ATURALLY ENOUGH, MANNY BORQUE LIVED IN SOUTH Beach. He was on the top floor of one of the new high-rise buildings that spring up around Miami like mushrooms after a heavy rain. This one sat on what was once a deserted beach where Harry used to take Debs and me beachcombing early on Saturday mornings. We would find old life preservers, mysterious wooden chunks of some unfortunate boat, lobster-pot buoys, pieces of fishnet, and on one thrilling morning, an exceedingly dead human body rolling in the surf. It was a treasured boyhood memory, and I resented extremely that someone had built this shiny flimsy tower on the site.

The next morning at ten Vince and I left work together and drove over to the horrible new building that had replaced the scene of my youthful joy. I rode the elevator to the top in silence, watching Vince fidget and blink. Why he should be nervous about facing someone who sculpted chopped liver for a living, I don’t know, but he clearly was. A drop of sweat rolled down his cheek and he swallowed convulsively, twice.

“He’s a caterer, Vince,” I told him. “He isn’t dangerous. He can’t even revoke your library card.”

Vince looked at me and swallowed again. “He’s got a real temper,” he said. “He can be very demanding.”

“Well, then,” I said with great good cheer, “let’s go find somebody else more reasonable.”

He set his jaw like a man facing a firing squad and shook his head. “No,” he said bravely, “we’re going to go through with this.” And the elevator door slid open, right on cue. He squared his shoulders, nodded, and said, “Come on.”

We went down to the end of the hall, and Vince stopped in front of the last door. He took a deep breath, raised his fist, and, after a slight hesitation, knocked on the door. After a long moment in which nothing happened, he looked at me and blinked, his hand still raised. “Maybe,” he said.

The door opened. “Hello Vic!” the thing in the doorway warbled, and Vince responded by blushing and stammering, “I only hi.” Then he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, stammered something that sounded like, “Er wellah,” and took a half step backward.

It was a remarkable and thoroughly engaging performance, and I was not the only one who seemed to enjoy it. The manikin who had answered the door watched with a smile that suggested he might enjoy being in the audience for any kind of human suffering, and he let Vince squirm for several long moments before he finally said, “Well come in!”

Manny Borque, if this was really him and not some strange hologram from Star Wars, stood a full five foot six inches tall, from the bottom of his embroidered high-heeled silver boots to the top of his dyed orange head. His hair was cut short, except for black bangs which parted on his forehead like a swallow’s tail and draped down over a pair of enormous rhinestone-studded eyeglasses. He was dressed in a long, bright-red dashiki, and apparently nothing else, and it swirled around him as he stepped back from the door to motion us in, and then walked in rapid little steps toward a huge picture window that looked out on the water.

“Come over here and we’ll have a little talk,” he said, sidestepping a pedestal holding an enormous object that looked like a giant ball of animal vomit dipped in plastic and spray-painted with Day-Glo graffiti. He led the way to a glass table by the window, around which sat four things that were probably supposed to be chairs but could easily have been mistaken for bronze camel saddles welded onto stilts. “Sit,” he said, with an expansive wave of his hand, and I took the chair-thing nearest the window. Vince hesitated for a moment, then sat next to me, and Manny hopped up onto the seat directly across from him. “Well,” he said. “How have you been, Vic? Would you like some coffee?” and without waiting for an answer he swiveled his head to his left and called, “Eduardo!”

Beside me Vince took a ragged breath, but before he could do anything with it Manny whipped back around and faced me. “And you must be the blushing bridegroom!” he said.

“Dexter Morgan,” I said. “But I’m not a very good blusher.”

“Oh, well, I think Vic is doing enough for both of you,” he said. And sure enough, Vince obligingly turned just as scarlet as his complexion would allow him to do. Since I was still more than a little peeved at being subjected to this ordeal, I decided not to come to his aid by offering Manny a withering remark, or even correcting him on the subject of Vince’s actual identity as “Vince,” not “Vic.” I was sure he knew the right name quite well and was simply tormenting Vince. And that was fine with me: let Vince squirm—it served him right for going over my head to Rita and getting me into this.

Eduardo bustled in holding a vintage Fiestaware coffee service in several bright colors, balanced on a clear plastic tray. He was a stocky young man about twice the size of Manny, and he, too, seemed very anxious to please the little troll. He set a yellow cup in front of Manny, and then moved to put the blue one in front of Vince when he was stopped by Manny, who laid a finger on his arm.

