Primates are being smuggled over the Mexican border, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Agent Rachel Porter has a hot tip that they're hidden somewhere on the Happy Hunting Ranch. Bad enough that the game ranch provides rare antelopes, Indian deer, and African oryx for the rich to hunt. Now Rachel's sure the hidden illegal chimps are being used for a far more nefarious purpose than exotic target practice. Then a smuggler is murdered minutes before Rachel can get his insider information, and a mysterious thug comes gunning for her after she unearths enemy territory. For on the border, the rule is kill or be killed, and Rachel's no longer a hunter -- now she's become the prey.

"I'm gonna let you in on something big, Porter. But you've gotta come out here now and see what's about to go down!"

The insistent whisper curled into my brain, gnawing like a rodent's incisors. Prying open an eye, I glanced at the clock. Five A.M. I'd been dreaming of Harrison Ford; my reality was Timmy Tom Tyler. I was tempted to hang up the phone and roll over, picking up where Harrison and I had left off.

"You're gonna owe me big time on this one." Then Tyler shrewdly dangled his bait. "Hell, this might even get you one of those cheap gold-plated stars."

Damn! Those were the magic words I couldn't resist. Harrison gave me an understanding "see ya later, kid," smile as I groaned. Timmy Tom was undoubtedly calling from some godforsaken place in the middle of nowhere. I was beginning to hate cell phones.

"Where are you?" I croaked. My tongue felt as fuzzy as a hair ball, coated with the residue of one too many frozen margaritas from last night. This was my newest approach to the "I-can't-believe-the-man-I-loved-left-me" remnants of a heartache.

"Just head out on the Anapra until you hit a dirt road after Marker 63, and hang a right. Don't worry, Porter. You won't have any trouble finding me," Tyler declared mysteriously. The phone clicked dead.

Like this was just what I was itching to do at the crack of dawn: run around playing sleuth in the middle of the desert. But Timmy Tom was the first snitch I'd developed since my transfer to El Paso four months ago, and with the way things were going, I had little choice but to cultivate his good will. Fish and Wildlife refused to pay informants. Hell, from what I heard, the Service wasn't all that crazy about paying me these days.

I groggily dressed, made my way out the door, and pulled myself up into the monster Ford F-150 pick-up I'd inherited from the posting's previous agent. Since it was too early to stop at a convenience store for coffee, I washed my Pop-Tart breakfast down with a can of Coke that had been sitting in the cupholder since yesterday.

Then I hit the road, with the serrated peaks of the Organ Mountains rising like a set of mismatched musical pipes beside me. In the rear view mirror, the barest wisp of a cloud play hide-and-seek with a waning moon that was loath to cede the last vestige of night. But an expanding sliver of sun was inevitably winning. I raced toward where it rose, liquid as a broken egg yolk, its rays spilling onto the ebony asphalt in widely splayed fingers of warm, yellow light.

Forty-five minutes later, I veered sharply onto a dirt path studded with creosote bushes and a wide array of rocks that were "bigger than a pebble, and smaller than a breadbox." The ideal spot to practice what I'd dubbed as driving aerobics. Less boring than a Stairmaster, it was the perfect solution for the exercise-impaired. This morning's workout consisted of bouncing through the middle of no-man's land: a patch of bleached desert on the New Mexico-Mexican border. My body shimmied and shook as the Ford vaulted over rocks, my hips swinging from side to side. Who knows? If my career with Fish and Wildlife didn't pan out, maybe I could host an infomercial and make some bucks teaching these moves to Midwestern housewives. A few more months of jiggling around like this, and Sharon Stone would be asking me for some tips.

So, what was Tyler talking about? The only thing I'd seen so far was a flock of glossy starlings bolting out of the brush, resembling a bunch of cheap-suited Joes on their way to a funeral. Then I caught sight of a shimmering shape on the ground up ahead. The crumpled form caused my heart to flutter as rapidly as the wings of the avian throng, and soon crystallized into a body lying flat on the parched desert floor. A cadre of buzzards flew directly above, slowly circling lower and lower. Unless this was Tyler's way of catching few rays, my guess was that things weren't looking too good for him right about now.

I parked my Ford and walked over to where Timmy Tom silently scowled up at me. My breakfast instantly turned to a cold, hard lump in the pit of my stomach, even though the Chihuahua desert heat could have fried a tortilla. Someone had taken the jingle "reach out and touch someone" a little too far: Timmy Tom's cell phone was rammed halfway down his throat.

My eyes traced a distant set of tire tracks that approached from the sun-baked earth of Mexico and came to a halt at a broken-down barbed wire fence. Its rusted tines sliced across the landscape like a jagged line of stubble left after a bad shave. On this side of the border, a different set of tire marks picked up not far from the body. Their treads revealed them to be fairly new, showing little wear -- so the vehicle clearly hadn't been government issue. The tracks disappeared in the direction of the Anapra Road, taking with them whatever secrets had been here. It was business as usual on the border.

