Whatever vile substance he’d received in the lung enema, and whatever misguided quack doctrine had guided the clínica staff, the treatment had nonetheless worked. The street rumors that had guided him were true: the sons of bitches in Nuevo Laredo actually had something workable. He wasn’t cured—he knew full well that he wasn’t cured, he could sense the sullen reservoirs of baffled sickness lurking deep in his bones—but he was much better. They had hacked him back, they had patched him up, they had propped him on his feet. And just in time to have him stolen away.