better,” I mumbled. I looked to my left. José had apparently returned from his travels. He spat out the banana and asked me why he couldn’t see anything. When I told him he was blindfolded, he said, “Ahh,” nodded sagely, then inquired as to what was going on.

When I told him we were all about to be shot, he got pissed off.

The timing was perfect. Just as José erupted in a Full-Blown Bandito Temper Flare-Up, three or four explosions went off, destroying most of the jail. I caught a glimpse of the Edition of Colonel Menendez that occupied this Branch of Reality fly out the window and fall to the ground like a sack of doorknobs.

Automatic-weapons fire from the surrounding jungle scattered the firing squad, most of which beat cheeks down the road without returning fire or looking back.

Meanwhile, José had broken his restraints and untied High Pockets, and he was now freeing me.

José had forgotten to remove High Pockets’ blindfold and muzzle, so it took us a few minutes to chase him down and remove the goddamn things. We then bolted through the chaos to what was left of the jail, grabbed our weapons and José’s sombrero and escaped into the jungle.

We’ve been careful to make contact only with Banditos whom José is familiar with or who have been recommended by other Trusted Banditos. The bounty on our heads is now over $500,000, so we always have to be on the lookout for Treacherous Banditos. We have managed to continue our literary barrage to Sausalito via José’s Bandito Connections, but we’ve missed one or two issues of the Trib because of the danger involved in getting them. As far as we can tell, Tina’s father is still refusing to deal with us, at least directly.

One thing has been bothering José, High Pockets and me. We all have this weird feeling we’re being followed. Not tracked in the usual Indian sense; we’d have blown away anybody pulling that shit weeks ago. José, with his Bandito Sixth Sense, was the first to feel it, then High Pockets, then myself. It’s almost as if someone has sent out very sensitive feelers, trying to gauge our movements. We don’t think it’s a government either. Saturation strafing and napalm are more their style. No, some bizarre force, some possibly sinister force, is scrutinizing us for some reason. Waiting. Waiting for what? We have no concrete idea, but both José and I suspect it has something to do with Tina’s father.