Ms. Hansen went to the other side of the boutique and began whispering to a sales assistant.

“I can’t believe it,” Oona said. “I simply cannot believe it. Delancey is everywhere.”

Leigh had never seen Oona this out of control so early in the day. “Jim Delancey’s not here.” She said it calmly, easily, as though it didn’t matter one way or another, as though they were idly discussing guests at a party. “Do you see him anywhere, Tori?”

“He’s not here,” Tori said. “Really, Oona, he’s not.”

“Not him.” Oona snapped a nod toward Ms. Hansen’s sales assistant. “I’m talking about his witch of a mother.”

Leigh glanced again at the stiff, stout little woman. Except for the octagonal wire-rimmed glasses, she could see a certain broad resemblance to Xenia Delancey. The saleswoman had the same sort of uptilted, thimble-sized nose. She wore her gray hair wound into the same tight sort of gray nautilus coil. She even had the same way of listening with her head cocked to the left.

What Leigh was not prepared for was the voice that came out of that thick little body, or its effect on her.

“Right away, Ms. Hansen. I’ll see to it.”

The voice sent an icy needle of recognition down Leigh’s spine: it was unmistakably the voice of the woman whose son had murdered Nita.

Ms. Hansen returned carrying a dress and jacket ensemble. “Usually I work in very bright colors. This is one of my first pastels.” She laid the dress along a countertop. It was silk, patterned in white, black, and pale lavender swirls. The cut was extremely simple, with a slightly pulled-in waist. “And then you have the jacket, which matches.”

“Where do you hire your saleswomen?” Oona said.

For just an instant Ms. Hansen looked baffled.

“Oona, please,” Tori said. “Let’s concentrate on the dress.”

“And as a caprice,” Ms. Hansen continued, “the lining is a silk screen of Warhol’s Mao.” She reversed the jacket to show the Warhol. “But naturally that can be changed. Some people don’t like Mao—even as a joke.”

“Oh, all right,” Oona said. “Give it to me, I’ll try it on.”

“You can change right over there.” Ms. Hansen pointed to a curtained doorway.

There were two crashing sounds, as though a display case had shattered.

“I don’t believe this,” Oona said.

Leigh turned. A Hispanic-looking young man in jogging clothes had come into the boutique. In his left hand he was carrying a two-foot long radio and a voice was booming out of it:

Nickel-dimin’ two-bit pipsqueak squirt,

Bleedin’ Thursday blood on your Tuesday shirt—

A woman had come in after him—a young black woman in a pale coffee-colored clinging lace dress. She had a strikingly aquiline profile and dark, wavy hair and she looked like a fashion model.

“Someone had better tell him to turn that racket off,” Oona said.

Xenia Delancey approached the black woman. They walked over to a display rack. Xenia Delancey suggested a cream-colored blouse. The black woman held it up to her bosom. She studied her reflection in the mirror. After a moment she shook her head and handed the blouse back. Xenia Delancey began looking for another.

On the other side of the boutique, the Hispanic sauntered over to a costume-jewelry display. He set the boom box down on the counter and boosted the volume. The glass display case added a rattling vibration of its own.

Spilled a pint of plasma and you still don’t hurt—

Oona’s eyes had become burning slits. “This is beyond belief. Things are falling apart in this lousy city. Isn’t anyone going to take a stand against that racket?”

“Oona, sweetie,” Leigh said, “please don’t get excited.”

Oona drew in a breath, and then she was in motion. She crossed directly to the Hispanic.

“Will you kindly turn that racket off?” she said.

He turned. Sweat gleamed on the steep ridges of his cheekbones. His dark eyes returned her gaze unflinchingly. “What?”

“I said,” Oona shouted, “turn that garbage off!”

“What?”

It occurred to Leigh that the Hispanic needed a translation.

Oona walked to the boom box, snapped it open, and yanked out one of the batteries.

The music stopped.

Oona turned and picked up her dress and took the battery with her into the changing room.

The black woman burst out laughing.

“Verdict, please.” Tori was holding up a green beaded bolero.

“Twenty-four hundred.”

“You mean for the whole dress,” Leigh said.

“There isn’t a whole dress. This is it.”

“It seems a little expensive,” Leigh said.

“I suppose.” As Tori crossed back to the display rack the black woman intercepted her.

“I love that jacket on you.”

“Do you really?” Tori said.

The woman nodded. “It picks up the green of your eyes. But you know, the violet might look even better.” She walked to the rack and pulled out a violet bolero. “Voilà. Let’s see it on you in the daylight.” She carried the violet bolero over to the door, and Tori followed.

An alarm went off.

“Excuse me,” Ms. Hansen called, raising her voice above the jangling bell. “That merchandise is tagged. It can’t leave the boutique till we deactivate it.”

“I’m sorry.” The black woman was giggling in embarrassment.

“Will you kill that alarm!” Ms. Hansen called to Xenia Delancey.

It was a moment before silence was restored.

Leigh glanced toward the changing rooms. The curtain in the little doorway was swaying. “Did someone just come out of the changing rooms?”

“I didn’t see anyone,” Tori said.

OONA ALDRICH FELT TOO WOOZY to take the overhead route getting out of the one skirt and into the other. So she undid her own skirt and let it puddle around her feet. She lifted one bare foot out and with the other flipped it toward the bench. And missed.

Now she opened Ms. Ingrid Hansen’s prissy little silk skirt. She held it in a hoop with both hands, lifted one leg, and tried to step into it.

Right away she saw there was going to be a balance problem. Holding the skirt open required two hands, but keeping herself upright on one foot required at least one wall and one more hand.

Oona looked around the changing room.

There’s the wall, but has anyone seen a third hand?

She put her engineering smarts to work.

What about sitting down on the bench …?

She sat down on the bench. Well, she’d intended to sit. It was more of a fall but no bones were broken.

And pulling the skirt up my legs …?

She pulled the skirt up her legs. She stood, adjusted the hang of the pleats, fastened the belt. She looked at herself in the mirror, fore and aft.

Not bad.

She slid the jacket off the hanger and slipped her right arm into the sleeve.

Something rapped on the door.

“Just a minute!” Her left hand, halfway into the jacket, snagged the lining. She reached with her right hand and slid the door bolt back.

“How do I look?” She faced the mirror, tried to untangle her left arm, heard cloth rip. “Shit. Now I’ll have to buy the damned thing. Well—what do you think?”

Funny—she liked the skirt, but the jacket struck her as sort of pukey. Well, no wonder. She was wearing it halfway on and halfway off.

“Give me a hand with this jacket, will you?”

There was a movement in the mirror behind her. For half an instant her brain recorded the image of a man standing there, two eyes staring with lids pulled back like snarling lips. At the same moment she registered two words, only one of them English.

“Saludos, bitch.”

Before she could turn, something tugged at her hair and a sudden pressure twisted her head back. The air sparkled and silver whipped past her eyes. A hot piano-wire of pain gripped her neck and fire flicked across her throat.

She struggled to break free. The jacket held her hand like a tourniquet.