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It was as though the sun had just come out: suddenly everything was plain as day to Lituma.

“You’re right, that’s exactly how it was,” he said, clacking his tongue and clapping his hands. “He’s come from Africa. Of course: it all fits. Once the ship docked here in El Callao, they made him get off for some reason. So as not to pay for his passage, because they discovered him in the hold, to get rid of him.”

“They didn’t hand him over to the authorities because they knew they wouldn’t let him into the country,” Pedralbes said, filling in the details of the story. “They forced him to get off the ship: shift for yourself, you jungle savage.”

“In other words, that darky doesn’t even know where he is,” Lituma said. “And those strange sounds he keeps making aren’t those of a madman but of a savage; that is to say, the sounds of his own language.”

“It’s as though they put you on a plane and you landed on Mars, old pal,” Pedralbes said helpfully.

“How clever we are,” Lituma said. “We’ve just discovered that darky’s whole life story.”

“You mean how clever I am,” Pedralbes protested. “And what will they do with the guy now?”

Who knows? Lituma thought. They played six games of toad-in-the-hole and the sergeant won four, so Pedralbes had to pay for their beers. Then they walked over to the Calle Chanchamayo, where Pedralbes lived, in a little house with bars over the windows. Domitila, Pedralbes’s wife, was just finishing feeding the three children, and the minute she saw the two of them come in, she put the littlest one to bed and ordered the other two not to even peek so much as their noses through the door. She fixed her hair a little, linked arms with the two of them, and they went out to see an Italian movie at the Cine Porteno, on Sáenz Peña. Lituma and Pedralbes didn’t like the movie at all, but she said she’d even go back and see it again. They walked back to the Calle Chanchamayo—the kids had all gone to sleep—and Domitila warmed up some olluquitos con charqui—potatoes and dried salt meat—for their supper. It was ten-thirty when Lituma left. He arrived at the Fourth Commissariat exactly at the hour he was to go on duty: eleven on the dot.

Lieutenant Jaime Concha didn’t even give him time to catch his breath; he called him aside and, out of the blue, gave him specific orders, in a couple of Spartan sentences that left Lituma dizzy and made his ears ring. “The higher-ups know what they’re doing,” the lieutenant assured him, clapping him on the back encouragingly. “They have their reasons, and we just have to go along with them. Our superiors are never wrong, isn’t that so, Lituma?”

“Yes, of course,” the sergeant stammered.

Apple Dumpling and Snotnose were pretending to be terribly busy. Out of the corner of his eye, Lituma saw Apple Dumpling carefully inspecting traffic tickets as though they were photographs of naked women, and Snotnose was arranging, disarranging, and then rearranging things on his desk.

“Can I ask you a question, lieutenant?” Lituma said.

“Go ahead. I don’t know if I can answer it, though.”

“How come the higher-ups have chosen me for this little job?”

“That I can tell you,” the lieutenant replied. “For two reasons. Because you were the one who captured him and it’s only right that the one who begins a caper should be the one who ends it. And secondly, because you’re the best Guardia Civil in this commissariat and perhaps in all of El Callao.”

“I’m honored by your compliment,” Lituma murmured, not pleased in the slightest.

“Our superiors know very well that this is a tough job, and that’s why they’ve entrusted it to you,” the lieutenant said. “You should feel proud that it’s you they’ve chosen from among the hundreds of Guardias stationed in Lima.”

“In other words, on top of everything else, I ought to thank them,” Lituma said, shaking his head in stupefaction. He thought the whole thing over for a moment, and then added in a low voice: “Does it have to be done right away?”

“This very instant,” the lieutenant answered in a fake-jovial tone of voice.