“I haven’t heard a peep, and I’m the early bird around here.”

“What about Hector?”

“Hector, he left.”

“You mean he quit?”

“I guess. He ain’t here.”

She’d save Hector till the doctor came down. “You going to put some clothes on?”

“I’ll be right back,” Elvin said. “Don’t go ‘way.”

She asked herself, Are you afraid of that? Watching him go up the stairs in his boots and undershorts, and answered, You bet I am. Holding on to her shoulder bag.

Kathy went back to the kitchen wondering about Hector. Down a hall past the laundry room she found the door to the garage. Two cars in there, a Lincoln and a Jag. She could imagine an argument with Dr. Tommy and Hector driving off in a snit. Maybe to stay with his mother or a friend, if he had one. Wait for the doctor to call. What she couldn’t imagine was Hector walking away from all this. Unless he was forced to. She would have to wait and talk to Dr. Tommy. Have Elvin bring him down. Make sure with clothes on.

She returned to the front hall to walk past the doctor’s abstract art, a painting done in silver she saw as hard smoke, a sculpture that could be a woman’s body with a hole in it, or it might be a doughnut. Something to think about. Decide if it made any difference… Kathy turned with the sound of heels clicking on the terrazzo floor.

Cowboy boots. Elvin, wearing a bright blue suit and his big straw, putting on a pair of sunglasses.

Kathy waited for him. “You going somewhere?”

He came toward her nodding. “We are. You’re gonna drive me.”

Leanne said, “Big, what I have to do first is remove all the psychic dirt that’s crusted on your body, built up there over the years.”

He asked her, “Will it hurt?”

“You’re an old scaredy-cat, aren’t you? No, it won’t hurt and you’ll feel lighter after, your body free of all that old static full of negative thoughts and emotions.”

He wondered if by “negative” she meant what were considered by some, dirty thoughts. Like having that little girl from the Port St. Lucie Shopping News in his mind, but no chance of it happening in real life, Leanne back in the house. They were on the screened porch this morning, seven a.m., Leanne in a white leotard and white hose, looking like an egg with arms and legs; the judge in a T-shirt and pants from his seersucker suit, both cotton, Leanne insisting he had to wear natural-fiber clothes for the cleansing or it wouldn’t work. He didn’t argue, still in shock from her homecoming.

“Once I clean you up,” Leanne said, “we’ll go outside and I’ll show you how to exchange energy with nature. It’ll do you good.”

Wasn’t that what he did growing orchids? “I communicate with it all the time.”

“I’m not knocking it, Big. I think it’s the only thing that has kept you whole. Oh,” she said, thinking of something else. “Please don’t tell me you’ve had a drink this morning.”

“Not yet I haven’t.”

“It doesn’t work if there’s alcohol in you.”

He wished he did, standing with his feet eighteen inches apart, knees slightly bent, the way Leanne had positioned him. She was behind him now.

“I’m hoping my body heat won’t interfere. I have to get close if I’m going to give you a good scraping.”

“You have to use the Epsom salts?”

A bowl of it sat on the table within reach.

“What I do after each scraping,” Leanne said, “is brush the psychic dirt from my hands into the bowl to be absorbed. Salt has been used for cleansing since the beginning of time. Maybe even longer, they’re not sure.”

He felt the side of her hand scraping down his back as she told him, “I have to be careful I don’t get any of your energy on me. See? I scrape my hand each time into the Epsom salts.”

“You gonna clean all my parts? I know one’s got rusty from not having been used.”

Leanne said, “Shhhhh.”

It was true. He could count on one hand the times he’d scored since Stephanie left. Well, maybe two. But, boy, he missed her. They had a routine, he’d walk up to her at the Helen Wilkes or wherever they were meeting and whisper in her ear, “What do you say to a little fuck?”

And Steph would turn to him and say, “Hi, you little fuck.” She was a big one. Outweighed him nearly twenty pounds. Ms. Bacar now, she was more his size.

Leanne said, “Your friend Kathy-”

And he jumped like she’d goosed him.

“What’s wrong?”

“You hit a tender spot there.”

This woman was spooky the way she seemed to read your mind. Like some little part of her otherworld airy-fairyness was real.

“I call her my messenger,” Leanne said, scraping away. “One that comes with glad tidings.”

Wesley blew his horn as they pulled out of the drive and turned north, away from him. Wesley letting her know he was alert, on the job. Elvin might have wondered about it, hunched down on the backseat, but didn’t say anything. He became talkative once they were heading west on Southern Boulevard, Elvin sitting up now, his face and part of his hat in the rearview mirror.

“Nice day, huh?”

Kathy didn’t answer.

“Yes, it is,” Elvin said. “I hope it don’t get too hot.”

She saw his face staring at the back of her head.

“Aren’t you curious why I want to see the judge?” He waited. “Or do you already know?”

About the only thing she wasn’t sure of this trip, how he was going to get back after.

“That was too bad what happened to your boyfriend. I wonder who done it.”

Her bag was on the seat next to her, the snap open. He’d had no reason to search her, knowing probation officers were unarmed. Ordinarily.

“I said I wonder who done it.”

She thought, Why antagonize him? Stared at the road thinking, Why not? And said, “I’m surprised you didn’t shoot him in the back.”

That was done.

She glanced at the mirror to see him moving, getting comfortable, fooling with his hat. It didn’t antagonize him. It made him happy that she knew.

“Why you think it was me?”

That was it. No more.

“‘Cause you know I have the nerve?”

She kept quiet. It was hard.

“I ain’t saying it was me, you understand. You can think what you want. The thing I can’t figure is what you saw in that dink. A hair puller? Shit, you can do better’n that.” He waited a few moments. “Don’t care to talk about it?”

She stared straight ahead, eyes on the road: light traffic in this direction, most of it coming in toward West Palm.

“You’re prob’ly thinking I done Hector too.”

She almost looked at the mirror to ask him why. But that was what he wanted.

“Me and Hector went swimming last night. I ain’t seen him since.”

They passed the Polo Lounge off to the right.

“I could use a cold one, but I don’t expect they’re open this early. I get cranky I don’t have my beer in the morning. Maybe the judge’ll have one for me. I know he drinks Beam, I saw it there. You happen to know he keeps beer in the house?”

He was telling her, whether he knew it or not, he had been there. For whatever that was worth.

“I wish you’d talk to me.” They passed beneath the Florida Turnpike and he said, “Man, that road brings back memories. Go left at the next light. Case you forgot how to get there.”

Kathy made the turn before looking at the mirror again. She said, “How’re you going to get back?”

He didn’t answer right away. They were on the road through woods now, thick vegetation on both sides. She kept looking at his face in the mirror, his eyes, his hand fooling with the hat brim. He said, “You’re gonna drive me, aren’t you?”

Because he couldn’t say he was going to kill her. She felt it looking at him. But he would have to. He wasn’t going to leave a witness. Anyone who was there… She knew this from the beginning, from the moment he told her where they were going, but there was nothing she could do about it until maybe now, getting close to the house and thinking, He’s going to kill you. Concentrating on that fact alone. He’s going to kill both of you. She stared at the road again, empty, the way it was the other day, and thought, He’s going to kill all three of you.