Then one of Mr. Lyle’s big hands closed around my wrist, and the other plucked the bottle away, sent it flying to smash on the sidewalk. His fingers closed around my upper arms, pressed them to my ribs. It felt as if he might flatten me between his palms like softened wax. He half walked, half carried me to the car and poked me in the back on a rear-facing seat opposite Mick. I shot across to the other door and tried the handle. No response, and no lock in sight. The driver with the bright hat turned and smiled at me through the glass between us.

“If you will come with us,” the woman said to Frances, “we will go to a safe place, where we may talk. You will not come to harm.”

Frances nodded toward the back seat of the car. “How do I know you have him, and not just a body?”

“He is there,” the woman with the eyebrows said. “You know it.”

“Yes.” Frances’s voice was low, but I heard her.

None of us moved, and time seemed to keep us company. I was waiting for an explosion of violence — soon the rifle would come up in Frances’s hands, there would be lots of noise, and we would probably all die — or a ripple of the bizarre — soon, now, Frances would possess one of them.

Slowly, Frances got out of the trike. Her face was full of resigned and weary disgust, and her hands were empty.

“Leave the key,” the woman said. “Etienne will drive your vehicle after us.” Etienne — the one in the hat.

“If Etienne wrecks it,” said Frances, toward the driver, “I will eat Etienne’s liver. If I have to come back from the dead to do it.”

Etienne smiled and nodded, as if he thought that was reasonable.

Mr. Lyle gestured Frances into the back, and she slid onto the other rear-facing seat. Not for Frances the indignity of being tossed in like a piece of luggage. He pushed Mick’s unresisting body farther along the upholstery, and closed the door. Somewhere inside it a lock chunked.

Mr. Lyle took the driver’s seat, and the dog wagged its tail once, briskly. The trike did not explode when Etienne started it. As we pulled into the street, I watched its two close-set headlights swing and settle in behind us.

Frances had rescued me once; against all reason, I had expected her to do it again. “You didn’t shoot them,” I said finally, watching her.

She’d let her head drop back to rest against the glass partition, and her eyes were closed. “No. I didn’t.”

“Or ride them. Or even drive the hell away. Why not?”

“You sound as if you’re taking it personally.” She opened her eyes and rolled her head to look at me. The lights of the trike slid and shuffled over her face, and I saw her eyes clearly for a moment, all pupil. “I found, on examination, that I couldn’t afford it.” She turned her face back toward the roof and closed her eyes again.