Up in the hills, in Topanga Canyon, Wednesday morning was as quiet and sunny as any other day. Only when Season stepped out through the french doors to join Carl and Vee on the pooldeck could she see the distant dark plumes of smoke which hung over Los Angeles like the black feathers of an old-fashioned funeral. And there was the smell, too – like burning cushions.
Carl was dressed in a white safari suit, and he was already halfway through a large tumbler of tequila, with salt around the rim. Vee was wearing a pink sun-dress and sandals, and she looked as if she hadn’t slept.
‘No calls?’ Season asked. ‘I didn’t think I was going to get to sleep at all, until you gave me those pills. They’re amazing.’
‘You feel better?’ asked Carl. Then he glanced at Vee, and said, ‘No, there were no calls. They mentioned Ed on the news once, but only to say that there wasn’t any sign of him yet. I should think the police have got their hands full without looking for people who can usually take care of themselves.’
‘Well, that’s Ed all right,’ said Season, rubbing her elbow as if she were cold, and giving Carl an uncomfortable smile.
‘Do you want breakfast?’ asked Vee. ‘I’ll have to cook it myself. Maria hasn’t arrived yet.’
‘Has she phoned you? I mean, she’s all right?’
Vee shook her head. ‘I don’t know. There was a whole lot of shooting last night, especially around Palms and Culver City. I just hope – well, I just hope I didn’t make a mistake, letting her go see her mother.’
‘Have you called the police?’ asked Season.
Carl took a mouthful of cold tequila, and grimaced. ‘The police lines are permanently busy. We’ve been taking turns dialling Maria’s mother’s house, too, but we can’t get any reply. I expect she’s okay. She’s a sensible girl. But, my God, I never thought I’d live to see the world like this. Just look at those damn fires.’
Season walked across to the breakfast table and sat down. There were two burned-down joints in the ashtray, and two empty plates with the greasy remains of bacon and scrambled egg on them. She looked up at Vee, and she had to half-close her eyes against the winking reflections from the pool.
‘Vee,’ she said, ‘I’m thinking of trying to make it back to South Burlington.’
Vee stared at her. ‘Are you crazy? What do you want to go back to South Burlington for?’
‘For Ed. If he’s going to go anyplace at all, he’ll go to his farm.’
‘But why, Season? You came out here to get away from Ed. You came out here because you couldn’t take Kansas any longer. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how bad you were just a week ago? You were in pieces! And now you want to go back?’
Carl put in, ‘Apart from that. Season, think of the danger. There’s no way you could possibly take Sally along with you, for starters. And you couldn’t fly. They said on the news this morning that all flights out of LAX and Burbank have been cancelled, at least until the weekend, and private flying has been restricted to essential flights only. Come on, Season – the freeways are jammed solid by day, there are curfews in almost every single state at night – you’d never find anyplace to stay, or anyplace to hide.’
‘Carl—’ began Season, but Carl raised his hand to quieten her.
‘There are vigilantes out there. Season. Looters, hoodlums, rapists, you name it. And if they don’t get you, the police or the National Guard probably will. I’m telling you straight, you wouldn’t only be ill-advised if you went, you’d be dead, and I don’t want to see Sally without a mother or Vee without a sister. Or me without a sister-in-law, if it comes to that.’
Vee squatted down beside her and said earnestly, ‘He’s right, honey. You can’t even think of going. If Ed wants to get back to you, you’re going to have to leave it to him.’
‘I feel like I’ve deserted him, just when he needed me most,’ said Season. ‘Didn’t you see the way he looked on television on Sunday? He looked so sincere, so straight. He was saying what he believed was right, and that’s the way he’s always been.’
‘I know he has,’ argued Vee. ‘But think about it. Sincere and straight may be the breakfast of champions, but they may not be what you really need in your man. There is so much else required in a one-to-one relationship apart from sincere and straight. What about alluring? What about devious? What about irritating? Provoking? Expansionising? Season – you can’t stand there like some suburban housewife from San Fernando and tell me that you and your female identity don’t require more out of a marriage than sincere and straight? Can you?’
