“I bet that made you popular with the ladies,” Ford comments drily. “But it was for nothing, right? You couldn’t find them?”

“Not a trace,” I sigh. “That’s when I started to think I might be losing it. I had myself checked and drew a clear bill of health, but that was little consolation. I spotted them several times over the next few weeks, together, with Y Tse, singly. I ignored them. Didn’t waste time giving chase. I figured, if they were products of my imagination, running after them was useless. If they were real, they’d make contact in their own time. Then this.” I pass the photograph of Paucar Wami to him.

“Al Jeery,” he says immediately. Ford knew Jeery too, before the guy lost his marbles and took to the streets as Paucar Wami. Thought highly of him. I wanted to drag Jeery in, find out what he knew about the Ayuamarcans. Ford convinced me to leave him alone — said the guy had been through enough.

“Look again,” I tell him, and he studies the photo some more.

“It’s like Al,” he rumbles, “but it’s not. Some guy made up to resemble him?”

“Maybe. Or maybe this is the guy Jeery made himself up to look like — the real Paucar Wami.”

“I thought Wami was a myth,” Ford says uneasily. Like some other people, he has vague recollections of the serial killer. I don’t know how fragments of Wami’s existence survived The Cardinal’s passing, but they did. He’s not a substantial figure — he exists in the minds of those who knew him as a creature of shadows — but part of his evil legacy lives on.

“Wami was real, an Ayuamarcan. And on the basis of that photo, he’s back.”

“You’re sure it’s not a ringer?”

“He’s not someone you forget in a hurry. That’s Paucar Wami. I’d stake my life on it. And if he’s real, the others probably are too.”

Ford passes back the photo. “I don’t understand this — I never really did — but let’s say it’s on the level. Why does it bother you?”