The Boss, staring off at nothing, whispers, “Fucking tragedy.” The old man’s body trembles, as if cold.

“Fucking tragedy,” Werth echoes.

The kill, Mookie thinks, is ritual. Some of it he understands – if only loosely. Ofrendas. Offerings. Marigolds, chocolate, liquor. Day of the Dead-style gifts to those who have passed on: not something you usually find on a fresh corpse. The links of broken chain, though, and that symbol – those are different.

“You want us to get who did this?” Mookie asks.

“We know who did it,” the Boss says. Voice a rattling wind stirring dry leaves. He takes a hit off the oxygen and closes his eyes.

“Who?” Werth finally says after a few seconds of silence. “Point us at ’em.”

“Walk with me,” the Boss says.

He and Haversham walk forward. The old man creeps slow, rasping and wheezing, sometimes coughing and taking a hit from the oxygen. Mookie and Werth share a bewildered, uncomfortable look and follow after like dutiful children. As Mookie walks, his nose catches that same scent from downstairs, a scent suddenly and dreadfully familiar: a perfume of flowers.

Nora sits on a park bench just inside Central Park off Fifth Avenue. Her hands shake. People hurry past, laughing, talking, texting.

Every moment feels hyper-real. Part of it’s the Blue. But only a small part.

She turns her palms up on her knees. Sees the blood on her hands.

Oh god, oh god, oh god.

A taxi honks.

A siren somewhere in the distance.

Her mouth is dry. The taste of Snakeface magic lingers under her tongue.

She’s afraid to blink because of what she’ll see behind her lidded eyes. So she keeps them open. Tries to regulate her breath. Tries to still her trembling limbs.

Keep it together. This can work.

No time to feel anything, you dumb girl.

Stop! Stop thinking about it!

Everything is an opportunity.

You’re going to text Skelly.

You’re going to tell her it’s beginning.

Then you’re going to stand up, and you’re going to move.

But first, you’re going to stop crying.

She blinks back tears. Wipes her eyes.

Then she texts Skelly.

Back downstairs. A small room past the door to the wine cellar, near the kitchen. Inside: a bank of eight monitors next to a shelf full of fireproof file boxes. Surveillance for cameras watching the Boss’ house. The room isn’t big, and it feels like everybody’s having to crowd around and cram in next to Mookie. Which only serves to make Mookie feel awkward, a man in a dress shop, a vegetarian at a slaughterhouse. And all that time, the smell of his daughter’s perfume lingering in his nose.

He suddenly worries about what he’s going to see in this room, on these monitors.

Haversham reaches past Mookie, flips one switch of eight on the wall–

The top left monitor comes to life.

The black-and-white feed shows the front door of the building. Catches people walking up and down the street, but only in periphery: one arm, feet, part of a face, a head. Incomplete shapes, nothing more.