“She just took up all the room,” he said. “All of it, everywhere.”

Julie said slowly, “So after that, you went and washed up, you put on a clean shirt, and you met me here for dinner. And you talked about us. You talked about Barney Miller, for God’s sake, about running into my sister’s ex-husband—”

“I didn’t think you’d believe me,” Farrell said. “Do you? Tell me you really believe one word of all that UFO craziness I just dumped on you. Come on, one word.”

He had let go of her fingers, the better to wave his own hands. Julie reclaimed them now, dipped his fingertips in the couscous gravy, and then licked them daintily, one by one, looking at him. She said, “I don’t believe words. I believe you. There’s a difference.”

“Meaning I hallucinate, but I don’t lie. Right. Bless you, Jewel.”

“Meaning you’re scared,” she said. “I’ve never seen you scared before, not even in Lima. Not that you’re so wildly heroic—it’s more that you’re too curious about whatever’s going on really to notice the fear. But this one has all your attention. You saw what you saw.”

Farrell sighed and shrugged. “Maybe, but I’m losing it. There’s something I know, but it keeps slipping and scrabbling further away from my mind, trying to get back to her. Now I can’t remember the way it was—just what happened, and that’s different, too. I don’t know what I saw.”

“What about Suzy?” Julie asked.

Farrell rolled his eyes in exasperation. “She was stunned, she was terrified, she was hysterical, and besides she was looking somewhere else at all the interesting moments. That’s what she says, anyway, and by now I’m sure it’s perfectly true. People are watching you doing that, Jewel.”

Julie nodded complacently, smiling against his fingers. A turbaned waiter swept their dishes off the table like frisbees and swept back a moment later with little cups of coffee as hot and slow as lava. Farrell said, “The gun turned in his hand. He didn’t drop it, and he wasn’t holding it carelessly, God knows. Suzy called, ‘Mother,’ and the gun wriggled and pointed at him and shot him. I keep waiting to forget that part.”