Season lowered her eyes. She looked at the joints in the ashtray and the egg scrapings on the plates. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I guess I can’t. I guess I do need more than Ed can give me.’
‘So you’ll stay?’
‘What about food? Things are going to be pretty lean from here on in. I can’t take the food out of your mouth. Nor yours, Carl, whatever you say.’
‘We’re pretty well stocked up here,’ smiled Carl. ‘Vee never did like marketing, so I guess we’ve got ourselves enough steak to last us through till Christmas.’
‘We’ve even got a turkey for Thanksgiving,’ said Vee. ‘I bought two last year, and froze one of them.’
‘Let’s hope we still have something to give thanks for,’ Season said, and the tears that blurred her eyes were only partly provoked by the sunshine that skipped and dazzled on the pool. She was thinking of Ed, too, and even though they’d only been apart for a week – even though she’d begun to find a strange new energy in herself through the sexual and emotional stimulation of Granger Hughes – she missed Ed badly. She could just picture Ed raising his eyes from a copy of one of his tedious agricultural magazines and smiling at her with that amused, warm expression that meant I love you, and nobody else.
She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. ‘I guess I’d better go see what Sally’s doing,’ she said. She attempted a smile. ‘You’re very good to me, both of you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
‘You’re family,’ said Carl, as if that explained everything.
Season went back inside the house. Carl had switched off the air-conditioning, in response to a plea from the Mayor to save as much energy as possible, but there was a crosswise wind blowing that morning from the ocean, and it was tolerably cool. She called, ‘Sally? Are you dressed yet? Auntie Vee wants to know if we’d like some breakfast.’ There was no answer. She called, ‘Sally? Sally, are you upstairs?’
Again, there was silence. She frowned. She had seen Sally only a few minutes ago, taking off her pyjamas and laying out her new blue-chequered sun-dress. She said, ‘Sally?’ more quietly this time, and walked slowly towards the stairs.
She was just about to put her foot on the first stair when Sally’s voice from the kitchen said, ‘Mommy!’ in such an odd and off-key way that Season froze. She felt as if someone had slowly poured a carafe of ice-cold water down her back. Her hair tingled and even her nipples rose.
‘Sally?’ she asked, in a trembly voice. Then she was rushing along the corridor into the kitchen and screaming, ‘Sally! Sally – what’s wrong?’
She burst through the white louvred kitchen door and there they were. Five of them – tall, greasy-haired, dressed in black leather jackets, with chains and studs and pointed insignia – all of them except for the one who was holding Sally, who was blond and almost angelic-looking, and who was wearing a pale blue denim two-piece suit, and a white shirt, and a pale blue bootlace tie. He was twisting Sally’s arm around behind her back, and gripping his forearm against her throat, and he was smiling.
‘Don’t do anything silly. Mommy,’ he grinned. ‘I shouldn’t like to have to waste your baby. She’s too pretty to die, don’t you think?’
Season stood where she was, shuddering, cold. ‘My God,’ she said, in a voice as splintered as pieces of broken mirror. ‘My God, if you hurt her—’
One of the angels snorted in amusement. ‘Kind of touching, hunh, Oxnard?’
‘Oh, very,’ said Oxnard. His face was white, much whiter than any of the others, and so the grime on his cheekbones where his motorcycle goggles had been was far more pronounced. ‘A really moving example of motherly love.’ Season stared at Sally in horror. The wide-open eyes, the same straight nose as Ed’s, the softness around the mouth that was hers. In her blue-check dress she looked as innocent and vulnerable a a baby bird.
‘Mommy,’ appealed Sally. ‘Mommy, he’s hurting me.’ Season looked at the Angel called Oxnard. ‘What do you want?’ she asked, in an intense whisper. ‘What is it you want?’
Oxnard kept on smiling. Another Angel, with frizzy hair and a faceful of red zits, started to mime the actions of playing a violin, and humming a sentimental tune. The others shuffled their feet and laughed.
