“Or Seventh-Day Adventists,” Bubba said.

I looked at him.

“Oh.” He held up a hand. “Sorry.”

I bent down by John, placed my elbows on his knees, and looked up into his face.

“Okay, John. Here’s the important question. And don’t even think about lying to me.”

“That would be bad,” Bubba said.

John glanced nervously at Bubba, then back at me.

“John,” I said, “what happened to Desiree Stone?”

11

“Desiree Stone,” Angie repeated. “Come on, John. We know she was treated by Grief Release.”

John licked his lips, blinked. He hadn’t spoken in over a minute and Bubba was getting restless.

“John,” I said.

“I know I had a lighter around here somewhere.” Bubba looked bewildered for a moment. He patted his pants pockets, then suddenly snapped his fingers. “Left it downstairs. That’s what I did with it. Be right back.”

John and Manny watched him jog toward the stairs at the end of the loft, the hammering clunk of his combat boots echoing off the beams overhead.

As Bubba disappeared downstairs, I said, “Now you’ve done it.”

John and Manny looked at each other.

“He gets like this,” Angie said, “you never know what he’ll do. He tends to get, you know, creative.”

John’s eyes spun in their sockets like saucers. “Don’t let him hurt me.”

“Not much I can do, if you don’t tell us about Desiree.”

“I don’t know anything about Desiree Stone.”

“Sure you do,” I said.

“Not like Manny does. Manny was her primary counselor.”

Angie and I swiveled our heads slowly, looked at Manny.

Manny shook his head.

Angie smiled and walked over to him. “Manny, Manny, Manny,” she said. “The secrets you keep.” She tilted his chin until he was looking in her eyes. “’Fess up, muscle boy.”

“I have to take this shit from that psychotic, but I ain’t taking it from no fucking girl.” He spit at her and she leaned back from it.

“My,” she said. “You get the feeling Manny spends way too much time at the gym? You do, don’t you, Manny? Lifting your little weights and pushing smaller guys off the StairMaster and telling all your steroid buddies about the bimbo you used and abused the night before. That’s you, Manny. That’s you all over.”

“Hey, fuck you.”

“No, Manny. Fuck you,” she said. “Fuck you and die.”

And Bubba came bounding back into the room with an acetylene torch screaming, “Suc-cess! Suc-cess!”

Manny screamed and bucked against his ropes.

“This is getting good,” one of the Twoomey brothers said.

“No!” Manny shrieked. “No! No! No! Desiree Stone came to the Therapeutic Center on November nineteenth. She, she, she was depressed because, because, because—”

“Slow down, Manny,” Angie said. “Slow down.”

Manny closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his face drenched in sweat.

Bubba sat on the floor and fondled his acetylene torch.