“Where’s G and Joy?” I mumble in a daze, afraid I might keel over in the sand . . . .

and then I slip into a fugue and I’m dreaming about Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia—did I ever mention this film before?—and I’m making Isela Vega, she was the chick in that film, astoundingly hot and frequently topless, in the backseat of an ancient station wagon, we’re both sweaty nude, sticking to the seat, and on the front seat, driver’s side, is a garbage bag filled with ice . . . .

flies buzzing everywhere, it’s a steamy-afternoon Mexican swelter, then G and Joy and Ni are standing over me in the sand and I’m sitting on my { } sand-crusted ass on the beach in a post-fugue stupor.

“How you feelin’, baby?” G asks. She’s dressed the same as this morning, holstered and kitana’d, sheriff’s badge looming over me like a starry full moon.

“OK, I think. I was dreaming about—”

“—Isela Vega,” G goes, insinuating herself into my consciousness like a Swedish mind masseuse. “She’s exactly my age, I think. Henry had a thing for her, he used to rave about Alfredo Garcia. He has it on VHS. Maybe it’s even here.”

“So does that mean Hank is haunting me, inserting her into my mind?”

“No idea. How is it a haunting? Thinking about the 1974 version of Isela Vega is a blessing, no?”