"Just walk, don't look. We're heading for the caravan with the sun painted on it. See it?"
  "I see it."
  There were twenty yards still to cover. Dreadlocks was delivering a stream of orders 
now, most of them incoherent but surely intended to stop them in their tracks. Estabrook 
glanced across at Chant, who had his gaze fixed on their destination and his teeth 
clenched. The sound of footsteps grew louder behind them. A blow on the head or a knife 
in the ribs couldn't be far off.
  "We're not going to make it," Estabrook said.
  Within ten yards of the trailer-the albino at their shoulders-the door ahead opened, 
and a woman in a dressing gown, with a baby in her arms, peered out. She was small and 
looked so frail it was a wonder she could hold the child, who began bawling as soon as 
the cold found it. The ache of its complaint drove their pursuers to action. Dreadlocks 
took hold of Estabrook's shoulder and stopped him dead. Chant-wretched coward that he 
was-didn't slow his pace by a beat but strode on towards the trailer as Estabrook was 
swung around to face the albino. This was his perfect nightmare, to be facing scabby, 
pockmarked men like these, who had nothing to lose if they gutted him on the spot. While 
Dreadlocks held him hard, another man-gold incisors glinting-stepped in and pulled open 
Estabrook's coat, then reached in to empty his pockets with the speed of an illusionist. 
This was not simply professionalism. They wanted their business done before they were 
stopped.
  As the pickpocket's hand pulled out his victim's wallet, a voice came from the trailer 
behind Estabrook: "Let the Mister go. He's real."
  Whatever the latter meant, the order was instantly obeyed, but by that time the thief 
had whipped Estabrook's wallet into his own pocket and had stepped back, hands raised to 
show them empty. Nor, despite the fact that the speaker-presumably Pie-was extending his 
protection to his guest, did it seem circumspect to try and reclaim the wallet. Estabrook 
retreated from the thieves, lighter in step and cash but glad to be doing so at all.
  Turning, he saw Chant at the trailer door, which was open. The woman, the baby, and the 
speaker had already gone back inside.
  'They didn't hurt you, did they?" Chant said.
  Estabrook glanced back over his shoulder at the thugs, who had gone to the fire, 
presumably to divide the loot by its light. "No," he said. "But you'd better go and check 
the car, or they'll have it stripped."
  "First I'd like to introduce you-"
  "Just check the car," Estabrook said, taking some satisfaction in the thought of 
sending Chant back across the no-man's-land between here and the perimeter. "I can 
introduce myself."
  "As you like."
  Chant went off, and Estabrook climbed the steps into the trailer. A scent and a sound 
met him, both sweet. Oranges had been peeled, and their dew was in the air. So was a 
lullaby, played on a guitar. The player, a black man, sat in the farthest corner, in a 
shadowy place beside a sleeping child. The babe lay to his other side, gurgling softly in 
a simple cot, its fat arms raised as if to pluck the music from the air with its tiny 
hands. The woman was at a table at the other end of the vehicle, tidying away the orange 
peel. The whole interior was marked by the same fastidiousness she was applying to this 
task, every surface neat and polished.
  "You must be Pie," Estabrook said.
  "Please close the door," the guitar player said. Estabrook did so. "And sit down. 
Theresa? Something for the gentleman. You must be cold."
  The china cup of brandy set before him was like nectar. He downed it in two throatfuls, 
and Theresa instantly replenished it. He drank again with the same speed, only to ; have 
his cup furnished with a further draft. By the time Pie had played both the children to 
sleep and rose to come and join his guest at the table, the liquor had brought a pleasant 
buzz to Estabrook's head.
  In his life Estabrook had known only two other black men by name. One was the manager 
of a tiling manufacturer in Swindon, the other a colleague of his brother's: neither of 
them men he'd wished to know better. He was of an age and class that still swilled the 
dregs of colonialism at two in the morning, and the fact this man had black blood in him 
(and, he guessed, much else besides) counted as another mark against Chant's judgment. 
And yet-perhaps it was the brandy-he found the fellow opposite him intriguing. Pie didn't 
have the face of an assassin. It wasn't dispassionate, but distressingly vulnerable; even 
(though Estabrook would never have breathed this aloud) beautiful. Cheeks high, lips 
full, eyes heavily lidded. His hair, mingled black and blond, fell in Italianate 
profusion, knot- \ ted ringlets to his shoulders. He looked older than Estabrook would 
have expected, given the age of his children. Perhaps only thirty, but wearied by some 
excess or other, the burnished sepia of his skin barely concealing a sickly iridescence, 
as though there were a mercurial taint in his cells. It made him difficult to fix, 
especially for eyes awash with brandy, the merest motion of his head breaking subtle ; 
waves against his bones, their spume draining back into his skin trailing colors 
Estabrook had never seen in flesh before.
  Theresa left them to their business and retired to sit beside the cot. In part out of 
deference to the sleepers and in part from his own unease at saying aloud what was on his 
mind, Estabrook spoke in whispers.
  "Did Chant tell you why I'm here?"
  "Of course," said Pie. "You want somebody murdered." He pulled a pack of cigarettes 
from the breast pocket of his denim shirt and offered one to Estabrook, who declined with 
a shake of his head. "That is why you're here, isn't it?"
  "Yes," Estabrook replied. "Only-"
  "You're looking at me and thinking I'm not the one to do it," Pie prompted. He put a 
cigarette to his lips. "Be honest."
  "You're not exactly as I imagined," Estabrook replied.
  "So, this is good," Pie said, applying a light to the cigarette. "If I had been what 
you'd imagined, I'd look like an assassin, and you'd say I was too obvious."
  "Maybe."
  "If you don't want to hire me, that's fine. I'm sure Chant can find you somebody else. 
If you do want to hire me, then you'd better tell me what you need."
  Estabrook watched the smoke drift up over the assassin's gray eyes, and before he could 
prevent himself he was telling his story, the rules he'd drawn for this exchange 
forgotten. Instead of questioning the man closely, concealing his own biography so that 
the other would have as little hold on him as possible, he spilled the tragedy in every 
unflattering detail. Several times he almost stopped himself, but it felt so good to be 
unburdened that he let his tongue defy his better judgment. Not once did the other man 
interrupt the litany, and it was only when a rapping on the door, announcing Chant's 
return, interrupted the flow that Estabrook remembered there was anyone else alive in the 
world tonight besides himself and his confessor. And by that time the tale was told.
  Pie opened the door but didn't let Chant in. "We'll wander over to the car when we've 
finished," he told the driver. "We won't be long." Then he closed the door again and 
returned to the table. "Something more to drink?" he asked.
  Estabrook declined, but accepted a cigarette as they talked on, Pie requesting details 
of Judith's whereabouts and movements, Estabrook supplying the answers in a monotone.