The Moche Warrior by Lyn Hamilton

to extricate myself from this situation.”
    He sat very quietly, looking off in the distance. As I watched him, I felt such a pang of regret. His hair had a lot more grey in it, and he looked so tired, and perhaps more than a little disillusioned, the exhaustion of a highly moral man in a line of work in a country not noted for its morality, I thought. I wanted to reach out and touch his face and stroke his hair and tell him everything would be all right. He’d always been such a crusader for the rights of the indigenous people of the Yucatan; he’d even, I was reasonably sure, been a member of a local guerrilla group operating out of the forests outside of Merida where we’d met. But then he’d been persuaded to take the political route, to get himself elected, and to work for his people that way. Never one to do anything by halves, he’d told me he couldn’t do that and maintain our relationship, and I’d been the part of his life that was sacrificed.
    “This maybe is not working out as well as you’d hoped,” I said hesitantly. “The life of a politician, I mean.”
    He just looked at me, then turned away again, his gaze focused on the treetops, and when he finally spoke again, his voice was bleak. “Perhaps not,” he said. “I’m not making many friends, that’s for sure. And the things you see sometimes…” His voice trailed off. I didn’t probe anymore. The thing about Lucas was that he told you what he wanted to tell you. I’d learned to live with that.
    “You were always very good about not asking me about my secret life,” he said finally. “But I suppose you know I was not above a little resistance, shall we say, from time to time.”
    I waited.
    “I really appreciate the fact that you didn’t ask about it, and that you didn’t try to argue with me when I told you our relationship had to end. I’ve deluded myself into thinking you would have regretted that decision,” he said.
    “You didn’t delude yourself,” I said. Actually I’d been more than a little upset with him.
    “The thing is, when you do the kind of work I used to do, you have to have a plan. An escape plan, if you follow me.”
    “Lucas,” I said. “You’re in politics now. I don’t want you to do anything that would compromise you.”
    He laughed, but it was a laugh with no humor in it. “Compromise me? When I think of what I have seen some of my fellow elected representatives do! Helping someone on the run from the police is a minor indiscretion barely worth noticing, believe me,” he said bitterly.
    “Here,” he said, taking an old silver coin out of his pocket. “Take this. I’ll give you the money for the cab. Go to this address,” he said, scribbling an address on a piece of paper, “and go to the flat on the main floor. There will be an old woman there. Show her the coin. She’ll take care of you. Do whatever she tells you, even if you don’t like the idea, okay? It will take a few days, but if you really want to go to Peru, we’ll get you there.”
    “I know this is pushing it a little, but could you get me as close as possible to a place called Campina Vieja?” I asked.
    He actually smiled slightly. “I’ll do my best,” he said.
    He stood up. It was time to go. He walked me to the street and a cab stand, and gave the driver an address. I got into the cab. His black mood softening, he leaned in the back window and planted a gentle little kiss on my lips.
    “If this political stuff doesn’t work out,” he said with a tired little smile, “I may need to leave Mexico in a hurry myself. I’ve heard Canada is good. Hard to get citizenship, though. Would you know a nice Canadian woman who’d marry me?”
    “Maybe,” I said. The cab pulled away. I didn’t look back. Moira would be pleased.
    Four days and nights I spent in a tiny room in the back of the building where the old woman lived. The building looked like any other in that part of town, distinguished only by the fading pastels, that