“Hell, Danny’ll fix you something,” Visser said. “C’mon. And you kinda stink, so throw your stuff in the washer. I’ll go see about Pat, later on . . .”

“Gonna need a vet,” Virgil said. “He was locked down there for days.”

“I got a vet,” Visser said. “You c’mon, eat. And, Wardell, you need something to eat, too. You can’t eat any more of that shit from the store.”

“I resemble that remark,” Holland said.

Visser herded them inside. Virgil went to take a shower and change clothes; Danielle got his clothes and carried them away while he was still in the shower. He wasn’t particularly body shy, and she apparently wasn’t easily impressed, so that’s what happened, and without unnecessary commentary. When Virgil made it back to the kitchen, she’d warmed up leftover meat loaf and nuked a bag of frozen french fries.

“I’m going out to the shelter with Roy,” she told Virgil. “I know Pat.”

The food wasn’t great, but it was hot, and tolerable when covered with ketchup, and Holland rambled on about the Marian apparitions being a mixed blessing: “If they hadn’t happened, Glen would probably still be alive.”

“Maybe, but the town would be dead,” Roy Visser said, “And you’d still be sitting in that double-wide shooting flies.” To Virgil: “I suspect he shoots them sitting, but he claims he wing-shoots them.”

“I’d never shoot a sitting fly,” Holland said.

“That’s not what Skinner told me,” Danielle said.

Roy Visser’s eyes narrowed, and he asked, “You been talking to Skinner?”

“Shut up, Roy. He’s a nice boy.”

“He’s screwed half the women and girls in town, and I don’t want him messing around in my territory,” Roy Visser said. “But I would like to know what that boy’s magic is.”

“You don’t need to know,” Danielle Visser said. “You already got me.”

“And the answer’s simple,” Holland said.

They all waited.

“He likes women,” Holland said.

Roy Visser and Virgil looked at each other, then Virgil said, “We all like women.”

“Yeah, but Skinner really likes women. Not just sex. He likes women. Young women, old women. I’ve seen him bullshitting ninety-year-olds. Making them laugh, too. Getting a twinkle from them.”

Roy Visser said, “Whoa! That’s kinda nasty.”

“I didn’t say he was screwing them. He likes them and they know it. That’s his whole secret.”

They contemplated that, then Danielle Visser said to her husband, “Let’s go get Pat. All you men can think about is Skinner liking women and what you might learn from it.”

—