Oxnard tugged his forearm a little closer under Sally’s chin. ‘What I want and what I need are two different things,’ he said, in that sly, smiling voice. ‘I need food. That’s what I need. You see, most of our friends have left LA, all lit out and left nothing. And there isn’t a single café or diner or hamburger stand left open in the whole festering city. So, I’m hungry; and so are my associates here, and we need food. That’s what we’ve come for, and that’s what we’ll be satisfied with. But… if you’re talking about what I want… that’s different. What I want is to shove seven inches of stiff intellectual pecker right down your gorgeous throat.’
Season stood rigid, the muscles in her cheeks pronounced, her thin fingers clenched into narrow fists.
‘My sister and her husband are outside,’ she said. ‘In a minute or two they’re going to miss me. They’re going to come looking, and what are you going to do then?’
Oxnard looked around at the rest of the Angels and then snorted. ‘You think we’re cowards? You think we’re scared of your sister and her husband?’
‘You’re cowardly enough to frighten a little girl,’ snapped Season.
‘Oh now, come along,’ said Oxnard, softly. ‘You know festering well why we’ve got your little girl. Nothing to do with cowardice. Just practicality, seeing as how every smug middle-class canyon dweller who’s afraid of being molested by real people has gotten himself a gun these days. And the best protection against the wild shooting of canyon dwellers is a child hostage, don’t you agree?’
Season said, ‘You’ll have to talk to my sister’s husband. He’s got the key to the freezer. If you want food, that’s where it is.’
Oxnard, still holding Sally tight against him, held out his free hand towards the Angel standing on his left. The Angel, unshaved, with the oddly flat face of a boxer, reached into his leather jacket and dragged out a huge black revolver. Oxnard took it, hefted it in his hand, and then pointed it directly at the top of Sally’s head.
‘Call him,’ he said. ‘Call your sister’s husband. Go ahead. And tell him that if he jumps, or rushes, or does anything sudden at all, then it’s going to be cortex omelette all round. You got me?’
Season stared at him, feeling as chilled as an ice queen. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked him. ‘You’re educated, aren’t you? Why?’
Oxnard grinned, ‘Education, as they always used to tell me, is nothing more than a tool for getting what you need out of life.’
He paused, and then he said, ‘And what you want.’ Season asked him, in a quivering voice: ‘You want me to do something for you? Would you let her go if I did that?’
‘Oho,’ laughed Oxnard. ‘Now we’re getting into it. Can I hear you actually offering?’
‘If it means you’ll let my daughter go, yes,’ said Season, simply. ‘Let her go, and make sure she doesn’t see what happens, and then you can do whatever you want.’
Oxnard looked down at the small girl he was pressing against his chest. ‘I need the food as well,’ he said, carefully. ‘Why don’t you call your sister’s husband first, and your sister, too.’
Season was silent for almost half a minute. Then she said, ‘That’s a deal, though, is it? Can I trust you that much?’ The Angels giggled, and Oxnard slowly shook his head. ‘You can’t trust me at all, honey buns. I’ve never made a commitment yet and I’m not about to make one now. But, sure, if that’s what you want to believe, then go right ahead and believe it. Now, call your sister’s festering husband, before I start to lose my patience. You don’t want to see this kitchen redecorated with the inside of your pretty little daughter’s head, do you?’
Season backed slowly across to the kitchen door. She didn’t take her eyes of Oxnard for one moment. She turned her head slightly, without turning her eyes, and called, ‘Carl! Carl!’
Carl and Vee came together. They could hear something was wrong but they didn’t know what, and by the time they walked into the kitchen it was too late to do anything about it. Carl looked around at the Angels lounging against his pine table, and his Neff oven, and his red custom-enamel sink unit, and said, ‘What the hell do you animals think you’re doing?’
Oxnard carefully and deliberately cocked his revolver. ‘You just watch who you’re calling an animal, you half-assed canyon dweller. I’ve already explained to Mommy here what it is we need, and what it is we want, and I think we’re pretty close to a deal.’
