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“Hey there.”

“Who you got here, Hobo?”

“Sparrow. He’s with the Chief and the Candyman. He’s a friend.”

“Hey, Sparrow. Gimme a phonecard, I’m out of credit.”

“I don’t have one. Sorry.”

“A card, a smoke, whatever you got, my friend.”

“Stop fuckin around, asshole. Didn’t you hear the man? Sparrow ain’t got nothin.”

“Cool it, Hobo. He your boy, this Sparrow?”

The men laugh – their teeth yellowing, blackened, greenish. They laugh with their open, gappy mouths, with their cracked lips and their fetid breath; they laugh with the imprecise, asymmetrical laughter of poverty.

The Hobo pushes him again, a rough hand squeezing his shoulder. “I’m gonna explain, but over there so these kids can’t hear.”

They walk towards the north wall, thirty yards or so from the nearest group.

They halt. Ricardo still has him by the shoulder. He brings his face close to Diego’s, narrows his eyes and thrusts his head forward, like a turtle. Flecks of saliva fly. Diego half-closes his eyes, stops breathing.

“Kid. I still see the mud roads in my village, I still smell the leftover bean and mutton stew. You know why I’m tellin you this, Sparrow?”