Emi and Gabriel work in television news together. She is an executive and an accomplished person in journalism. Emi is also Japanese by ethnicity, and together, they report the news in Los Angeles. Secretly, they are also lovers. They get their stories from a source, a Black man named Buzzworm. They cover the Harbor Freeway, where a permanent incident has left the entire freeway backed up with traffic, causing people to abandon their cars. Because they could not easily retrieve their vehicles, homeless people have now turned the abandoned freeway into a kind of town—they have broken the car windows and now live in the cars.
Buzzworm tells them about a mysterious package at an LA airport. They continue coverage and discover a man named Murakami, a master of sorts who is now directing traffic on the freeway. We learn of Gabriel's affairs: he has property south of the border, in Mexico, which is stewarded for him by a woman named Rafaela, who conveniently needed a home—she is separated from her husband. Rafaela has a favorite tree, and we learn of a special fruit on that tree which falls and is carried into Mexico by a mysterious character called "Arcangel." This is known in the book as a mythological story about the real life Tropic of Cancer.
Rafaela learns by eavesdropping that she and her son might not be safe in Gabriel's home. In an aside, we learn that there is an operation in Mexico where human organ harvesting is being done by local criminal lords, to be sold on the black market. We also learn of Bobby, yet another character, who is in desperate need of locating Rafaela and her son, Sol. Bobby learns that a Chinese girl has recently emigrated who might need his help, and she might be his cousin.
