‘April 27th… (a couch)… Despite all reason to the contrary, romance blooms between Harrison and Verret. I expect one morning I will walk onto the grounds and find a valentine containing their initials carved upon an oak. I’ve today received the package of information concerning Verret’s divorce proceeding. In layman’s terms, it might be said that Verret seems to have a penchant for losers. Her husband, one Charles Messier, a musician; apparently misused her physically: the divorce was granted on the grounds of physical and mental cruelty. I haven’t had time to study it in detail, but there are obvious similarities between the two men. Artistic avocation, both four or five years older than Verret, a general physical resemblance. Of course I am not yet clear how large a part these similarities play in what is now transpiring, but I am convinced we will soon begin to learn. The relationship is, I believe, at a stage of breakthrough… (a sigh)… I must admit to feelings of paternity toward Harrison and Verret in that I have served as their matchmaker… (a laugh)… It does not seem wholly improbable that we may one day be treated to the pageant of a nuptial, one of those such are consummated between prisoners and their loving correspondents - or, more aptly, between terminal patients and their fianc6es. I can easily imagine it. Verret, beautiful in white beneath the arching oaks. Harrison, his eyes ablaze, the lustful groom. And the priest intoning sonorously, “What Ezawa hath joined, let no man put asunder…’”
‘Is that right?’ Donnell smashed down the off switch. ‘To have this fat vulture perch in his crystal cave and drool over our libidos!’
Jocundra ejected the cassette and read Edman’s inscription: ‘Harrison, Verret - XVII.’ She turned it over in her hand; it was like holding a jar containing her appendix, a useless organ which once had poisoned her, but was now trivial, powerless. Leaving offered no secure hope, but neither did it offer the hopelessness of Shadows. They had no choice. At the very least, Edman was dangerously unethical, and it was probable he was mad, cunningly mad, passing his madness off as a clever form of sanity, infecting everyone and fooling even himself. It was, she thought, a little dreamlike to be doing something so extreme.
‘We’ll need money,’ she said. ‘I’ve got credit cards and… Why are you looking at me that way?’ ‘For a minute I thought I’d lost you,’ he said.
The engine caught, exploded to a roar, then died as Jocundra’s foot slipped off the clutch. Overanxious, she failed twice to restart it, but finally succeeded and backed the van until it was facing the drive and headed out. The headlights veered across the grounds, spotlighting a menagerie of leafy shapes, and the side mirror showed the house receding against the darkness, doll-sized, a lantern-lit confection of rose and white topped by a rhinestone bauble. Jocundra’s throat was dry. She had almost lost her resolve half a dozen times before they reached the parking lot, and Donnell’s plan for the gate -what little he had revealed of it - did nothing to bolster her confidence; her hands and feet, though, honored her commitment, working the gearshift and pedals seemingly without her cooperation. She pulled up close to the gate. Branches of the magnolia bush beside it scraped Donnell’s door. He slumped down, pretending unconsciousness. The headlights sprayed between the bars, playing over the glistening tarpaper of the gatehouse and the guard sidled forth, sleepily scratching his ribs. ‘What you want?’ he called. He yawned and blinked away the glare, settling his holster around his hips: a pudding-faced, pot-bellied man wearing chinos.
‘I’ve got an emergency!’ Jocundra called back, hoping to inject an appropriate desperation into her voice. ‘One of the orderlies! It’s his heart!’
‘I don’t see no doctor with you. Can’t let you by without no doctor.’ He waved her back to the house.
‘Get out!’ hissed Donnell. ‘Convince him!’
She climbed out. ‘Please,’ she said, pressing against the bars. ‘He’s had a coronary!’
The guard’s eyes flicked to her breasts. ‘I wish they’d get them damn phones straightened out. Awright.’ He punched a button set into the masonry, and the gate whined open a foot. He slipped inside, and she stepped out of his way, standing at the front of the van while he slapped the magnolia branches aside and shone the flashlight in the window to check on Donnell. Jocundra heard a rustle from the bush behind him and saw a pair of blazing green eyes emerging from the welter of white blossoms and waxy leaves. ‘This ol’ boy ain’t no orderly,’ said the guard, and something swooshed through the air and struck his neck, then struck again. Jocundra jumped back, coming up against the gate, and the guard fell backwards out of sight behind the van. In a moment Richmond stood, stuffing the. guard’s gun into his belt. Jocundra moved out onto the road, putting the bars between them.
