The sun tucked itself behind the southern tip of the Franklin Range, bruising the mountains a heavy pastel purple, as the two men stepped out the front door of the hotel lobby. They stood in silence for a moment watching the sparks of the sunset ignite gauze strips of cloud into concertina folds of apricot, tangerine, and melon around runs of robin's egg blue. As the light buried like a tick into the west, the striated banner of sky cooled to embers of rabbit-eye pink and softening plum.

"The woman behind the desk said the cab can take us to a restaurant in Juaréz. She said if you walk across the bridge you won't be anywhere anyone wants to eat." The regional vice president placed a cigarette in his mouth.

The other man, a managerial candidate pulled a lighter from his pocket and held the flame toward his mentor. He smiled and nodded—his consummate response.

"The cab should be here in about five minutes." The VP paused, drew on his cigarette. "Have you ever been to Me-he-co before?"

"No, this is my second time in Texas."

His only impression of Mexico came from watching his father's favorite John Wayne movies as a kid. The candidate pondered possible consequences before deciding to risk asking, "Could I have one of those cigarettes?" swallow, "sir?"

"Yeah," the VP offered the pack, "We can get some more at the restaurant—probably cheaper in Mexico."

They fell silent for a few minutes as the candidate lit his cigarette, drew and exhaled, and strolled to the ashtray to flick ashes not yet formed. The candidate worried about the silence; he thought he wasn't making himself interesting enough. He needed something exciting—an anecdote to make him memorable, to set him off from the other candidates. He knew his credentials spoke highly of him: an almost ostentatious sub-ivy-league education with a nearly blemish-free GPA, an albeit short but calculated internship with one of the company's former competitors cum recent acquisition, and a few tipsy semesters in the fraternity that was a brother organization to the CEO's sorority. He knew he looked adequate on paper despite a vacuum of actual experience. He would have to connect to the VP as a fellow smoker for now.

He thought back on the unspectacular pattern of his very Anglo, very middle-class life. He had no quirky relatives, no stint in Surinam with the Peace Corps, no outrageous confluence of accidents that led to a useful epiphany. He had simply followed the path of least resistance and most obvious logic from the honky suburbs of Atlanta to the succulent garden in front of the hotel lobby here in El Paso. For him chasing a job that would take him more than a thousand miles from where he grew up represented a leap of independence. What could he share with the man standing a few feet away to make himself more appealing, more hirable?

To make up for his feeling of inadequacy the candidate had thoroughly researched both the company and the VP's career. He knew the VP had been forged in the financial chaos of the seventies, had achieved aerial acrobatics in the updrafts of the eighties, had danced unscathed over the pitfalls and land mines of the late nineties, and had taken the aplomb of his superiors with grace and insisted on keeping his VP post despite the executive carrots they dangled in front of him. This man had adroitly proven to his bosses he was most effective and profitable in his current position—so skillfully that by the end, they conferred with one another on how to break the news to him. What could the candidate possibly say or do for someone of that level of talent and experience?

"You're going to like Ciudad Juaréz. I hear it's an amazing town. Our cab driver can tell us where the best places to go are," the VP said, deftly projecting his cigarette toward a magenta complex of prickly pear cactus.

The candidate followed his lead by tucking his cigarette butt into the ash tray. He brushed the flakes of ash from his polo shirt. His mind whirred, clutching for something interesting to talk about. "Do you follow college football much?" he settled on the banal, the typical male conversation.

"No," the VP responded slowly, "haven't had the time since I graduated, but that was probably before you were born."

Again the candidate felt too young, too inexperienced, too . . . naked. He stifled a cough and stood for a few seconds on the sides of his feet. He nervously picked at a loose bit o'f cuticle and glanced at the traffic, willing the cab to hurry.

The VP drew another cigarette from his pack and pointed it toward the candidate. "The woman at the desk said five minutes."

The candidate held the lighter for the VP before igniting his own cigarette. "Have you ever been to Juaréz before?"

"No, just moved here to start up this site. Went to Tijuana years ago, a disaster."

The candidate nodded. He couldn't decide if the proclamation that the trip was a disaster was meant to close the subject or incite interest. This sounded exactly like the sort of story he wished he had. "What happened?"

