“Or planning to set him up for the murders,” I said.

Hill was insisting that the “goddamn artist” had something to do with the machine’s problems, but the others weren’t listening, Bobby said. “Dessusdelit told him she knew all about the problems between you and Hill. She said that if they wanted to get out of this trouble, they had to stop fantasizing and understand that they caused the problems themselves, by making a mistake, and now they have to straighten it out themselves.”

“Sounds like she’s recovering herself,” I said to LuEllen when I passed on Bobby’s information.

“It also sounds like she’s going to be out of her house tonight,” LuEllen said.

We argued about whether to hit Dessusdelit, and LuEllen won.

“Look,” she said, “the heart of the machine is Ballem, St. Thomas, Hill, and Dessusdelit. We know we can take Hill and St. Thomas, because the cops have the bodies, and we have the photos. We already ripped Ballem for those stamps, and now we’re siccing the IRS on him; plus he’ll be tarred with the killings whether or not he’s convicted of them. But Dessusdelit-Dessusdelit slides free, unless the IRS gets her for evasion or the state gets her on a corruption charge. That’s not enough. But if we take her stash, we take her heart out. Everybody says that she lives for money. Even the cards said so, didn’t they?”

“The cards are bullshit,” I said.

“Yeah, right.”

LuEllen took Dessusdelit by herself. The house was an easy target the first time, and it was easy the second. It was, however, a little tough to watch, so we watched Ballem’s instead.

Dressed in navy blue sweats and running shoes, we parked in the country club lot - there was a dance going on, and the lot was full - and jogged along the edge of the golf course to a small copse of trees off the third tee. From there we were looking right down at Ballem’s front door. Hill arrived first, a little before nine, and then Dessusdelit walked in. We jogged back to the car, called Dessusdelit’s place from a pay phone, and, when we got no answer, nipped off the receiver.

As we drove down to Dessusdelit’s, LuEllen unscrewed the car’s dome light, so it wouldn’t come on when the door opened. I took the car into the cul-de-sac, as though lost, and slowly rolled through the turning circle. When we passed Dessusdelit’s driveway, I stopped just for a second, said, “Go,” and LuEllen rolled out the back door. She pushed it shut before she crawled away, and I continued out onto the road.