Season said, ‘Carl – they need food – they want cans and frozen stuff I guess – I had to tell them that you had the key to the freezer.’
Carl nodded. He went to the kitchen cupboard, hesitated and raised his hands so that Oxnard could see that he wasn’t playing games, and then opened the cupboard up. He took out a keyring with two small chrome keys on it, and tossed it over. The Angel with the boxer’s face caught it, and winked in appreciation. ‘Thanks, mister.’
‘That’s it, then,’ said Carl. ‘Take the food and let the girl go. Just take whatever you need.’
‘Well, that isn’t everything,’ said Oxnard, slowly. ‘The deal was that we take the food because we’re hungry. But we let the girl go because we’re going to have some fun with Mommy here. Not to mention Mommy’s sister.’
Carl lunged forward, red-faced. ‘You lay one filthy finger on—’ he started, but Oxnard thrust his revolver right up against Sally’s head and shrieked, ‘You want me to kill her? Right in front of you? Is that what you want? Jesus Christ!’
There was one split second when they were all mad with the fear and tension of what was happening – when Season could see nothing in front of her eyes but boiling scarlet and feel nothing in her nerves but total fright. Then, with a slow breath, Carl backed off, one step at a time, until he was standing beside Vee and Season, and breathing like a man who’s run a mile in five minutes.
‘What do you want to do?’ he asked, in an ashy voice. ‘Season? Vee? Can you live with any of this?’
Season said, ‘Carl, I’m going to have to. If I don’t live with it, then Sally’s going to die with it. And that’s all.’
She hesitated, and then she said, ‘Vee wasn’t any part of the deal, though. You hear me, Oxnard? My sister wasn’t any part of the deal. You can’t ask anything of her.’ Oxnard frowned. ‘I don’t understand you,’ he said. ‘It seems to me that as long as I’m holding a loaded Magnum up against your sweet little daughter’s head, I can ask anything of anybody who cares about her.’
Another cold pause. And then Vee turned pale-faced to Season, and said, ‘Season – we can’t let them kill her. For God’s sake.’
Carl growled, ‘You morons will die for this. I mean it. Every last one of you will die.’
‘He’s very dramatic, don’t you think so, Oxnard?’ one of the Angels asked, and Oxnard grinned and nodded.
‘He’s a thespian,’ said Oxnard.
‘A thespian?’ asked the Angel with wild hair and zits. “That’s right. That’s intellectual talk for over-aggressive, over-acting, worn-out, used-up, suburban asshole.’
‘Your gun makes you strong, that’s all,’ quivered Carl.
‘That’s right,’ agreed Oxnard. ‘It’s a good thing I’ve got it, don’t you agree? Now why don’t you go sit on that breakfast stool over there, and keep quiet, and why don’t you two ladies start stripping off ready? Huh?’
Season said, ‘Not in front of the child. You promised. I’m not doing anything in front of the child.’
Oxnard snapped, ‘Lady – unless you perform in front of this child – then this child is going to perform in front of you. And let me tell you one thing from personal experience – only one personal experience, mind you, but one is quite enough – dying is a very much less pleasing performance than fucking.’
‘You’ve killed someone before?’ asked Season, coldly.
Oxnard nodded. ‘That’s right. Now, strip off.’
Carl said, ‘Listen, you, whatever your name is. There’s no way. You hear me? There’s absolutely no way.’
Oxnard said, ‘They call me Oxnard, if you must know, on account of the fact that I come from Oxnard. My real name is Charles.’
‘Isn’t he too much?’ giggled one of the Angels. ‘Charles, for Chrissake.’
There was a fraught silence. Then Season, with complete dignity, unbuttoned her white broderie anglaise sundress and shrugged it off her shoulders. Underneath, she was naked, her skin still that bright bronze colour of a fresh suntan. Oxnard smiled, and the rest of the Angels whistled and laughed.
