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polarized sunglasses, the only thing he could see was the endless Los Angeles blue. Not a cloud, not a shadow.
    All right, embrace the suck:
    If you half-closed your eyes, you could barely, just barely, convince yourself you were looking at—
    “You see?”
    He squinted and looked again.
    Devlin took off his shades, blew on them, wiped them off with a handkerchief. This was beyond crazy, the kind of thing Mexican women saw in moldy tortillas or on the side of freeway overpasses. Crudely faked by a gangbanger with Photoshop and fobbed off on a bunch of superstitious campesinos.
    He could see it. “When?” he asked.
    “On the thirteenth of every month.”
    “Where?”
    “In the desert. Near California City.”
    He didn’t want to have to ask his next question, but as long as he was taking the job, it was his job to ask. “What do you want me to do?”
    She shook her head. “Not me. El padre . . .”
    “What does the padre want me to do?’
    She looked at him as if he were simple: “He wants you to follow her.”
    “ Her? ”
    Jacinta slipped the pictures back into the folder without answering. As she did, Devlin got a look at what he had assumed was simply schmutz inside the folder. Pale, pink . . .
    She caught him looking. “Rose petals,” she said, reaching inside and handing him one. “From the desert.”
    She pointed across Curson Street, toward a black Escalade with tinted windows, idling amid the fleet of yellow school buses. “Hurry,” she said, rising. “We have so little time.”
    Devlin stopped. “Why? What is coming?”
    She looked at him with fear in her eyes. “The Great Chastisement, señor. Now, come!”

C HAPTER F IVE
    The Central Valley, near Coalinga
    Danny moved closer, to make sure that he was actually seeing what he thought he was seeing.
    At first glance, it looked like a water stain on the concrete. The freeway underpasses were a riot of abstract designs caused by the rush of occasional rainwater from the road above to the constantly thirsty land below. With a little imagination, you could always make out something—the World Trade Center here, a rutabaga there. Not that, under normal circumstances, anybody ever stopped under an overpass in order to discover some l’art trouvé, but these were hardly normal circumstances.
    The Mexicans were deep into the rosary now, praying with renewed fervor. These were the good, religious, hardworking people from an ancient culture, family people, descendents both of the conquistadors and the Indians, of Cortés and Juan Diego. Coming to America, thought Danny, may have improved them financially, but it had diminished them culturally, with what unknown consequences the next generations of both Mexicans and Americans would have to discover.
    Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia . . .
    Gently, he moved forward, toward the object of their veneration. Some of the candles had guttered out already, but fresh votives had already replaced them, flickering in the breeze.
    He thought he knew what he saw, but he had to make sure....
    Closer now and closer still . . .
    A large woman blocked his way. The crowd, which was growing in size by the minute, pressed forward, knocking him into her. “Excuse me, señora,” he said, but it was no use apologizing because the press of humanity was too strong and he found himself propelled ever forward until, like water bursting through a dam, he went sprawling into a small clearing.
    Behind him was the crowd, a mixture of awe and wonder on their faces. Before him were the candles, their hot melted wax running down the pavement. And above him was . . .
    A Face. The face of a woman. The most beautiful face he had ever seen.
    Her eyes were half-closed, her gaze downward, a look of ineffable sadness and suffering—and yet of peace and even joy—upon her visage. She was wearing what the kids today called a hoodie, which concealed most of her hair, revealing only her face and a bit of her throat.
    “Who is it?”