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And thenyou wait a few hours after he heads for the airport, take your hundred-and-fifty-pound wolf-un right on down to Mexico and Door Number Three, the murder capital of the world, Ciudad Juarez
Just for the record, and I knohere to find hard facts, Las Vegas averages fewer hoes in one hway 93 and I-10 to El Paso in ten hours flat
No as Quicksilver shipping in the belly of an airplane Besides, he was great coun
And no as I leaving my Cadillac Eldorado convertible parked at the border, so I found Dolly a good long-tere in El Paso for the duration and stored Quick’s car-riding sunglasses in the glove coe attendant royally I trusted Vegas’s valet parking demons uy the size of his shark-worthy fangs
His friendly parting grin had turned the Anglo attendant a whiter shade of pale He definitely got the e about ould happen if we ca a joyride
Twilight was stretching long shadows even longer as alked thewith Quick a couple blocks froe I’d have to walk over the Rio Grande River alone
"Sorry, boy," I knelt to tell him "It’s swim or confiscation"
For the first time ever, I unbuckled the black leather collar he’d been wearing when I’d adopted hias’s Sunset Park so soon after arriving in town that I didn’t even have an aparte dog was so tough to place he was slated for so-called euthanasia right after the event
Quick was a htwine’s offer to live in the Enchanted Cottage on his estate I couldn’t rent anywhere else with a big dog in the package
As I slipped off Quicksilver’s collar, he growled, the first tiertips polished the silver moons that circled the wide black leather
"I don’t want that death-ridden river tainting your lucky charh you have to swim it" Given the strife of the border wars, I wouldn’t be surprised to find the Rio Grande a bloody boiling expanse sweeping thousands of visible corpses along
Quicksilver arfed eager doggie agree his eyes at the strearay with touches of beige, I knew he’d blend into the water in the fading light I hoped ht
"Ric was right We’re both taking a big risk being here," I whispered into Quick’s wolfish perked ear "You don’t have to go with me Ric and you caive s don’t talk, but they do sense , but he answered by head-buttinghiht for the banks of Rio GrandeRio Bravo to the natives on the other side
Too late for et cold tootsies Besides, that was hard to do in the cut-down ankle cowboy boots I’d bought to look touristy-fashionable and hars fros into theh for a tromp in the desert but not as hot as heavy-duty jeans in this heat-and-dust soaked cli forward in a line of tourists wearing shorts and sandals, visiting Juarez no matter the death toll and time of day, drawn by cheap prices on Mexican tooled leather, sterling silver, and dentistry
My silver familiar had tarted itself up as a cuff bracelet inset with lurid blue glass ‘stones’ instead of turquoisenothing anyone would want to steal, but useful proof of presuand clutched the laht hand My tan-shy white skin wore an air-brushed patina of bronze Gray contact lenses hid my vivid blue eyes
With lance, which was ieneral undercover purposes, but because I held the passport of a Poxx TV News researcher named Ashley Martinez
An A their minds of the horrors they’d seen there in a dim El Paso hotel bar An ex-reporter likee heavier, older, and less blonde than most feer or freelancer?"
"My crew’s already in Juarez, but this is my first trip down Delilah Street, WTCH-TV, Wichita" We shook hands
"I’ crews to Juarez?"
"The drug lords’ sh the heartland, and so do the addiction and gun-running problems these days"
"That’s for sure" She sipped a spiked le: buy bottled water or canned pop and drink only that"
I pulled an Aqua Fina bottle out of the backpack at y bars and foil-packaged dog food
"You look prepared," she ad news for more years than you’ve knorite your pretty first nalory days, but I like hard news reporting better I live to expose the bad guys You’re not driving in?"
"No Walking the bridge"
"So you’re ht on the other side?"
"That’s the plan" News crews on dangerous turf hire locals as guides-cuuards Quicksilver didn’t speak Spanish but he sure spoke inti outside the bar
"You’re lucky your dark hair passes around here Still, I wouldn’t send a woman crew member on foot alone across the street in Juarez," Louise said "If the pollution froet you, the crazy traffic or the kidnappers will You’ve got nerve"
"I’ve got a mission Like you say, there’s a lot of pollution in Juarez that needs to be exposed And stopped"
She was silent for aers that think a bit of the unhu in our world since the Millenniuin"
"Look for it at every step, in every face, and you’ll do all right down there, kid"