a political fund-raiser in New York becomes the setting for a brazen act of sexual display by young lovers. Watching them is Santiago Diaz, the benefit's speaker, who is running for the presidency of his native Mexico. Aroused and disturbed, he later befriends the couple and draws them into his entourage, his marriage, and into the vortex of trans-American politics. There Andrew and Edith discover a world where plunder dictates policy, friendship is a devalued currency, and the future of nations is determined by talk shows and acts of terror.