The night enfolds him, or is it Gus? Gradually, he comes down from the precipice where shock and terror pushed him. Gradually, he becomes aware that Gus has gathered him into his arms and is rocking him like a baby.

Then he hears the sirens start up and knows his hearing is coming back. At first they're a long way off, but quite rapidly they come nearer and nearer.

"You okay t'go?" Gus asks.

Jack clings to him tightly, his face buried in Gus's massive chest.

With Jack in his arms, Gus gets to his feet. He takes Jack back to the Continental, fires the ignition. They're just turning the corner onto Sixth Street NE when the rear window is briefly awash in red and white flashing lights. Sirens scream close at hand, then rapidly diminish as Gus puts on speed.

A dozen gray blocks later, Gus pulls up to a phone booth.

"I gotta make a call," he says. "On'y be a minute, kid, 'kay?" His eyes study Jack slowly, carefully. "You'll be able to see me the whole time."

Jack watches Gus squeeze half his bulk into the phone booth, feed the slot. His teeth start to chatter. Chills run through him, and as he imagines that that horrific stench has invaded the car, he starts crying again.

It's only when he sees Gus striding back that he wipes his eyes and nose. He hiccups once as Gus slides behind the wheel. They sit in silence for a time. Gus stares straight ahead. Jack tries to piece himself together, but every now and again a half-stifled sob escapes him.

Finally, he manages, "Was that… was that…?"

"The Marmoset?" Gus nods. "Yeah, that was him."

"What… what…?"

Gus sighs. "Remember that double murder at McMillan Reservoir Stanz wants me t'help him with? The Marmoset was my man onna case." Gus looks around. "He got close to the bone, seems like."

"Too close," Jack says with a shiver.

Gus puts his arm across the seat back. "Anyway, ain't nuthin' fo' you t'worry yo'self 'bout." His brows converge in worry. "Don't you believe me?"

"I was thinking of the Marmoset," Jack says. "I was thinking that he should be buried, not pawed at by people who never knew him."

For a long time nothing more is said. At last, Gus fires the ignition. After putting the car in gear, he eases out into the street.

Jack doesn't know where they're headed; he doesn't care. He has sunk back into the world he knew through newspapers, TV, and the movies must exist, yet could never have imagined. It has come upon him too soon, its implications too much for him to handle. He wonders at all the tears he's shed because he can't remember shedding even one before this. He made it an iron-bound rule never to cry when his father beat him, not even when his father slunk back across the apartment and the strains of "California Dreamin' " winked out like a fearful light. He never cried when Andre and his crew took him into the alley behind the electronics store. Tonight, it seems, he can't stop.

It takes Gus just eleven minutes to get to 3001 Connecticut Avenue NW, the front entrance to the National Zoo.

Jack turns, peers out the window. "Gus, it's night. The zoo isn't open at night."

Gus opens the door. "Who says it ain't?"

LOOKA HOW small he is." Gus stares up through the branches at the tiny black-and-white face staring down at them. There are other marmosets elsewhere in the large cage, but this one, having taken notice of them, has come the closest. The others are busy eating fruit held in their claws or gnawing at the tree with startlingly long lower incisors.

Jack studies the black eyes staring down at him. The face looks so full of intelligence and insight, as if the marmoset sees a world at once smaller and bigger than he does.

"What's he thinking?" Jack says.

"Who knows?"

"That's just it." Jack's voice is full of wonder. "No one knows."

Gus puts his arm protectively around Jack's shoulders. "Don't get too close now, kid," he says gruffly. "Mebbe these things bite."

Jack doesn't think to ask Gus how he managed to get the zoo open at this hour, because he knows Gus won't tell him. Anyway, he doesn't want to spoil the magic of the moment, which has temporarily banished all thoughts of death, thousand-mile stares, the stench of death. There is life here, strange and beautiful, its strangeness making it all the more vibrant. Jack feels his heart beating strongly in his chest, and a kind of warmth suffuses him.

"Hello, marmoset," he says. "My name is Jack."

ALLI CARSON, being fed a hamburger, rare, with mustard and slices of crisp Mrs. Fanning's bread-and-butter pickles, looked into Ronnie Kray's face, so close to hers. His expression was altogether unthreatening. He might have been a mother bird feeding her chick.

She savored the tastes in her mouth, then, almost reluctantly, she swallowed. In his other hand he held a coffee milk shake with one of those bendy straws stuck into its thick foam. He brought the straw to her lips and she sucked down the sweet drink.

"How do you know my favorite foods?" she asked quietly. She didn't fear him now. She had learned that she was allowed to speak without permission during mealtimes.

Kray smiled in a way that somehow drew her to him. "I'm like a parent," he said in a voice as quiet as hers. "I'm the father you always dreamed of having, but never thought you would."

She made a motion with her head, and he gave her more burger. While she chewed, her eyes never left his face.

"I know what you like," he continued. "And what you don't. Why would I want to know that, Alli? Because I value you, because I want to please you."

Alli sucked down more of the coffee milk shake, swallowed. "Then why am I bound to this chair?"

"I bought that chair in Mexico seven years ago, at the same time I purchased a painted sugar skull, on the Day of the Dead. The chair is my most prized possession; you're privileged to sit in it. Up until I put you into it, only I have sat in it."

Intuiting her hunger, he fed her the last of the hamburger. "Do you know about the Day of the Dead, Alli? No? It's the one day of the year when the door between life and death is open. When those alive may talk to those who are dead. If they believe." He cocked his head. "Tell me, Alli, what is it you believe in?"

She blinked. "I… I don't know what you mean."

He hunched forward, forearms on his knees. "Do you believe in god?"

"Yes," she said immediately.

"Do you truly believe in god-or are you parroting something your parents believe?"

She looked at him for a moment, her mouth dry. Once again, it was as if he had peered down into the depths of her soul; it was as if he knew her from the inside out.

"I'm… I'm not supposed to say."

"There you have it, Alli. All your life you've been walled away from the rest of the world. You've been told what to say and what to think. But I know you better. I know you have your own thoughts, your own beliefs. I won't judge you the way your parents do. And there's no one here, except you and me."

"What about the others?"

"Ah, the others." Leaning in, Kray wiped the corners of her mouth. "I'll tell you a secret, Alli, because you've earned it. There are no others. There's only me. Me and my shadow." He chuckled.

"Why did you lie to me?"

"Lessons need to be learned, Alli. You're beginning to understand that now. Lessons learned obviate the need for lying. And, here's another secret I want to share with you: I don't enjoy lying to you." He sat back. "You're special, you see, but not in the way your parents have hammered into your head."

Loosening the bonds on her wrists, he took her hands in his and said, "You and I, Alli, together need to undo all the senseless hammering, all the disservice that's been done to you. Welcome to the beginning. In this place, you're free to speak your heart. You're freer than you've ever been in your life." He let go of her hands. "Now, will you tell me the truth? Do you believe in god?"