PROLOGUE

Not long ago a man who had been on the run for twenty years, altering his appearance, buying new birth certificates, commandeering new social security numbers, moving from one impersonal American city to another, and slipping back and forth across the country’s easy borders, confessed to having murdered several women with whom he’d had lengthy love affairs and voluntarily turned himself in for the killings. The women had all been attractive, accomplished, intelligent—one had worked for a bank, another had been a psychologist, another a film editor, another a graduate student at a university. They’d met the murderer through their work or while relaxing at cafes or bars, and he’d pleased them with his handsome looks, friendly smile, and artistic talent, as well as with the amusing stories he told about the good life he’d led as a boy in Latin America. They’d also felt sorry for him, for that good life had ended for him once he came to the United States, or so he said. Here, he’d become just another Latino, a victim of prejudice and restrictive visas, who’d had to hide from immigration authorities and take low-visibility and low-end jobs, work that was far beneath his abilities. The women were touched by his travails and enthralled by his charms. They dated him, took him home and to bed with them, introduced him to their friends and their parents, and had no idea that what lay in store for them when they decided to end their relationship with him was a knife in the chest, a nylon stocking tied around the throat, a brutal and fatal beating.

The murderer went by many names during his years on the lam, seventeen names in all. But his real name was Ricardo Caputo.