“I don’t know,” I said. “How do I sound when I laugh? Maybe it’s a man thing.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever heard you laugh.”

“Oh.”

“Should we kill them all?” Eigen asked.

I looked at her. “Kill them?”

“They’re bad, right. They hurt people, didn’t they? Killed people.”

I nodded. “I wouldn’t know how to kill someone,” I told her.

“We could shoot them. The way they did the priest.”

“We don’t have a gun. Do you think you could do that?”

She sighed and fell back against the wall. “I don’t know. Is there anyone who can help us?”

“Maybe Bill Clinton,” I said.

“President Bill Clinton?”

“No. Some kind of government agent. He’s working against Sill. I think he’s working against Sill. I don’t seem to know much of anything for certain.” I looked at the stairwell. “Let’s see if we can find a back door.”

“What about Trigo?”

“They killed Father Karras. They just killed ninety thousand people. Well, sort of. I mean, nothing happened to them. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

“We can’t leave without him,” she said.

“You’re right. Let’s try to get up to the second-floor bedrooms.”

The men laughed again. “To Fort Knox,” Sill said.

“Hear, hear! Yuk yuk yuk.”

We made our way quietly up the first flight of cigarette-smoke-infused carpeted stars. At the landing we could still hear the voices, but they were murky, indistinct; only the laughter was still clear. On the second floor we could hear nothing. We searched the rooms and did not find Trigo.

“We have to get out of here,” I said. “These people are dangerous.”

“Trigo,” Eigen called out softly.

“He’s not here. We’ll get help and find him later.”

Eigen followed me back down to the first floor and into the kitchen. An old Black man was arranging hors d’oeuvres on a platter. He looked at us with surprise, but without panic. He continued to work with the food while he talked. “Are you the ones they had tied up in the basement?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I see you got loose.”

“We did.”

“You ain’t got to worry. They never come into the kitchen. Heaven forbid one of them should come into the kitchen.”

“Can we get out this way?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Are there guards or agents outside?”

He chuckled. “This here is the vice president’s house. Nobody gives a fuck about the vice president. Y’all hungry?”

“We just want to get out.”

He looked at Eigen. “What about you, baby girl? You hungry?”

Eigen didn’t answer.

“Y’all need to eat.” He pushed the platter toward us on the counter. “Here. Have some. Sweet potato biscuits with smoked ham and apple butter.”

We each took one and ate it.

“This is wonderful,” Eigen said.

“My own recipe. You’d think one of them fat cats in there would ask me about that or tell me the food is good, but no. Motherfuckers too busy with important shit.”

“Thanks for the food,” Eigen said. “It really is good.”