I walked back to the pick-up and dug out my own cell phone, since Timmy Tom's line was out of order, and placed the emergency call to the local sheriff's department.

"Hold on to your caballos, lady. We'll get out there eventually." The reply was delivered in a cowboy twang.

I chalked up the laid-back response to an over-abundance of lithium in the local water supply. Not about to stand around and count rattlesnakes while waiting for the local law enforcement to show up, I decided to start my own investigation. Once the police arrived on the scene, they'd greedily claim the corpse as their own. Call it quirky, but I tend to get possessive of dead bodies that I find. Especially when the cadaver happens to be my one and only, true-blue, boy-have-I-got-something-for-you informant.

I swiftly emptied my glove compartment of its survival gear -- a stash of Snickers and Hershey bars -- grabbed a pair of latex gloves, and pulled them on. When I turned back around, I found that a vulture had already begun noshing on Timmy Tom's arm. A few deft Jackie Chan moves established that I was the one with first dibs, then I set to work, getting better acquainted with Tyler than I had ever wanted to.

A quick examination proved the corpse to be free of any bullet holes or stab wounds. In fact, the only discernible mark was a tiny red bump on the arm the free-loading buzzard had attacked. I glanced over to where the bird sat on a gnarled piece of juniper wood, bobbing his head as he bided his time. He shot back a look, sending heebie-jeebies shivering down my spine.

"Shoo! Go on! Get out of here!" I urged.

The buzzard's only response was to draw his wings, the size of two hearses, tightly against his body, letting me know that he wasn't about to go anywhere. Well, some hump-shouldered wannabe thug wasn't going to get the better of me.

Though I excel at sticking my nose into places it doesn't belong, I'm not crazy about getting too touchy-feely when it comes to dead bodies. I put my queasiness on hold and began to rifle through Timmy Tom's pockets.

Tyler appeared to be traveling light today. Any car keys he'd had were gone. By the look of things, so was his vehicle. The only item to be found on his body -- aside from the newly defunct cell phone -- was a wallet. His billfold was like a mini-suitcase, and I took a dive into Timmy Tom's luggage.

Two twenties and a ten told me that Tyler's murder couldn't be pinned on a robbery. I examined his driver's license, where the photo sneered out at the world. My fingers unpacked a little further, removing a slim stack of business cards.

Hmm, there was one for the Good Luck Café, a greasy spoon Timmy Tom had tried to sue after eating a burger he claimed had been tainted with mad cow disease. His case was thrown out when all he offered for proof was a sorry attempt at a "moo." Another card was for a local flophouse, the No Tell Motel. Tyler had dragged them into court as well, insisting a romp on one of their mattresses had given him a permanent dose of the clap. Then there was a card for the Happy Hunting Ranch, a popular place frequented by well-heeled hunters. Its name pretty much said it all. At the bottom of the pile was a card for Timmy Tom's very own entrepreneurial enterprise, MONKEY BUSINESS. It read, "Your best bet for that special pet. Monkeys also available for the entertainment trade and private parties."

Timmy Tom had been a two-bit dealer in illegal monkeys and primates -- though he'd been known to sell whatever else might crawl, swim, or in any other way cross his path. Mexico had provided him with an easy source for his trade. The country ranks high as a sieve for the flow of illegal wildlife into the United States, due to the porous borders between Texas and Mexico. From Texas, the smuggled critters are easily shipped to disreputable pet stores, roadside zoos, and other black holes of greed.

I'd first met Timmy Tom after a prospective buyer had angrily lodged a complaint against him with the local U.S. Fish and Wildlife office. It seemed one of Tyler's "lovingly hand-reared" spider monkeys had introduced itself by wrapping its prehensile tail around the customer's neck, pulling its body up, then sinking its teeth into the guy's face. When the man tried to pull the critter off, the monkey retaliated by clamping down on his hand.

"What a frigging wuss!" Timmy Tom countered, when I'd stopped by to check out the complaint.

Next came the tour of his "facility," which really lassoed my interest. I spotted a group of baby spider monkeys that Tyler claimed had been captive born as a litter. The problem was, females generally produce only one baby a year, and the babies outnumbered the adults. To top it off, Timmy Tom had pointed out two neutered males as the "parents." Talk about your miracle births. I promptly shut down Timmy Tom's illegal pipeline.

More recently, Timmy Tom and his partner Juan had started a business dealing in tufted capuchins, commonly known as organ grinder monkeys. The scam was to open a school where Tyler would "train" them to do tasks for the disabled. Unless one of them had been taught to raise the dead, as of now, Timmy Tom was permanently out of business.