Whitman shoved the tabs back into the cylinder, replaced it in Flix’s pack, and, rising, guided her to the rear of the plane. The galley was to their right, the toilet to their left. The flight attendant was sound asleep in her seat just in front of the closed door to the cockpit. Though they were alone, they stood very close together, speaking in whispers.

“I want to know what Flix is taking,” he said. “Do you know what polyprednaline is?”

“What do I look like, a pharmacist?”

Which gave Whitman the idea. He checked his watch, calculated where they were and backtracked the time in D.C. Just before five p.m. He pulled out his sat phone, dialed the number of Valient Pharmacy from memory. He waited patiently for someone to pick up, but got only a voice-mail message: “The pharmacy is closed at this time. Please call back during regular hours.” If five in the afternoon wasn’t regular hours, what was?

Utilizing the jet’s Wi-Fi, he typed Valient’s name and address into the Google page on his mobile’s browser. Nothing. Then he brought up Google Earth, inputted the full address, watched as the globe of Earth spun until it honed in on the United States, then D.C. On Connecticut Avenue, he switched to street view, searching for the address. The program stopped in front of the storefront at the address on the medication container: it was Valient Dry Cleaners. “Special Orders Welcome,” he read. Not as special as polyprednaline, he reckoned.

Charlie, witness to the search, said, “What the hell is going on?”

Whitman shook his head. “I wish I knew.”

“We’d better keep an eagle eye on your compadre from now on.”

“I’d trust Flix with my life.”

“Commendable, but in this case irrelevant,” Charlie said. “Is that man the Felix Orteño you knew?”

*   *   *

“You look like you’ve gained some much needed weight,” St. Vincent said on his next visit to the Bethesda Institute of Mary Immaculate. “That’s good.”

“I’m feeling much improved.” Lucy, having bribed one of the guards, had received advance notice of his visit, and had prepared herself. “Like a new woman.”

“Even better.” St. Vincent had not taken off his overcoat. His wrists lay on his knees, looking like weapons at rest.

They were in Lucy’s room, she sitting on the edge of her bed, he on a chair he had turned around from its place by the desk. As protocol dictated, the door was open to the hallway behind.

“I imagine you’d rather be seeing your uncle,” he said.

She cocked her head. “What gives you that idea?”

She could see that she had surprised him.

“Well, I don’t know, he’s family, after all.”

“I hate his guts,” Lucy said with no little venom. “I hate my mother.”

Frown lines appeared on his forehead. “You can’t mean that.”