‘Hey, Daddy, do you prefer your women shaved?’

‘Huh?’

Lilith spreads her legs. ‘My late husband used to insist I shave my pubes. He’d say, “Lilith, I hate that nappy nigger hair.” What do you think?’

‘Lemonade time,’ sings Merchant, shattering the tension. He hands a glass of ice-cold lemonade to Virgil, the heavy condensation dripping.

Virgil drains it in one continuous gulp.

‘So, Daddy, now that you’ve paid your debt to society, where will you live?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘You can’t go back to Belle Glade, I torched that place to the ground.’

‘He could stay here,’ Ben suggests. ‘We’ve got plenty of room.’

Virgil rubs sweat from his eyes, feeling a bit light-headed. ‘I’d love to stay, you know, but only if ya’ll wanted me.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ Lilith says, toying with him. ‘What could you do around here? Could you garden?’

‘Uh, I suppose.’

‘We have a gardener,’ reminds Ben.

‘Ben’s right. And we have a cook and a chauffeur, even a helojet pilot. But you know what we don’t have? We don’t have a man.’

‘A man?’

‘You know, someone who I can use for sex when I get bored with my vibrator. Think you could satisfy me, Daddy?’

Virgil’s heart pounds in his ears.

Ben nods. ‘Whenever possible, your daughter always prefers to keep things in the family.’

‘So what do you say, Daddy? Are you, excuse the pun, up for the job?’

A guttural reply squeezes out his throat. ‘Yes.’

‘Hear that, Ben? My father just got out of prison for killing my mother, but he’s ready to step up and bang his little girl for free room and board. And you said this wouldn’t work out.’

Merchant bellows a laugh, the sound echoing strangely in Virgil’s head.

The deck spins sideways. A dull pain fills Virgil’s left eye. The empty lemonade glass falls from his hand, shattering on impact.

Virgil Robinson falls sideways over the lounge chair, unconscious.

‘Wake up, Daddy …’

Virgil opens his eyes … and pukes.

He is on a boat—no, not exactly on the boat, he is dangling over the transom of a boat, his arms and legs tightly bound to a cross-shaped object pressing into his spine and shoulders.

Looking up, he sees a heavy nylon rope attached to the cross, part of a large winch used to raise and lower the yacht’s skiff.

He moans, the nausea rising again.

Three-foot seas lap at his ankles. His bare feet, now underwater, feel numb, as if they’ve been submerged for quite some time.

Lilith, dressed in a black bikini, leans out over the rail and licks the back of his neck. ‘Mmm … I taste fear. Don’t be afraid, Daddy.’

‘What … what are you—’

‘Putting you out of my misery.’

‘Huh? You insane, girl!’