"Me and a buddy, Dan drove down through San Diego one weekend. Dan had this new car, A Renault. It was brand new, red. We were taking it out for a sort of maiden voyage, if you will. I don't guess they sell many Renaults in the U.S. anymore. It was a nice enough car for us at the time, piece of shit really. I bought the gas since Dan had the car, and we took turns driving. We had no problems, really, until we got to Tijuana. As soon as we crossed the border people were aiming for us."

"Aiming for you?"

The cab turning into the hotel driveway halted the VP's story.

"Aye amigos," the driver leaned out of the window and grinned from beneath a plastic-looking cowboy hat, "where are we going tonight?"

The candidate mashed three quarters of a cigarette into the ash tray and pulled open the sliding minivan door, "Juaréz."

"We'd like to go somewhere for dinner," the VP said, "someplace nice, have a few drinks, listen to music—"

"Oh, like Mariachi? I know a real nice place. What kind of food you like?"

"Authentic Mexican, something good."

"Ah, the Jardín will be perfect. They just open. Not too many tourists know about it yet."

"Sounds great," the VP settled into the seat and the candidate slid in next to him and drew the door closed.

"You'll like El Jardín, very classy place, different kinds of live music every night: Mariachi, Norteño, Cumbia, you know. They just open. You'll have a good time."

"Great, sounds good," the VP said.

The cab accelerated from the curb and swept to the edge of the driveway. The driver paused for a few seconds while traffic cleared and then turned into the far lane. "You guys like music?"

"That would be nice," the VP said. The candidate nodded.

The driver flipped through cassettes stashed in all corners of the car. He plucked one tape out of the side map pocket and tossed it onto the passenger seat. Another one from the center console skittered on top of it. He jabbed the radio button. Rapid Reggaeton ricocheted out of the speakers. He cranked the volume down and fed the tape into the machine while executing a quick right turn onto the freeway ramp. A high tenor voice crooned over Castilian guitars flagellating in the background.

Neither of his passengers understood the clipt phrase the driver said as he jabbed eject. The rap returned, and the driver resumed digging through sundry cassettes. By the time the candidate had picked out the hook of the song, the driver found another tape to stuff in. This one was distinctly not Spanish. The candidate recognized James Taylor.

"You guys been to Juaréz before, or this your first time?"

"We've never been before. This is his first time in Mexico." The VP pointed a thumb at the candidate.

"Nice. You gonna have a good time tonight. I take you wherever you want to go."

The exit to Ciudad Juaréz peeled off to the right, then folded back south over the highway toward the river. The candidate looked out across to the northbound lanes where an impenetrable log jam of cars jockeyed toward the checkpoint to return to the U.S.

"Well, here we are." The driver grinned into the rearview mirror. "That's the Rio Grande."

The candidate stared out at the muddy trickle flowing through a massive concrete ditch.

"Bienvenidos a Mexico."

Suddenly they left the mellow sodium interstate lights and entered a garish fluorescent plaza. Twenty or so cars queued into lines according to signs.

"This is the best line. They only check, eh, a little bit."

An officer waved the cab out of the lane into an inspection area to one side. Men in black and blue uniforms milled around the cab with silver shotguns. The driver vanished and the back door opened. The candidate tried to decide if they should also get out of the cab. He didn't know what was expected of him, but he knew he didn't want to do anything to agitate the cluster of well-armed border guards. The driver spoke in Spanish too fluid for the candidate to pick up more than a few random words as the officers poked around among the junk piled behind the back seat. Then he slid back behind the wheel, and the cab pulled away. The candidate—suddenly realizing he had been holding his breath—exhaled.

The cab flung through intersections and narrow stretches of road, stopping and restarting without warning or apparent reason. It weaved though traffic and dodged into alleyways that opened abruptly into thoroughfares. The candidate watched dirt soccer fields and concrete structures flash by. If the signs they passed included words he could recognize, he couldn't have read them. Then the cab pulled to a stop in front of a squat building surrounded by lavish cactus beds and covered in festive decorations. On the sign above the door a green parrot in a sombrero embraced the words El Jardín in red and yellow letters.

"Just a minute. I'll check and see if it's ok, ok?" The driver vanished from the front seat again and ducked through the entrance of the restaurant before the candidate or the VP could respond.

The two men looked at each other. The VP's expression said his stomach couldn't handle too many more twists and turns. But the driver returned in a matter of seconds.

