was jarring, out into sunlight and damp heat and stink, jeepneys rattling past on Faura, turbid water standing in the gutters.

     We shared a cab as far as the embassy. That was just four blocks. It sat bayside at the head of the boulevard's curve, behind concrete barriers and a fence of high black shafts. Filipinos stood in a line that wobbled out of the front entrance and far down the sidewalk.

     “Visa applicants,” Dalzell said when I asked. “That's just tourist. We reject four out of five—we know they'll try to stay if we let 'em in. Next door, that's the immigrant section. Most of those get the visa, but they've got to be petitioned from the States first, and then the waiting list is in years, unless it's for a spouse.”

     The taxi pulled to the sidewalk.

     “They're trying like hell to get away from where you're going, so they can get to the place you just left,” he said. “I want you to think about that.”

     He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and gave it to me.

     “A Filipino,” he said, “owns some land down there. You get in trouble, he's the guy to help you out. So happens he likes Americans. Oh, and you want to stay at the Green Fields. It's the only place fit for human habitation, and I mean just barely.”

     He got out but leaned back into the cab. His hand went to my elbow.

     “You spend time over here, you hear English spoken, you see Colgate in the drugstore and Stallone in the theaters, you can start to think this is just like home. But it isn't, this place is not like home, no way shape or form, and thinking otherwise can be the worst mistake a fella ever made.”

     The portfolio contained Sanchez's old passport, a printout from the case file in San Francisco, and expense receipts