‘You can do what you want,’ said Season, tightly. ‘But you’ll have to take my daughter out of here.’
Oxnard thought about it for a while, and then said, ‘Okay. It’s a reasonable, clean, one hundred per cent American request. Carlo – you want to take the gun, and Shirley Temple here, and keep her out of the living-room until I call you? But one thing. If I tell you to waste her, you waste her, and quick. Let’s not make any mistakes about that.’
The Angel with the frizzy hair took the Magnum, gripped Sally’s wrist, and pushed her out of the kitchen. He grinned at Season as he passed by, and said, ‘Nice tits, lady. Real nice tits. I’ll catch you later.’
Sally, swallowing in fear, said, ‘Mommy! Mommy – what are they going to do?’ but Season simply shook her head, and tried to smile. There were too many tears choked up in her throat for the words to come out.
Oxnard rapped to Vee, ‘Come on, honey. You too. Get it all off.’
Vee hesitated for a moment, but then she tugged her pink sundress over her head, and dropped it to the floor. She was even skinnier than Season, with a dark mahogany suntan from years in California. There were faint semi-circular scars under her breasts where she had them had lifted.
Oxnard looked appreciatively from one sister to the other. ‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘isn’t that the neatest pair of canyon-dwelling women you ever saw?’
Carl held his hand across his mouth as Oxnard stripped off his jacket, unbuckled his belt, and kicked off his pants. Oxnard nodded to the tallest Angel, who wore a soiled red rag around his head, and said, ‘Hold that flake. Hold him tight. And if he tries to make trouble, break his festering fingers.’
Then Oxnard suddenly reddened, and shouted, ‘Okay! Okay! We’re going to have ourselves some fun here! You know what I mean? Fun! You come here, Mommy, and stand in front of this fancy sink. That’s right. Facing the window. Now, spread ’em. That’s right, spread ’em. You hear me! I want to see your ass!’
Chilly with fear. Season stood by the sink, gripping the draining-board, and staring sightlessly out of the window at the flickering palm trees in the front garden. Oxnard, wearing nothing now but his shirt, his bootlace tie, and a pair of dirty white moccasins, grasped the cheeks of her bottom and fondled them with hard, searching fingers.
‘Think you’re going to get out of this easy, huh?’ he whispered loudly in Season’s ear. His breath smelled of Scope. ‘Think you can just close your eyes and pretend that nothing’s happening, that it’s just another pecker in life’s never-ending parade of peckers? That’s what you think, huh? Well – let’s make it more difficult for you, shall we? Let’s make it a little more memorable.’
He turned around, and strode across the kitchen, absurd in his shirt and his sneakers, but somehow even more menacing because of his absurdity. Carl tried to push his way forward, but the tall Angel’s muscular grip pulled him back.
‘You’re crazy!’ shouted Carl. ‘You know that? You’re out of your polluted little brain!’
The tall Angel knocked him hard in the side of his head with his pointed knuckles, and Carl staggered. Vee, naked and defenceless, said, ‘For God’s sake, leave him alone!’ But the Angel simply bared his teeth at her in a mock-animal snarl.
Oxnard pulled open one kitchen cupboard after another, and dragged all the spices and cans and cups and bottles on to the floor, in a clattering cascade. Red pepper was sprayed across the tiles, along with sugar and coffee and broken china and scattered spoons.
‘Oil! That’s what I want! Oil!’ raged Oxnard. ‘Good, slippery, lubricating oil!’
In the end cupboard, by the ovens, he discovered a plastic bottle of Mazola. ‘There!’ he said, staring wildly from one Angel to the other. ‘A good clean US product for a good filthy unAmerican purpose!’
He turned around to Vee, and said: ‘Come here! Come on, you can have the privilege of joining in this little erotic stunt!’
‘Bastard!’ howled Carl. ‘Maniac!’ But the Angel punched him again, in the mouth this time, and knocked out one of his teeth. Carl spat strings of blood, and went down on to his knees. One of the other Angels was giggling so much by now that he sounded as if he was going to choke.