"They're not ready yet, but I know another place."

The VP and the candidate shared a mildly terrified glance as the cab jerked back into traffic. But the next restaurant was literally around the corner. The car swung in a dizzying long right turn through a stop sign, onto a wide boulevard, and then into a tiny parking lot. The driver jumped out again and spoke to a man in a suit smoking a cigarette by the front door. He turned back to the men in the car, nodded, and waved, "Ok, this is it."

The decoration and style of the restaurant evoked the art of Frieda Kahlo. To the left of the front entrance an ornate bar stretched to the far corner lined with hundreds of bottles and glasses. The dining area opposite the bar sat on a raised platform capped with a canopy reminiscent of the bed in which Kahlo's illnesses and injuries had imprisoned her. Dozens of her self-portraits lined the walls.

Semicircular banquettes lined the remainder of the dining room on two sides with an elaborate stage at the end. A massive earthy yellow sunburst loomed over the stage with a circle of indigo sky in the center of it. Above one stretch of banquettes a massive canvas displayed the image of a prone naked woman and tromp l'oeil curtain in the style of Mexican muralists. In the opposite wall, alcoves held various objects reminiscent of Kahlo's works: hulking pillar candles, festively dressed calacas, and religious figures.

The VP held up two fingers and smiled at the maitre d', "Two for dinner."

The two men followed the maitre d' to a table surrounded by intricately carved traditional Mexican chairs. The candidate was a bit unnerved as a server lifted his napkin and placed it in his lap, but hid his disquiet since he didn't want to be perceived as uncultured. He began perusing the menu.

"¿Qué toma Usted?" a waiter asked the two men and then with thick but practiced English repeated, "What would you like to drink? Tenemos Coca Cola, cervesa, vino, margaritas. . ."

The VP turned to the candidate and asked, "You want a margarita?" When the candidate answered in the affirmative the VP told the waiter, "Dos margaritas por favor, muchas gracias."

The waiter nodded and asked, "Quiere Usted una margarita helado o con hielo?"

Recollections of stories he had heard of people visiting Mexico and becoming ill when they drank the water jolted the candidate. Does that apply to ice too? He decided an unblended margarita incurred less risk. He stumbled in clunky Spanish, "¿en las rocas? por favor?"

"Two," confirmed the VP.

The candidate wasn't sure the phrase translated, but the waiter seemed to understand as he nodded and headed toward the bar.

The two men returned to their menus. The candidate scanned the menu, looking for words and phrases he could recognize: pollo, sopa, chiles rellenos. The prices of the dishes suddenly registered in his consciousness. No entrée was listed for less than 100 dollars.

He froze, unsure if he should say something. He had, on rare occasions, eaten meals at sixty or more dollars a plate, but there had to be a limit to what the company would spend for an interview dinner for someone who wasn't even a client. Surely the VP had noted the prices. Or maybe he had made a mistake, missed a decimal point. He double checked. No, the pollo abadobo was clearly marked $240.

"What is the symbol for the peso? Is it the same as the U.S. dollar?" the candidate asked, trying to mask the concern leaking into his voice.

"I don't think so, but I don't know," the VP responded.

This could be some kind of tourist trap. Maybe the cab driver brought us here because he gets some kind of kick-back. I don't think the margaritas would even be in my budget. A moment of panic flooded through him. He felt stranded, a few miles from the U.S. and unable to figure a way out. What was the etiquette here? And if they had to abandon dinner, would they be able to find a cab to get back? An unfamiliar xenophobic fear buzzed through his head and a slick sweat covered his palms.

He waved a waiter to the table and whispered, "Is this in dollars or in pesos?"

"¿Cómo?" The waiter leaned near the candidate, trying to figure out what he was asking.

The candidate gestured helplessly at the prices. "¿Dólares o pesos?"

"Ah, ¡Claro que sí! Está en pesos."

"Muchas gracias." The relief was evident in the candidate's voice and he thought he could sense a similar reprieve in the VP.

The candidate's panic dispersed like a mist, and a desperate desire for another cigarette replaced it. Now that he knew the VP smoked, he regretted leaving his cigarettes at the hotel. He was glad to see the VP drawing his pack out of his jacket pocket. He looked around to see if other patrons were smoking. The candidate turned to the waiter still hovering nearby, "¿Uh, es permiso fumar?"

