"No, it isn't."

She paced some more. Boxed and muttered.

I said, "Let me go over what I told you last week. You're here because your father wants you to visit him in jail. My job is to find out how you feel about that, so I can tell the judge."

"Why doesn't the judge ask us?"

"He will," I said. "He'll be talking to you, but first he wants me to-"

"Why?"

"Because that's my job- talking to kids about their feelings. Finding out how they really-"

"We don't want to see him," said Tiffani. "He's an insument of Satan."

"An-"

"An insument! He laid all down with Satan and became a sinful spirit. When he dies, he's going to burn in hell, that's for sure."

Chondra's hands flew to her face.

"Stop!" said Tiffani. She rushed over to her sister, but before she got there, Chondra stood and let out a single, deep sob. Then she ran for the door, swinging it open so hard it almost threw her off balance.

She caught it, then she was out.

Tiffani watched her go, looking tiny and helpless.

"You got to tell the truth," she said.

I said, "Absolutely. But sometimes it's hard."

She nodded. Now her eyes were wet.

She paced some more.

I said, "Your sister's older but it looks like you take care of her."

She stopped, faced me, gave a defiant stare, but seemed comforted.

"You take good care of her," I said.

Shrug.

"That must get hard sometimes."

Her eyes flickered. She put her hands on her hips and jutted her chin.

"It's okay," she said.

I smiled.

"She's my sister." She stood there, knocking her hands against her legs.

I patted her shoulder.

She sniffed, then walked away.

"You got to tell the truth," she said.

"Yes, you do."

Punch, jab. "Pow poom… I wanna go home."

• • •

Chondra was already with Evelyn, sharing the front seat of the thirty-year-old, plum-colored Chevy. The car had nearly bald blackwalls and a broken antenna. The paint job was homemade, the color nothing GM had ever conceived. One edge of the car's rear bumper had been broken and it nearly scraped the ground.

I got to the driver's window as Tiffani made her way down the steps from the landing. Evelyn Rodriguez didn't look up. A cigarette drooped from her lips. A hardpack of Winstons sat on the dashboard. The driver's half of the windshield was coated with greasy fog. Her fingers were busy tying a lanyard keychain. The rest of her was inert.

Chondra was pressed up against the passenger door, legs curled beneath her, staring at her lap.

Tiffani arrived, making her way to the passenger side while keeping her eyes on me. Opening the rear door, she dove inside.

Evelyn finally took her eyes off her work, but her fingers kept moving. The lanyard was brown and white, a diamond stitch that reminded me of rattlesnake skin.

"Well, that was quick," she said. "Close that door now, don't kill the battery."

Tiffani scooted over and slammed the door.

I said, "The girls haven't started school yet."

Evelyn Rodriguez looked at Tiffani for a second, then turned to me. "That's right."

"Do you need any help with that?"

"Help?"

"Getting them started. Is there some kind of problem?"

"Nah, we been busy- I make 'em read at home. They're okay."

"Planning to send them soon?"

"Sure, when things calm down- so what's next? They have to come again?"

"Let's try again tomorrow. Same time okay?"

"Nope," she said. "Matter of fact, it isn't. Got things to do."

"What's a good time for you, then?"

She sucked the cigarette, adjusted her glasses, and placed the lanyard on the seat. Her slash lips twitched, searching for an expression.

"There are no good times. All the good times already been rolled."

She started the car. Her lips were trembling and the cigarette bobbed. She removed it and turned the wheel sharply without shifting out of park. The car was low on steering fluid and shrieked in protest. The front tires swung outward and scraped the asphalt.

"I'd like to see them again fairly soon," I said.

"What for?"

Before I could answer, Tiffani stretched herself out along the back seat, belly down, and began kicking the door panel with both feet.

"Cut that out!" said Mrs. Rodriguez, without looking back. "What for?" she repeated. "So we can be told what to do and how to do it, as usual?"

"No, I-"

"The problem is, things are upside down. Nonsensical. Those that should be dead aren't, and those that are, shouldn't be. No amount of talking's gonna change that, so what's the difference? Upside down, completely, and now I got to be a mama all over again."

"He can write a book," said Tiffani. "So that-"

Evelyn cut her off with a look. "You don't worry yourself about things. We got to be heading back- if there's time, I'll get you an ice cream."

She yanked the gear lever down. The Chevy grumbled and bucked, then drove off, rear bumper flirting with the road.

• • •

I stood there a while, sucking up exhaust fumes, then went back up to the house, returned to the library, and charted:

"Strong resistance to eval. on part of m.g.m. T overtly angry, hostile to father, talks in terms of sin, retribution. C still not communic. Will follow."

Profound.

I went to the bedroom and retrieved Ruthanne Wallace's police file.

Big as a phone book.

"Trial transcripts," Milo had said, hefting it as he handed it over. "Sure isn't because of any hotshot detection. Your basic moron murder."

He'd pulled it from Foothill Division's CLOSED files, filling my request without question. Now I flipped pages, not knowing why I'd asked for it. Closing the folder, I took it into the library and crammed it down into a desk drawer.

Ten in the morning and I was already tired.

I went to the kitchen, loaded some coffee into the machine, and started going through the mail, discarding junk mail, signing checks, filing paper, then coming to the brown-wrapped package that I'd assumed was a book.

Slitting the padded envelope, I stuck my hand in, expecting the bulk of a hardcover. But my fingers touched nothing and I reached deeper, finally coming upon something hard and smooth. Plastic. Wedged tightly in a corner.

I shook the envelope. An audiocassette fell out and clattered onto the table.

Black, no label or markings on either side.

I examined the padded envelope. My name and address had been typed on a white sticker. No zip code. No return address either. The postmark was four days old, recorded at the Terminal Annex.

Curious, I took the tape into the living room, slipped it into the deck, and sank back onto the old leather couch.

Click. A stretch of static-fuzzed nothing started me wondering if this was some sort of practical joke.

Then a shock of noise killed that theory and made my chest tighten.

A human voice. Screaming.

Howling.

Male. Hoarse. Loud. Wet- as if gargling in pain.

Unbearable pain. A terrible incoherence that went on and on as I sat there, too surprised to move.

A throat-ripping howling interspersed with trapped-animal panting.

Heavy breathing.

Then more screams- louder. Ear-clapping expulsions that had no shape or meaning… like the soundtrack from the rancid core of a nightmare.

I pictured a torture chamber, shrieking black mouths, convulsing bodies.

The howling bore through my head. I strained to make out words amid the torrent but heard only the pain.

Louder.

I leaped up to turn down the volume on the machine. Found it already set low.

I started to turn it off, but before I could, the screaming died.

More static-quiet.

Then a new voice.

Soft. High-pitched. Nasal.