Seizing Vee’s wrist, Oxnard forced her to crouch down on the floor in front of the sink, right between Season’s wide-apart thighs.
‘Now, you’re sisters, aren’t you?’ breathed Oxnard. ‘You should get on well together, in every possible way. You can start giving her a tongue job, sweetie, while I start doing what I want to do.’
Vee blinked up at him in fright.
‘You understand what I’m saying!’ shrieked Oxnard. ‘Do it, or I’ll have that niece of yours blown to pieces!’ Shaking uncontrollably, Vee raised her face.
Above her, Season whispered, ‘Do it, Vee. It’s not going to harm us. I love you, and I always will.’
‘That’s right,’ smiled Oxnard. ‘Sisterly love, incarnate. Or should I say carnal?
‘Come on. Let’s see some enthusiasm down there. Let’s see you get your mouth round it!’
Vee began to weep, silently, but as she wept she did what she was told, and thrust her tongue deeper between her sister’s thighs. Oxnard watched her appreciatively for a while, then he asked Season under his breath, ‘You know what I’m going to do? That’s right, you guessed it. I’m going to do it, and I’m going to need your help, so when I start to push you’d better start pushing back.’
Season nodded dumbly, her eyes still closed. All she was thinking was: do it, do it, for the love of everything in the whole world do it, and then let me alone.
‘Push!’ commanded Oxnard. One of the Angels whooped, and said, ‘That’s doing it, Oxnard! That’s really doing it!’
‘Push!’ Oxnard shouted, even louder.
Season pushed, but her muscles were too clenched, and she couldn’t admit him even a half-inch. He furiously grabbed a handful of her hair, and wrenched it so hard that she could hear the roots tearing.
‘Push,’ he told her. ‘And this time don’t fight me. Because if you fight me, I’m going to kill your little girl, and you, too, and everybody in die whole festering house! You think the cops are going to care? The whole of LA is littered with dead people! You think they’re going to care about one or two more?’
Season fought back the panic which was rising in her chest. ‘Okay,’ she said, in a barely audible whisper. ‘If that’s what you want.’
Gradually, gritting her teeth, she opened herself up to him. He grunted with effort as he worked his way up inside her. She could feel nothing but intense, wincing pain, as her mind said yes, you have to, but her body resisted.
For a few seconds, the three of them were twisted and locked together in a painful tableau of mutual hatred and physical stress.
‘Isn’t this it!’ panted Oxnard. ‘Isn’t this it! Don’t you dumb screwed-up canyon-dwelling broads do anything for kicks? Don’t you know that a woman with any class would rather die than do this? You cheap cunts!’
From outside the house, without warning, there was a dull, echoless thump. Oxnard raised his head. ‘What was that?’ he said. ‘Gene – what the hell was that?’ Immediately, without any conscious effort. Season expelled him.
There was another thump, louder than the first. The Angel called Gene opened the kitchen door and went out on to the white-painted wooden landing outside. Season, clenched-up and shaking, backed away from the sink, and Vee climbed slowly to her feet.
‘Oxnard – it’s the bikes, dammit!’ yelped Gene. ‘Somebody’s blown up the bikes!’
Oxnard shouted, ‘What? What the hell do you mean?’ and stormed across to the door. Outside the house, on the driveway, the Angels had parked their five motorcycles; and now two of them were blazing fiercely.
That’s my bike!’ yelled Oxnard. ‘That’s my BMW, for God’s sake!’
He started to scamper down the wooden stairs, his shirt-tails flapping in the breeze. The Angel called Gene followed closely behind him. Together, they ran across the driveway until they reached the fiery motorcycles, shielding their faces against the flames. But it was far too late: the motorcycles’ polished chrome was already brown from heat, and the fuel tanks were spouting blazing fuel all over the cylinders. The air rippled, and there was a strong smell of burning rubber.
