Vargas stood at the far end of room, arms folded across the golden pectoral that hung over his chest. The balloonlike hands of the flayed skin he wore dangled like obscene mittens, and gigantic gold ear plugs stretched his earlobes nearly down to his shoulders. He stood about four meters away, but even at that distance and even over the incense, my nostrils were overwhelmed by the reek of decay that clung to his costume. It smelled like a corpse that had lain in the sun for a week or more. But it wasn’t the smell that had brought me up short.