Dick was there now, pushing through the circle gathered round her son, Martin at his side. Both of them were peeling across the back and shoulders and in a kind of scrim across their chests that looked like what was left behind when a tide pool dries up. “All right, then,” he said, “let’s give a shout for Carlos and have him make what, roast haunch of iguana? With a nice salsa verde and patas fritas on the side?”

Everybody laughed then and it was all right. If there was blood on the tiles, Carlos, chef and majordomo, could hose it off. Her son was fine, she was fine, they were all fine.

“Or what,” Dick went on, “lizard tacos? Hey”—and he clapped his hands as if a light bulb had just gone on in his head—“anybody have a craving? I mean, get ’em while they’re hot, ladies and gentlemen, your basic highly nutritious, supremely delicious and always-in-demand lizard tacos.”

“Come on, Dick, that’s disgusting,” Alice said, squinting down the length of her cigarette.

“You think so? Tell it to the villagers around here. What about you, Corey? You want iguana tacos for dinner tonight?”

Her son flushed. His shorts were dirty, there was dried blood on his shins and his chest and arms were striated with a dozen cuts and scrapes she hoped weren’t going to get infected, and maybe she should get up, maybe she should march him off to the room for a shower, or better yet, a bath. “Uh-uh,” Corey said. “Shrimp.”

“Or chicken?”

Corey shrugged. He was the center of attention, at least for the moment, at least until they all moved on and Carlos came out of the kitchen to clean up the mess. “I guess,” he said.

“Okay, right,” Dick said, “so we’re just going to let all this meat go to waste? Martin, what do you think?”

Martin was as beautiful as an angel come down to earth, blond, perfectly proportioned, with a beatific face and lashes he emphasized with a touch of mascara. He was holding his guitar by the neck, the soundboard lightly poised against one leg. “Lizard tacos are the best, the very best—and you know what they taste like?”

Corey shook his head.

“Guess.”

“I’ll give you a hint,” Dick said. “Cluck, cluck, cluck?”