Oxnard turned around. ‘If those people did this—’ he raged. ‘If any one of those people did this—’
He didn’t get the chance to say any more. There was a sharp, distinctive crack, which any expert would have recognised as the report of a powerful hunting rifle. Oxnard’s shirt was blasted with a pattern of bright red blood, and he toppled backwards as if someone had given him a shove in the chest.
The Angel who had been holding Carl said, ‘What goes on out there?’ and took two or three steps towards the door. Carl lunged for the cutlery drawer, tugged it right out on to the floor with a crash, and scrabbled for a knife. The other Angel tried to stop him, but Carl shoved him away with his elbow. The Angel missed his footing, reached for the edge of the sink, and steadied himself. But then Carl was on top of him with maddened ferocity, both arms upraised, and a twelve-inch carving knife in each hand. The Angel raised one hand to protect himself, but Carl’s first carving knife chopped right through the palm of his hand and out through the back. The second knife caught the Angel in the side of the neck, and crunched almost six inches through solid muscle. The boy reeled, bleeding, and trying uselessly to shake the first knife out of his hand.
The tall Angel at the door had gone by now, running down the outside stairs and trying to reach his bike. There was another brisk rifle shot, and he staggered, tripped, and toppled sideways into a flower-bed, dying noisily amongst the azaleas.
Season, almost blind with fear, ran through to the living-room. She said, ‘Sally! Sally!’ in a voice that didn’t even sound like her own. But as soon as she saw what had happened, she slowed, and lowered her arms, and walked the rest of the way across the floor as if she were being filmed in slow-motion. She was suddenly aware of the sunlight, and the breeze, and billowy drapes that rose and fell.
Granger Hughes was standing in the centre of the room, smiling and holding Sally’s hand. The only sign that the Angel called Carlo had been there was his black Magnum revolver on the glass-topped coffee table, and a broken lampshade. As Season knelt down in front of Sally and reached out her arms for her, quivering with the fright of what had happened, her eyes glistening with tears, Granger laid his hands on both of them in what was almost a benediction.
A young man in a clipped brown beard and a black T-shirt came in through the french windows, holding a rifle over his arm.
‘That’s all of them,’ he reported, quietly.
Season hugged Sally closer, and cried. They both cried. Then Carl came in with Vee, dabbing his mouth with a bloody kitchen towel.
‘Are you okay?’ asked Granger.
‘Thanks to you, yes,’ said Carl. He looked down at his safari suit and realised it was splashed in squiggles of the Angel’s blood. ‘My God, I don’t know what happened. How did you get here?’
‘I was coming up this morning to see if you wanted to join us down at the Church of the Practical Miracle,’ said Granger, gently and almost absent-mindedly stroking Season’s hair. ‘When we drove up from the road, we saw the bikes. That’s all. We were suspicious about what was going on, so Helmut here went around the back to the pool-deck and saw one of the Angels in the living-room with Sally. The dull bulb had laid his gun down on the table; I guess he didn’t think he was going to get any trouble from a nine-year-old girl. So Helmut crept in behind him and gave him the benefit of five years’ karate lessons.’
‘Is he dead?’ asked Carl.
Helmut, the bearded one, rubbed his knuckles. ‘If he isn’t,’ he grinned, ‘he’ll be lying there wishing he was.’
‘Now then,’ Granger admonished him. ‘Love thine enemy, even in defeat.’
Carl pulled a Mexican blanket off the sofa, brought it across, and draped it around Season’s shoulders. Vee had already pulled on her sun-dress again, although it was back to front.
‘We’re all pretty shocked,’ Carl told Granger. ‘I guess Season and Vee are both going to feel like a good hot soak in the tub, and we’re all going to need a brandy. You’ll have to forgive us if we act a little odd. I thought we were all going to die for a moment there, and what these girls have been through doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘I’d like to stay and help, if I can,’ said Granger. ‘But won’t you think about coming down to join us? From what I hear, there are mobs attacking private houses all over. We saw five or six houses burning along Topanga Canyon alone.’
‘Is it really that serious?’ asked Vee, unsteadily.