The waiter seemed to understand his broken Spanish and brought them an ash tray. He held a light out to the VP as another waiter arrived with their margaritas.

"Are you ready to order?" although he paused after almost every word, this waiter had encountered enough tourists to speak very good English. The candidate felt relieved because he had already stretched what he remembered from high school Spanish class to the limit.

They ordered and sat sipping margaritas and smoking for a moment in silence. Then the candidate remembered the story the VP had started at the hotel.

"What happened to you and your friend in Tijuana?"

"Oh, me and Dan? Well, as soon as we crossed into Mexico in that red car of Dan's, I knew we were in trouble. People kept cutting us off, trying to get us to hit 'em, you know? It's some kind of insurance thing there. It doesn't matter if it's your fault or theirs, if you're from the U.S. it's your fault."

"So, did someone hit you?"

"Yeah, they got us pretty good. Came out from behind a bus. It was pretty obvious they did it on purpose."

"You weren't hurt, where you?"

"No, and they weren't either. But that's not what they told the cops when they got there."

"Really?"

"Yeah, next thing we know cops are everywhere. Told us they'd arrest us if we didn't pay 'em. They just wanted money. Told us the accident was our fault and we had to pay the people in the car for hitting them, and we had to pay them since they had to sort out the situation."

"Wow, did you pay them?"

The VP laughed. "Yeah, I guess we had to. Didn't want to go to jail in Tijuana. They took every cent we had on us. Things are different with the cops in Mexico."

"Shit," the word slipped out before the candidate caught it. He tried to recover, "I mean, that's pretty bad."

The VP grinned. "No shit."

Over dinner their conversation lingered on business. The VP described the new site in an industrial park on the east side of El Paso. He also detailed the responsibilities of the position the candidate was trying for. Speaking conditionally, he related who the candidate would be reporting to and how many direct reports he would have. The candidate fell easily into the pattern of business talk, careful to ask the right questions to let the VP know he had done his research.

After they ate, the VP suggested they wait in the bar while the maitre d' called a taxi. The bartender followed them from behind the bar and waited, smiling as they sat at two empty stools. He had shorter hair than the rest of the restaurant staff and his shirt, although crisp and free of wrinkles, engulfed his spare frame. His eyes glistened despite the dim light of the bar area, and he had a small pink scar on his left cheek. He maintained a sly playful smile across his lips.

"Hey mang, how you guys doing tonight?" his English was easy, familiar and his accent more barrio than border.

"Great, great," the VP said, "Dos cervesas por favor."

"Sure, mang. You want Corona, Tacate, Dos Equis?"

"Do you have Negro Modelo?"

"No, mang, we don' have Negro Modelo, pero we do have Modelo Especial"

"I like Modelo," the VP concluded, "let's have two Modelo Especial."

"Yeah, that's pretty good, mang," the bartender said as he pulled the amber bottles from beneath the bar. "You need glasses, mang?"

"No, that's fine," the VP said, pulling the almost empty pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.

"Lemme ask you a question, mang. What is the English word for this?" he held up a partially rolled set of tableware.

"You mean a fork?" asked the candidate.

"No, mang, like something else."

"Napkin?" both men offered the names of the various pieces.

"A place setting?" the VP finally tried for the whole thing.

"Yeah, mang, I think that's it," the bartender agreed. "A lady had a thing, a spot on her fork and wanted me to bring her a new one. I didn't know the word she was asking me." He busied himself drying glasses from a tray and placing them behind the bar. He repeated, "a place setting," grandly like he was trying to memorize the phrase. "Hey mang, are you like brothers?"

"No," the VP said carefully, "business associates."

The candidate smiled. He liked the phrase. It gave him hope that the interview was going well, a semi-official status. He took a sip from the beer, cautious to drink it slowly. The margaritas earlier had warmed him instantly, had given a slight haze to the distinct edges of the evening. He was afraid to skim too much edge off, lest he become sloppy, uncareful.

"I got a brother, mang. He lives in Chicago. I used to live with him up there, with my wife."

"Oh, you're married," the VP continued the line of polite conversation. "Do you have any kids?"

"What happened?" the candidate asked.

"Yeah mang, we don' get along anymore. Her parents, they tol' me I couldn't see her or my kid anymore. That's crazy, mang, not seeing my kid. So I took it."

