"A blumpy?"

"C'mon, really? A blow-job while the guy is on the toilet doing Number Twosies? Blow-job plus dumpy equals blumpy?"

Paul goes pale. "Oh."

"Yeah. Oh. Point is, you come from a place where kids do it, and nobody's surprised. I come from a place where your mother tells you how your lady-parts are really the Devil's mouth, and you don't feed the Devil, oh no. Feed the Devil and he wants more, more, more."

"You fed the devil."

"Just once. His name was Ben Hodge. We did the deed. And then he killed himself."

TWENTY

The Liars' Club

Miriam wants an orange Fanta so bad she can taste the chemical fake-fruit burn on the back of her tongue. But the machine is a Mello Yello, some kind of rip-off of Mountain Dew. She doesn't care. She wants what she wants, and she doesn't want to think about what she doesn't want to think about. Not that it matters, as she has no money for the machine. Oops.

She thinks, I want an orange soda. And I want vodka to mix into the orange soda. And, while we're at it, I'd also like to stop being able to see how people are going to bite it. Oh, and a pony. I definitely want a goddamn pony.

Her thoughts are so loud, she doesn't hear the car enter the parking lot.

Miriam presses her head to the machine. Then she sees it – a dollar bill.

"Bonus," she mumbles, reaching for it.

It's a ruse. A filthy lie. A fake dollar that, when opened, reveals a Jack Chick Christian tract. Some story about how playing games like Dungeons and Dragons is basically the same as suckling hell-milk from a demon's tit.

Miriam crumples it up, goes to throw it, and finds herself face-to-face with a gawky, bony Italian-looking dude in a trim black suit.

"Jesus Christ," Miriam says.

The Italian nods, though he is clearly nobody's Lord and Savior (despite a faint resemblance in the nose, which is so low and severe it could be a fishing gaff). Miriam sees a small woman approaching, a short chubby thing with black eyes like hot coals and a set of bangs that look like they were cut with a hedge trimmer and a ruler.

"Evening," the woman says.

"Scully," Miriam says to the woman. To the man, she nods: "Mulder."

"We're FBI," the tall fucker says.

"I guessed that. That was the joke." She clears her throat. "Never mind."

"I'm Agent Harriet Adams," the woman explains. "This is Agent Franklin Gallo. We'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Sure. Ask away. If you're looking for Christian propaganda in cartoon format, I got some of that sweet gospel right here." She opens her palm and shows them the crumpled Chick tract. Her heart is leaping in her chest like a spooked gazelle – she can hear her blood in her ears; she can feel the pulse in her neck pounding like a kick drum. Is this it? Has her past caught up to her? She wonders, how many cigarettes would she be worth in the slammer? All those orange jumpsuits and unshorn women. Shit. Fuck!