‘Oh, it’s serious all right,’ nodded Granger. ‘And by the looks of it, it’s going to get a whole lot worse. Have you heard the news about all food less than three weeks old being contaminated? And I mean, all food.’
‘We heard it on the news,’ said Carl. ‘They said it was only a rumour – unconfirmed.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Granger, shaking his head. ‘I wish it were.’
Carl said: ‘So what’s your congregation going to do? Pool their food? Try to survive by sticking together?’
‘That’s right,’ said Granger. ‘From what I hear, groups of people are getting together all over the country for their mutual protection. I mean, Carl, there aren’t just Angels out there now, there are organised mobs of looters. And our particular advantage at the Church of the Practical Miracle is that one of my oldest friends is Mike Bull, who runs the Hughes supermarket on Highland. He has a whole stockroom of food down there which he managed to keep out of the hands of the looters. He called me last night and asked if I could get together about a hundred really trustworthy and responsible people, so that we could barricade ourselves in with all that food and try to weather this whole crisis through.’
‘What about the contaminated food?’ asked Vee.
‘That’s easy. Mike’s a supermarket manager, so he knows all the dating codes. He won’t feed us with anything risky.’
Season stood up. She was very pale, and for the first time she felt the acute muscular pain of what Oxnard had done to her. Reality was just beginning to jangle through the soundproofing of shock. ‘Can we really justify shutting ourselves in with all that food, while other people starve?’ she asked Granger. ‘Is that really what Christ would have advocated?’
Granger stared at her for a long moment. ‘Christ said. There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God’s sake. Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.’
He reached out his hand for her, but she did not take it, or acknowledge it. She said simply, ‘I was violated today by a man who seemed to believe that the only moral he had to observe before taking anything, or assaulting anyone, was that he should want to. The effect that his behaviour had on other people didn’t matter, as far as he was concerned. Shock them, frighten them – so what? Well, I’ll tell you so what. He hurt me beyond belief, and humiliated my sister in front of her husband. And I’m afraid the way you’re talking now, Granger, and the way you’ve acted towards me since I’ve been here – well, they’re both nothing more than less obvious and less offensive examples of the same moral attitude.’
She laid her arm around Sally’s shoulders, and said, ‘You saved Sally’s life, and you saved the rest of us, too. I’m very grateful, and it’s a debt I won’t ever be able to repay you. But as far as your Church is concerned, and as far as your own personality is concerned, I think I’ve seen them today for what they are – or at least for what they could be. I don’t like people who take what they want by force, Granger, and I don’t like people who believe that they are chosen by God, and free of the rules of kindness and sharing that are supposed to govern the rest of us. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’
Granger gave Helmut a backwards glance to see if he was listening, and then turned back to Season. ‘Quite a preacher yourself,’ he told her, with unexpected sourness. But then he smiled, remembering himself, and said solicitously, ‘Well – you’ve been through a bad time. I can understand that you’re feeling kind of off-balance. So the offer’s still open. You can come down to the supermarket and join us if you want – provided you get there before midnight tonight, because that’s when we’re going to start barricading ourselves in.’
‘Thank you,’ Season whispered.
‘As for that other stuff…’ went on Granger. ‘Maybe you’ll feel better when you’ve washed the stench of that animal off of you, and forgotten the stink of his breath.’
Season stood up straight, and the blanket slipped down her shoulders a little, baring her neck. ‘Actually,’ she said, almost hysterically, ‘he used Scope.’
Granger watched her lead Sally towards the staircase, walking awkwardly as an automaton and climb the stairs. He blinked at Carl and Vee in perplexity, and said: ‘Scope?’
Carl said: ‘Thanks for the rescue. Granger. I mean it, sincerely. You saved us. And you too, Helmut. And, Granger. Don’t worry too much about Season. If you went through what she’s just been through, and talked half as much sense, then you’d be twice the preacher you are now.’
‘Carl,’ said Granger, ‘I’m not sure that anybody’s talking sense. The whole darn world’s gone out of its head.’