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.