📸 Photo

MARCHING POWDER

head around to different angles so that the light would catch his green contacts.

'That girl loves you. You're just paranoid, Mike,' I told him, but he insisted he wasn't.

'She's fucking with someone else. I know she is. I can smell it on her.'

It turned out I was right — he was paranoid, but I didn't find out the full extent of his paranoia until the night he actually went crazy.

Eventually, Ana got sick of the way Mike treated her and said she would never come back to see him. She left her answering machine on and didn't return his calls. Mike's relatives had given him some money to buy a better room. Instead of upgrading, he sold his existing room in San Martín and then went on a three-day binge with the proceeds.

At four in the morning on the third night, he came knocking at my door. I didn't want to let him in because having visitors after one in the morning was against the section rules and could cause big trouble with the delegate. However, Mike said that he needed to talk to me urgently. It hadn't even occurred to me to wonder how he'd got from San Martín into Alamos when the section gates were locked.

'What's wrong? What happened to you?' I asked as soon as I opened the door. His clothes were covered in dirt, especially his knees, and his hands were cut.

'That roof needs cleaning. Fucking lazy Bolivian police never clean it,' he snarled, striding into my room. 'Too busy stealing our money and snorting our drugs. Now, where is she?' he demanded, his eyes darting everywhere.

'Where's who?' I laughed, knowing exactly who he meant, but thinking he was joking.

'You've taken her. I know you've got her in here. I heard her voice when I was standing outside.' Mike pointed at me threateningly between the eyes. His finger was shaking. 'What have you done with her, McFadden?'

When I saw the look on Mike's face, I stopped playing games. Every muscle in his neck was tensed and the veins in his forehead were throbbing. His eyes were big and wild, and he was sweating heavily.