The candidate and the VP glanced at one another. A moment of surprised curiosity passed between them. The candidate tried to mask the shock on his face and return to the sympathy he had given before. "You. . .took. . .your kid? What happened?"

"Her parents don' like me. They treat me bad 'cuz I'm Mexican, mang. They tell her she's gotta get divorced from me. They won' let me see her or the kid. So I took the kid and drive south. I was going to my cousin's place in Tampa. The police, they catch me in, uh, Kentucky, mang. They took my kid away from me and put me in jail for thirty days. Then they dropped me off here in Juaréz. Told me I couldn't come back to the U.S. for five years, mang." He paused, the sly smile remained on his lips, but a shadow crossed through his eyes. "I can't see my kid for five years, mang."

The candidate didn't know how to respond. Torn between sympathy at the way the man was treated and horror at his acts, the candidate shook his head. He took a longer pull from the beer bottle.

The VP seemed at an equal loss. He pulled the last two cigarettes out of the pack and passed one to the candidate. He stared at the hollow pack for a moment then shook it. "Do you have any cigarettes behind the bar?"

"Yeah mang, what kind you want?"

"Do you have Camel lights?"

"No, we got Marlborough lights."

"Fine, Marlborough lights." The VP took the pack while the candidate excused himself to the restroom.

It took the candidate a few minutes to locate the men's room tucked behind the stage. A massive Diego Rivera-esque mural dominated one wall adjacent to the sinks. A broad bare-chested and manacled woman broke diagonally upward from images of turmoil in the lower reaches of the wall. In one hand she held a wrench suggestive of the laboring masses in Rivera's ideology; in the other, a torch.

What am I doing? he thought. His mind swam a little, sloshing from the ample margaritas and beer that had followed. He had all but stopped drinking after college, and now his head floated unsteady as a baby's. They're not going to give me, an inexperienced kid from suburban Georgia, this job. He felt out of place, displaced, over his head. That kidnapper bartender has more charisma than I do.

He stared at his face in the mirror, tried to imitate the bartender's cunning smile. All he could see were the bland features of a middle-class white kid who never did anything unexpected. His face was not particularly attractive or ugly, not particularly memorable. He had the kind of face easily mistaken for someone else's. The candidate leaned in closer, confidentially. He intentionally made eye contact with himself, locked in on the dusty green irises. He whispered, "Go out there and make him give you the job—"

"Hey," the VP appeared at the door. "Whoa, look at this painting."

The candidate scrambled to create the illusion that he was just washing his hands, not talking to himself like a crazy person. He spread his most genial smile, cocked his eyebrows.

"The bartender, 'mang' is going to give you a drink. If you can guess what's in it, he'll give us a free round." The VP's voice dipped conspiratorially. "It's tequila, Kahlua, and coconut."

The candidate slid back into his barstool. Two cordial glasses sat beside each of the empty beer bottles. His contained an off-white liquid not unlike half-and-half with a generous dollop of coffee.

"Hey mang, I wan' you to try something. I'm tryin' to get them to serve this as an after-dinner kind of drink. If you can guess what's in it, I'll buy your next drink, mang."

"Oh like a digestif?" The candidate played along.

"Yeah mang, can you figure out what's in it?"

The candidate lifted the glass, sniffed it like a sommelier. He touched the liquid to his lips and stared at the lights above the bar like he was trying to identify the flavors. "There's coconut in here."

"Yeah mang, that's one."

He took another small sip, smiled like someone discovering an unexpected gift, "and tequila."

"Yeah mang, that's two. There's one more thing in there."

The candidate pulled a larger sip into his mouth and shifted his tongue from side to side. He furrowed his brow as if working out a tricky problem. "It's like coffee. . ." He saw the bartender bobbing his head up and down, the tricky smile widening to an excited grin. "Is it. . .Kahlua?"

"That's it, that's it mang. You got it. Your friend, he only got one of 'em. The next drink is on me, mang. What you want?" The bartender seemed elated to find someone who could analyze his concoction. He spread his arms out to the width of the bar like a host inviting his guest into a new home.

"How 'bout another beer? What's the best?"

"Most people come here want the yellow beers, lagers. You like dark beers, mang, Indio's the best we got. Smooth with no aftertaste."

"That sounds great, and let me get one for my friend."

