“After dinner you can do another, an old one for me,” Beaumont says.

Sliding glass doors in nearly every room of the house open onto an interior courtyard. Dinner is served there, at a table set with a white cloth, black plates, and candelabras that look like silver snakes strangling one another. Tommy pours wine. The soup has lobster in it.

“So fancy,” Johona says.

“I don’t have many guests, so when I do, I go all out,” says Beaumont.

“You live here by yourself?”

“Tommy stays in the guest quarters and runs the house, but it’s still a lonely life. In fact, your visit, Johona, is the most exciting thing to happen to me in a long time.”

Johona blushes and says, “I doubt that.”

“You’re from Phoenix. How do you find it there?”

“It’s fine, but I’m on my way to L.A. now.”

“Los Angeles is a wonderful city. I lived in Hollywood for a time. Are you hoping to get into the movies?”

“Now you’re being funny.”

“You’re certainly pretty enough,” Beaumont says. “Isn’t she, Jesse?”

“Sure,” Jesse says.

“I always told Claudine that, under different circumstances, she could have been a star on the stage, and you’re as beautiful as she was.”

“She sounds like she was a special person,” Johona says. “Jesse speaks highly of her.”

“He hardly knew her,” Beaumont says, the sudden scorn in his voice making Jesse uneasy. “She and I traveled together for twenty years, the best twenty years of my life. She was a jewel, a rare jewel too valuable to be entrusted to the likes of Jesse. He was much too stupid to appreciate her.”

“I told you what happened,” Jesse says. “There was nothing I could do.”

“I grieve her still,” Beaumont says to Johona. “But now, look, you’ve come along, and though you’re not the original, there is value in an almost-perfect copy.”

The doors surrounding the patio all slide open at once, and big men and hard women in leather and denim step through them. The Fiends. Jesse stands, on the verge of panic. The rover he fought, the one who jumped off the cliff, slips behind Johona and lays a knife to her throat.

“Down, motherfucker,” he says to Jesse.

Jesse collapses more than sits, legs gone numb, and a short-haired blond woman puts a gun to his head. There are seven Fiends in total, guarding him, guarding Edgar. They check them for weapons, running their hands over their chests, around their waists, up and down their legs.

“Jesse?” Johona says, eyes wide with fear.

“It’ll be okay,” Jesse says. He turns to Beaumont. “You set me up?”