One bright Sunday in the Pantanal, the vast untamed Brazilian lowlands bordering Bolivia, the narrator witnesses the fatal crash of a small aeroplane. When poking around the wreckage he finds a kilo of cocaine in the dead pilot's backpack. After but a moment's hesitation he pockets the coke and the pilot's expensive watch - thus begins his long slide into corruption that ends with him owing a Bolivian drug gang so much money that blackmailing the wealthy family of the dead pilot seems to be the only way out.