She shook her head. "Even if the cops took us home, he'd catch up eventually. Don't leave me. Swear you won't. Whatever happens, just go along with it. Don't set him off or he'll tear the place apart and you along with it."

"All right, all right. Come on now. Just be cool. I'm not going anywhere."

"Promise you won't leave me."

"I promise," I said.

At first, I didn't get it. At that distance, the guy looked like anybody else. He was tall and very slender, with wide shoulders and a narrow waist. From what I could see of him, he was dressed like a fashion plate: leather sport coat, pleated trousers, pointy black patent-leather shoes capped with silver at the toes, mirrored sunglasses. He could have been Latino or Italian, dark hair and olive skin. I placed him in his early thirties. He had his hands in his pockets and his manner seemed relaxed.

Bibianna's fingers were ice cold. She clung to my hand the way a friend might in the middle of a horror movie just before the guy with the butcher knife leaps out. I couldn't see anything in his appearance that would warrant her response.

When he reached us, he took his sunglasses off. He had dark thick lashes, a full mouth, a dimple in his chin. Once he was in close range, I realized there was something wrong. His eyes had rolled back in his head, leaving narrow slits of white along the lower rims. His face and body underwent a series of convulsive movements; he blinked his eyes, the comer of his mouth jumped involuntarily, his lips opened wide, then his head jerked back twice. The effect was weird – a sequence of behaviors that set his whole body in motion, culminating in a sound that was half shout, half cough. He moved his right arm, rolling it in its socket as if to loosen tension. In memory, a buzzer sounded dimly, and I recalled the existence of some medical condition that produced just this effect – tics and shouts. He made no reference to it, nor did Bibianna, who seemed more concerned about his reaction to Chago's death.

"I didn't do it. I swear to God. I didn't kill him. I'm sorry. It was an accident. Oh, please. Raymond, I didn't have anything to do with it..."

His expression had softened, becoming nearly wistful as he took her by the shoulders and pulled her in close to him, rubbing his hands up and down her bare arms. "You don't know how happy I am to see you..."