Ramon examined the car on the precipice before the void with a steely gaze. In his eyes, the cladding and accents were of an IKA Carabela.

“My stepfather was so damned proud of that car,” he growled. “A big, shiny, American automobile to show the world that he had made his grand entrance, even if he was only a civil administrator in Córdoba. We could hear him coming from a half-kilometer away, riding that big engine block, and he’d bring in the hubcaps every night for my sisters and I to polish.”

“Why not just have you polish them outside?” Stennis asked, feeling that he should say something.

Ramon turned the full force of his baleful glare on Stennis. “He didn’t trust us to touch it. A fingerprint on that car was grounds for a beating. Knocking a branch into it got my sister Isabel a crown on her front tooth. That man wouldn’t even allow us to ride in it; the five of us were crammed into my mother’s old Model T, a prewar import! All the while he rode in his great, shining four-door coupe!”