“Eduardo,” he said in a silky voice, and the boy froze. “Yellow? Don’t we remember? Manny gets the blue cup.”

Eduardo practically fell over himself grinding into reverse, nearly dropping the tray in his haste to remove the offensive yellow coffee cup and replace it with the proper blue one.

“Thank you, Eduardo,” Manny said, and Eduardo paused for a moment, apparently to see if Manny really meant it or if he had done something else wrong. But Manny just patted him on the arm and said, “Serve our guests now, please,” and Eduardo nodded and moved around the table.

As it turned out, I got the yellow cup, which was fine with me, although I wondered if it meant that they didn’t like me. When he had poured the coffee, Eduardo hustled back to the kitchen and returned with a small plate holding half a dozen pastelitos. And although they were not, in fact, shaped like Jennifer Lopez’s derriere, they might as well have been. They looked like little cream-filled porcupines—dark brown lumps bristling with quills that were either chocolate or taken from a sea anemone. The center was open, revealing a blob of orange-colored custardy-type stuff, and each blob had a dab of green, blue, or brown on top.

Eduardo put the plate in the center of the table, and we all just looked at it for a moment. Manny seemed to be admiring them, and Vince was apparently feeling some kind of religious awe, as he swallowed a few more times and made a sound that may have been a gasp. For my part, I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to eat the things or use them for some bizarre, bloody Aztec ritual, so I simply studied the plate, hoping for a clue.

It was finally provided by Vince. “My God,” he blurted.

Manny nodded. “They’re wonderful, aren’t they?” he said. “But so-o-o-o last year.” He picked one up, the one with the blue top, and gazed at it with a kind of aloof fondness. “The color palette really got tired, and that horrible old hotel over by Indian Creek started to copy them. Still,” he said with a shrug, and he popped it into his mouth. I was glad to see that it didn’t seem to cause any major bleeding. “One does grow fond of one’s own little tricks.” He turned and winked at Eduardo. “Perhaps a little too fond sometimes.” Eduardo went pale and fled to the kitchen, and Manny turned back to us with a huge crocodile smile. “Do try one, though, won’t you?”

“I’m afraid to bite one,” Vince said. “They’re so perfect.”

“And I’m afraid they might bite back,” I said.

Manny showed off a few dozen teeth. “If I could teach them that,” he said, “I would never be lonely.” He nudged the plate in my direction. “Go ahead,” he said.

“Would you serve these at my wedding?” I asked, thinking perhaps somebody ought to find some kind of point in all this.

Vince elbowed me, hard, but it was apparently too late. Manny’s eyes had narrowed to little slits, although his impressive dental work was still on display. “I do not serve,” he said. “I present. And I present whatever seems best to me.”

“Shouldn’t I have some idea ahead of time what that might be?” I asked, “I mean, suppose the bride is allergic to wasabi-basted arugula aspic?”

Manny tightened his fists so hard I could hear the knuckles creak. For a moment I had a small thrill of hope at the thought that I might have clevered myself out of a caterer. But then Manny relaxed and laughed. “I like your friend, Vic,” he said. “He’s very brave.”

Vince favored us both with a smile and started to breathe again, and Manny began to doodle with a pad and paper, and that is how I ended up with the great Manny Borque agreeing to cater my wedding at the special discounted price of only $250 a plate.

It seemed a bit high. But after all, I had been specifically instructed not to worry about money. I was sure Rita would think of some way to make it work, perhaps by inviting only two or three people. In any case, I didn’t get a great deal of time to worry about mere finances, as my cell phone began its happy little dirge almost immediately, and when I answered I heard Deborah say, without even attempting to match my cheery hello, “I need you here right away.”

“I’m awfully busy with some very important canapés,” I told her. “Can I borrow twenty thousand dollars?”

She made a noise in her throat and said, “I don’t have time for bullshit, Dexter. The twenty-four hours starts in twenty minutes and I need you there for it.” It was the custom in Homicide to convene everybody involved in a case twenty-four hours after the work began, to make sure everything was organized and everyone was on the same page. And Debs obviously felt that I had some kind of shrewd insight to offer—very thoughtful really, but untrue. With the Dark Passenger apparently still on hiatus, I didn’t think the great light of insight would come flooding in anytime soon.

“Debs, I really don’t have any thought at all on this one,” I said.

“Just get over here,” she told me, and hung up.