Chapters 1 - 3 Summary

The novel opens as seventeen-year-old Pancho Sanchez's social worker, Mrs. Olivares, drives him to St. Anthony's, the orphanage he will now call home. Pancho's father died a few months earlier, and just two weeks ago, his sister Rosa was found dead in a motel room. Pancho is sure she was murdered, but the police found no evidence of foul play. It was revealed in the coroner's report that Rosa had had sex just before her death, but she was mentally disabled, and, Pancho feels, incapable of consenting. Pancho has vowed to find the man who killed his sister and get revenge.

Mrs. Olivares has called in special favors to have Pancho admitted into St. Anthony, especially since he assaulted a boy at his last foster home. Throughout the drive to the orphanage, Pancho sits silently, brooding in the passenger seat. When...