The bartender cleared the empties from in front of the candidate and set down small square napkins. He dramatically pulled two frosted glasses from a cooler beneath the bar and deftly poured the beers.

The VP returned, unable to temper his Cheshire cat smile. "Oh, I see you got it?"

The candidate responded by clinking his glass against the VP's with a slight nod.

When the cab arrived, the maitre d' escorted them out and opened the car door. The candidate buzzed lightly, still satisfied with having maneuvered a free drink. Somehow it had cleared his nervousness, made him relax and talk to the VP without having to mince around the disparity in their social positions. The rest of their conversation had flowed like that of amicable co-conspirators.

The VP gave the address of the hotel on Airway Boulevard. The driver shook his head and said something the candidate couldn't understand to the maitre d', who answered in equally rapid Spanish.

"Is everything ok?" the VP asked.

"Oh yes, he can get you where you need to go," the maitre d' responded.

The car pulled out onto Avinguda de 16 de Septiembre. The driver dodged and careened through traffic, sometimes passing briefly into oncoming lanes to swerve slower vehicles. This time the candidate wanted to pay attention to their movements, but the alcohol muddled his ability to remember turns or catch street names as they twisted through the labyrinth of avenues and alleys. His stomach lurched as they swept through a yield sign onto a dark street lined with squat houses. The candidate had a vague suspicion they were driving away from the bridge they had crossed on their way into Mexico.

"Do you know where we are?" the VP asked the candidate.

He could tell the alcohol was affecting the VP as much as it was him. The man clutched the handle of the door in a white fist. Nervousness etched lines into his face the candidate had not noticed before.

"You know," the VP continued, "Juaréz is the kidnapping capital of the world. We had a regional manager disappear on his way home from the Juaréz site two months ago. The company had to pay his ransom."

All of the candidate's stupid smugness evaporated, and the lurch in his belly escalated into a somersault. He had a swift falling sensation like the tingle of losing his balance on a staircase. Adrenaline sizzled through him in physical waves, leaving behind a wobbly nausea.

Streetlights and stoplights flickered by, revealing odd clumps of people lingering on sidewalks or strolling from one place to another. The candidate wanted to call out to them, to ask for help, but lack of language and an unreasonable fear that they might be in on some conspiracy to abduct U.S. citizens for money confounded him.

They passed down a broad avenue lined with flashy bars and shops designed to entice tourists. Before the candidate could be comforted by the glare of familiar civilization, the driver flicked the car through a u-turn and sped into a crooked unlit alley. He killed the engine and disappeared.

"What's going on?"

"I don't know."

Not until the driver vanished did the candidate realize the locks had been removed from the back doors. Tiny ungraspable rods poked out of the holes in the vinyl where the lock buttons should have been. The candidate had never experienced a loss of freedom before and responded with panic. His hands quaked as he ripped at a loose shred of cuticle. His heart hammered at his temples, in his throat. The gentle alcohol buzz turned to a sharp screwdriver through his eyeball. What can I do?

Unseen hands abruptly opened the door beside him. A thick accent said, "Geet out."

The candidate couldn't see the face behind the voice. Was it the cab driver? He strained to see if there was one man or several. "Huh?"

"Geet out," the voice repeated. "He weel take you from heer."

The candidate looked across to where the VP cowered on the seat beside him. His face was painted with the same brand of fear bolting through the candidate. He squinted in the dim light of the alley as he tentatively stepped out of the car.

"I can no cross the border. You haf to geet out. He weel take you from heer." It was the driver.

The cab was parked at the back of a long queue of cars waiting to pick up drunken tourists to return them to El Paso. Another smiling cab driver held the door of his vehicle open ten paces ahead. The VP leaned, and then slid across the expanse of back seat.

The candidate repeated back to him, "This driver can't cross the border. Another cab will take us back to El Paso."

The terrified paranoia began to slip from the candidate as they ducked into the other car.

The cab jockeyed through traffic crossing the expansive bridge over the tiny Rio Grande. El Paso lay before them like a sea of manmade stars. The candidate couldn't suppress an urge to laugh at their stupidity. His effervescent chuckling was liberating; it broke up the tension still shuddering through his muscles.

"You know, mang," the VP giggled from the seat beside him, "I think that regional manager was abducted in Salt Lake City, not Juaréz."