He lifted an arm. “It’s such a beautiful day, why don’t we go for a walk?” Sister Margaret wouldn’t like that, but today it was necessary to speak with the girl in absolute privacy, and St. Vincent knew that in his world there was hardly a wall that didn’t have electronic ears.

She grabbed a light jacket and they went out the back, down the wide lawn toward the copse of murmuring pines where once the pond had beckoned the most deeply ill of the patients into its depths. Lucy had much to think about on that short stroll. When St. Vincent had lifted his arm, she had caught a glimpse of the tattoo on the inside of his wrist, and now she was more interested in him than ever.

“You’ve been given the all clear, Lucy,” he said as they paused to gaze at the swaying tops of the trees. “You can leave whenever you want.”

“Hella good. I don’t want to wait till my uncle gets back.” Lucy took a step closer to him.

St. Vincent was suddenly lost in contemplation of the past. He was recalling a time when he had stood next to his mother. She had just come off Christ’s stage, as she called the platform from which she addressed her congregants and took their money. Her arms and neck glistened with sweat, and she gave off a smell like a mare in heat that caused Luther’s nostrils to flare wide. She was a charismatic woman, but this hardly said anything about her, since all successful preachers were, by definition, charismatic. Her charisma was bound up in her sexuality, which emanated from her in waves so heady it could take your breath away. For the first time, Luther understood how utterly she drew the inner circle to her, engendering absolute loyalty in them. She put her arm around him, enveloping him in her scent, the side of one thrusting breast against his shoulder, and Luther grew so hard his phallus ached.

“You don’t worry about your uncle?” St. Vincent said, pulling himself back into the present.

She turned her face up to him. “Why should I? I don’t give a fuck whether he lives or dies.” This was all part of her plan to make him feel that she had only him, Luther, to rely on.

“Then I may have something for you.” She was standing so close to him their arms brushed. Tendrils of her hair, tossed by the breeze, caressed his cheek. “Would you want to work for me?”

“Fuck, yeah!”

His nostrils flared as he took in her scent.

*   *   *

The first explosions turned night to a comic-book day and took out the gates. Charlie was reminded of A Clockwork Orange. A bit of the old ultra-violence that kicked the living shit out of the occupants of the house called, appropriately enough, HOME.