Oxnard snapped, ‘Lady – unless you perform in front of this child – then this child is going to perform in front of you. And let me tell you one thing from personal experience – only one personal experience, mind you, but one is quite enough – dying is a very much less pleasing performance than fucking.’

‘You’ve killed someone before?’ asked Season, coldly.

Oxnard nodded. ‘That’s right. Now, strip off.’

Carl said, ‘Listen, you, whatever your name is. There’s no way. You hear me? There’s absolutely no way.’

Oxnard said, ‘They call me Oxnard, if you must know, on account of the fact that I come from Oxnard. My real name is Charles.’

‘Isn’t he too much?’ giggled one of the Angels. ‘Charles, for Chrissake.’

There was a fraught silence. Then Season, with complete dignity, unbuttoned her white broderie anglaise sundress and shrugged it off her shoulders. Underneath, she was naked, her skin still that bright bronze colour of a fresh suntan. Oxnard smiled, and the rest of the Angels whistled and laughed.

‘You can do what you want,’ said Season, tightly. ‘But you’ll have to take my daughter out of here.’

Oxnard thought about it for a while, and then said, ‘Okay. It’s a reasonable, clean, one hundred per cent American request. Carlo – you want to take the gun, and Shirley Temple here, and keep her out of the living-room until I call you? But one thing. If I tell you to waste her, you waste her, and quick. Let’s not make any mistakes about that.’

The Angel with the frizzy hair took the Magnum, gripped Sally’s wrist, and pushed her out of the kitchen. He grinned at Season as he passed by, and said, ‘Nice tits, lady. Real nice tits. I’ll catch you later.’

Sally, swallowing in fear, said, ‘Mommy! Mommy – what are they going to do?’ but Season simply shook her head, and tried to smile. There were too many tears choked up in her throat for the words to come out.

Oxnard rapped to Vee, ‘Come on, honey. You too. Get it all off.’

Vee hesitated for a moment, but then she tugged her pink sundress over her head, and dropped it to the floor. She was even skinnier than Season, with a dark mahogany suntan from years in California. There were faint semi-circular scars under her breasts where she had them had lifted.

Oxnard looked appreciatively from one sister to the other. ‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘isn’t that the neatest pair of canyon-dwelling women you ever saw?’

Carl held his hand across his mouth as Oxnard stripped off his jacket, unbuckled his belt, and kicked off his pants. Oxnard nodded to the tallest Angel, who wore a soiled red rag around his head, and said, ‘Hold that flake. Hold him tight. And if he tries to make trouble, break his festering fingers.’