“Not stealing, no,” said the old man, rubbing his hands through the wool. “An old injury. One I did not receive medical attention for until much too late.”

Gus showed him the tattoo on his hand, making a fist so that the webbing between his thumb and forefinger swelled up. It showed three black circles. “Like the design on your shop sign.”

“Three balls is an ancient symbol for a pawnbroker. But yours has a different meaning.”

“Gang sign,” said Gus, sitting back. “Means thief.”

“But you never stole from me.”

“Not that you knew, anyway,” said Gus, smiling.

Setrakian looked at Gus’s pants, the holes burned into the black fabric. “I hear you killed a man.”

Gus’s smile went away.

“You were not wounded? The cut on your face, you received from the police?”

Gus stared at him now, like the old man might be some kind of jailhouse informer. “What’s it to you?”

Setrakian said, “Did you get a look inside his mouth?”

Gus turned to him. The old man was leaning forward, almost in prayer. Gus said, “What do you know about that?”

“I know,” said the old man, without looking up, “that a plague has been loosed upon this city. And soon the world beyond.”

“This wasn’t no plague. This was some crazy psycho with kind of a…a crazy-ass tongue coming up out of his…” Gus felt ridiculous saying this aloud. “So what the fuck was that?”

Setrakian said, “What you fought was a dead man, possessed by a disease.”

Gus remembered the look on the fat man’s face, blank and hungry. His white blood. “What—like a pinche zombie?”

Setrakian said, “Think more along the lines of a man with a black cape. Fangs. Funny accent.” He turned his head so that Gus could hear him better. “Now take away the cape and fangs. The funny accent. Take away anything funny about it.”

Gus hung on the old man’s words. He had to know. His somber voice, his melancholy dread, it was contagious.

“Listen to what I have to say,” the old man continued. “Your friend here. He has been infected. You might say—bitten.”

Gus looked over at unmoving Felix. “No. No, he’s just…the cops, they knocked him out.”

“He is changing. He is in the grip of something beyond your comprehension. A disease that changes human people into non people. This person is no longer your friend. He is turned.”

Gus remembered seeing the fat man on top of Felix, their maniacal embrace, the man’s mouth going at Felix’s neck. And the look on Felix’s face—a look of terror and awe.